Marc Gopin

Marc Gopin is the James H. Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution and the Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Marc Gopin has engaged for decades in the practice of conflict resolution, citizen diplomacy, and support for the victims of war. He has pioneered peacebuilding work from Syria and Israel to Iran and Afghanistan, focused on uplifting the voices of religious and secular peacebuilders from all sides of complex violent conflicts. Gopin has trained several thousand students over these decades in conflict healing and peacebuilding where complex cultural, religious and psychosocial elements play a key role. The work has become embodied in undergraduate and graduate intensive CRDC practice courses visiting conflict zones from Israel and Palestine to Turkey, Jordan, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. Multimillion dollar interventions from Iran to Afghanistan, but especially for Syria, have promoted civil society support in multifaith contexts, skills of emotional recovery, conflict healing, moral reasoning and compassion-based practices, especially focused on women’s empowerment. American antiracism work has been focused on support for multiracial relationship building among police chiefs and officers, as well as among citizens in key cities, with a focus on in-depth exploration of best practices of moral reasoning in dangerous situations, compassion, healing and reconciliation.

Marc Gopin’s global practices on theories are documented in the following books with a focus on moral reasoning, compassion research and practice, neuroscience, social network theory, and comparative religion: Compassionate Reasoning: Changing the Mind to Change the World Oxford University Press (OUP) which presents the case for Compassionate Reasoning as a moral and psychosocial skill for the positive transformation of individuals and societies. CR synthesizes classical schools of ethics with compassion neuroscience, public health methodologies, and positive psychological approaches to social change. This is the culmination of prior research including: Compassionate Judaism: The Life and Thought of Samuel David Luzzatto; Healing the Heart of Conflict: Eight Crucial Steps to Making Peace with Yourself and with Others; Bridges Across an Impossible Divide: The Inner Lives of Arab and Jewish Peacemakers; To Make the Earth Whole: Citizen Diplomacy in the Age of Religious Militancy; Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion can Bring Peace to the Middle East; Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence and Peacemaking.

Marc Gopin has advised and lectured on conflict prevention and peacebuilding at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, the U.S. Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Fort Jackson, various other US agencies, institutions in Switzerland, Ireland, India, Syria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and Israel, as well as at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton. He has appeared on media outlets, including CNN, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, Voice of America. He has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, and his work has been featured in news stories of the Times of London, the Times of India, Associated Press, and Newhouse News Service.

Dr. Gopin is the creator and principal author of marcgopin.com, as well as the podcast Making Change.

Honors and Awards

• First Intercultural Innovation Award, World Tourism Organization

Media Appearances

• ICJS Imagining Justice in Baltimore: A Jewish Perspective
  March 27, 2016

In the News

• The Difference Between Protest America 1968 And 2017
  Published on January 23, 2017
  Full article
• Conflict Management Fieldwork in Jordan Yields Surprises, Insights
  Published on September 29, 2016
  Full article
• Cure Police Violence As If It Were a Disease
  Published on July 12, 2016
  Full article
• My Turkish Airport
  Published on June 30, 2016
  Full article
• Religions meet at VST
  Published on June 16, 2016
  Full article

Presentations and Performances

• Frontiers in Peacebuilding lecture series at EMU brings in four experts
  May 9 2016 | Eastern Mennonite University
• Webinar: Forging Alliances for Peace: Insights from a Conflict Resolution Scholar-Practitioner
  May 6 2013 | Arlington Trulan Building
• The Culture of Peace
  Jan 6 2005 | Assad Library in Damascus

Degrees

• PhD, Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
• MA, Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
• BA, European Intellectual History, Columbia College