Jill Strauss, PhD teaches Conflict Resolution and Communications at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Department of Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts (CUNY). Professor Strauss was the 2012-2013 Fulbright Research Chair in North American Society and Culture at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research involves Restorative Justice Practices and the visual interpretation of narrative and difficult histories. She was part of the Historical Dialogue Working Group at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. She is a member of the national organization called Coming to the Table that seeks to heal from the racial wounds of the past—from slavery and the many forms of racism it produced. Currently, she is collaborating with Dionne Ford on the publication of an anthology, Shared Legacies: Narratives of Race and Reconciliation by Descendants of Enslavers and the Enslaved, due to be published in 2019 by Rutgers University Press. Other publications include, ‘Writing the Wrongs of the Past: Descendants of Enslavers and the Enslaved Come to the Table’ in Listening to the Movement: Essays on New Growth in Restorative Justice (Ted Lewis and Carl Stauffer, eds.) and ‘The Art of Acknowledgment: Re-Imagining Relationships in Northern Ireland’ in Reparation for Victims of Crimes against Humanity: The Healing Role of Reparation (Jo-Anne Wemmers ed.).
She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland in 2010, where she designed an innovative fieldwork project integrating storytelling and visual art for empathy and validation as one way to address a history of mutual humiliation and historical conflict. This artwork was exhibited several times in Northern Ireland and in the United States. She also holds a Master of Education in Peace Education and Conflict Resolution from Teachers College, Columbia University.
