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John Rogers, the U.S. director for the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, will give a talk titled "Sri Lanka's Ghosts of War" on Thursday, October 25, at 7:30 p.m. in the Batza Room of Goucher College's Athenaeum.This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Goucher College Box Office at 410-337-6333 or box.office@goucher.edu.Rogers will discuss the origins and course of the conflict in Sri Lanka and the quality of the current peace following a 26-year insurgency and military campaign.Beginning in July 1983, the separatist militant organization the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers) fought against the government to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the island. The Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end. Questions still remain, however, about prospects for reconciliation between the government and the militants.Rogers first visited Sri Lanka in 1981 for his doctoral research at the University of London and has published extensively on the island's social history and its issues of identity and conflict.  Before taking up his present position, he taught at Northeastern University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Tufts University, and he is completing a general history of Sri Lanka for Cambridge University Press.This event is sponsored by the Goucher College Peace Studies Program.Media ContactAngie CochrunMedia Relations Coordinatorangela.cochrun@goucher.edu410-337-6126