Stephen Vincent Kobasa (born February 13, 1948) is a Connecticut teacher, journalist, and Christian political activist. He was "instrumental in reconstituting the state's death penalty abolition movement"Bromage, Andy. Anti-death penalty protesters say execution ‘not an end’ to their fight . New Haven Register, May 14, 2005, retrieved on September 13, 2009 in 2000.
Teaching career The son of a well-known Seymour, Connecticut teacher,Stephen Kobasa's mother, Vincentena Kobasa (1917-2002) taught first grade for 27 years and served on the Seymour Board of Education for 12 years. After her death, the Seymour Public Schools inaugurated the Vincentena Kobasa Excellence in Teaching Award. See also: Bromage, Andy. ‘Dynamic’ Seymour teacher remembered . New Haven Register, November 2, 2002, retrieved on September 13, 2009 Villers, Patricia. Seymour recalls LoPresti teacher . New Haven Register, May 30, 2003, retrieved on September 13, 2009 Kobasa graduated from Seymour High School in 1965, after which he attended Fairfield University.Tuhus, Melinda. The View From/New Haven; 25 Years Later, Antiwar Activists Are Still Involved in Cause. New York Times, April 23, 2000, §14CN, p. 2, retrieved on September 12, 2009,His bachelor's degree is in philosophy: "Kobasa - Ouellette." (September 8, 1969). Meriden (Connecticut) Journal (84), 211, p. 14. He holds master's degrees from Yale Divinity School and the University of Chicago.Belli, Brita. Of Flags and Crosses. Fairfield Weekly, October 20, 2005. Reprinted here ; retrieved on September 13, 2009 Kobasa taught English at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in New Britain, Connecticut, during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999 he began teaching English at Kolbe Cathedral High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He gained national attention when, in October 2005, he was fired from Kolbe for refusing to display the American flag, the presentation of which he viewed as a "contradiction" to the symbol of the Christian crucifix.Rothschild, Matthew. Catholic High School Teacher Forced Out over Flag. Progressive, October 18, 2005, retrieved on May 31, 2007 When his dismissal was reported in the Boston Globe and other major newspapers, his cause was taken up by a number of political and religious publications. To theologian William T. Cavanaugh, Kobasa's action was a protest against "idolatry." Cavanaugh went on to write:
One final irony of Stephen Kobasa's firing is that it took place at a Catholic school named after St. Maximilian Kolbe. Kolbe was a Franciscan priest who gave himself up to be starved to death at Auschwitz in place of a man who begged to be spared for the sake of his children. Saints like Kolbe keep us alert to the imperative to put loyalty to God over loyalty to the state.Cavanaugh, William T. Pledging Allegiance: A Theological Reflection on the Kobasa Case. Catholic Peace Fellowship, vol. 5.1 (Spring 2006), retrieved on 31 May 2007.
Kobasa appealed unsuccessfully to Church authorities, including William E. Lori, the Bishop of the Bridgeport Diocese, but has ruled out filing a civil lawsuit. On February 14, 2006, he successfully testified before the Connecticut State Senate's Labor and Public Employees Committee, supporting a law which would require employers to notify their employees that they are not eligible for unemployment benefits.report on SB-19 - Labor and Public Employees Committee of the Connecticut State Senate , March 14, 2006, retrieved on May 31, 2007 The bill was signed into law on April 21, 2006 by Governor Jodi Rell.
Writing career From 2006 to 2009 he was a writer for the New Haven Advocate.i.e. he was referred to as such in from Gaza: New Haven Catholic Worker Stopped at Border.” (May 11, 2009). New Haven Advocate In that capacity he was awarded first prize in Arts and Entertainment writing in a regional, non-daily newspaper by the Society of Professional Journalists."Courant series, Journal Inquirer editor top SPJ awards." The Day, May 24, 2007, retrieved on May 31, 2007 In March 2009 he began a series of "object lessons", brief reflections on art around New Haven, for the New Haven Independent.New Haven Independent The sixty-fourth and final lesson was published in July 2010.Kobasa, Stephen V. (July 1, 2010). A Final Object Lesson. New Haven Independent. Since then, he has published over 40 additional articles in the Independent, primarily in two series: "Look Here: New Work By Nearby Artists" and "Eye Show," a 10-part "virtual exhibition" which appeared from February 2012 to February 2013.
Kobasa contributed fifteen articles and art reviews to the Boston-based online art journal Big Red & Shiny. Although he is no longer listed as a regular contributor,Big Red & Shiny Contributors he has written two additional pieces for the journal since it reappeared in 2012. He has also been a contributing writer for Artes Magazine since its inception in 2009.Phillip Pearlstein Paintings on Exhibit at Lyme Academy College of Art: Clearing the Air: Not Abstraction, but Loss , Kobasa, Stephen (November 20, 2009). Artes Magazine
Some of Kobasa's Essays "Allegiance to Conscience." The Catholic Worker (2006).Article not available online; see this link. “Can art change the world?” Yale University Art Gallery (2007) “A Lesson for Martha Stewart—And for Us All” Peacework (2004) “More Lies from a Machine: Revisiting the Enola Gay” The Nuclear Resister (2004) Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum with Caravaggio and His Legacy; Portrait of an Executioner: On Painting Stories. Artes Magazine (2013)
Activism Kobasa, whose "seemingly average existence has been punctuated by a dozen arrests and short stints in jail,"Tuhus, New York Times. has participated in a range of nonviolent antiwar and human-rights protests since the late 1960s.Launching at Electric Boat. Associated Press, October 13, 1988, retrieved on September 13, 2009 These demonstrations—and Kobasa's philosophy—are consistent with postmodern Catholic peace traditions, especially liberation theology and peaceful resistance; he became a conscientious objector in 1967. In his hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, he is regarded a "regular at anti-war actions around town,"A Lonely Vigil. Tuhus, Melinda. New Haven Independent, May 29, 2007, retrieved on May 31, 2007 appearing regularly at rallies there.
Since the late 1960s he has been active in antiwar demonstrations and resistance,Tuhus. focusing increasingly on antinuclear protests. He acted as "spokesman" for a group of "disarmament activists"Hileman, Maria, and Carol Brown. (September 5, 1989). "Protesters Hammer on Sub at NUSC." The (New London, CT) Day, p. B3 active throughout the 1980s in Connecticut. While most of the attention generated by the protests appears to have remained in Connecticut, in some cases Kobasa's statements found a larger audience.He was quoted in a November 13, 1988 Associated Press article "Nuclear Sub Launched." Gadsden (Alabama) Times, 122(134), p. A9.; "Shipyard launches Sub Miami." The Sunday Post/Courier (Charleston, SC), 16(32), p. 3-A. The protests were consistently nonviolent, but varied in terms of their degree of activism; in some cases the group would seek to be arrestede.g., Golembeski, Dean. (November 13, 1988). "Nuclear Sub Launched in Groton." Meriden (Connecticut) Record-Journal, 121(317, p. B2 He was arrested in 1987 for a protest at Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, ConnecticutHierta, Ebba. (May 21, 1988). "Three Demonstrators Found Guilty." The (New London, CT) Day, 109(66), pp. A1, A7 and in 1995 was convicted of vandalizing the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC."3 Guilty in Enola Gay Vandalism." (August 3, 1995). Washington Post, p. B4
In responding to the September 11 attacks, Kobasa imagines ground zero, "for all its horror," as a "miniature of destruction, a fragment of the apocalypse" that would be caused by "the use of a single 475 kiloton warhead."A Model for The Horror: Reflections on September 11 & Trident". The Nuclear Resister, 125/126 (December 2001). Kobasa, Stephen (October 18, 2001)
Among his recent activities, Kobasa was the "main facilitator" of an Iraq war memorial established in late 2007 in New Haven's Broadway Triangle,Elm City to unveil Iraq war memorial: Design of Red River stones to highlight conflict’s costs . Yu, Lea, Yale Daily News, November 8, 2007, retrieved on September 12, 2009. The monument was later vandalized . and was a speaker at a 2009 demonstration protesting racial profiling in East Haven, Connecticut organized by Unidad Latina En Acción.Marchers protest police treatment: Peaceful event turns ugly as fight breaks out. O'Leary, Mary E., New Haven Register, August 17, 2009, retrieved on September 13, 2009,Supremacists Clash. MacMillan, Thomas, New Haven Independent, August 15, 2009, retrieved on September 13, 2009 Much of Kobasa's work as an art critic and curator overlaps with his activism. He arranged for an early 2012 installation at the West Cove Studio Collective in West Haven commemorating the workers who died in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City.Crewel Linen: Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire . Kobasa, Stephen. (December 29, 2011). PAR-NewHaven.org
Personal Kobasa married Suzanne (or Suzan) C. Ouellette (born ca. 1948) in Meridien, on September 6, 1969. He married Anne E. Somsel (born February 13, 1948) in New Haven on July 12, 1986.Family Search
References
External links The New Haven Advocate Kolbe Cathedral High School The New Haven Independent's Heroes of 2005” Kobasa and conscience: contains Kobasa's statement about his termination from Kolbe Cathedral High School, as well as related media reports and letters. portrait of Kobasa painted by Nathan Lewis Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community, a 2012 Vanderbilt University Press volume edited by Rosalie G. Riefle, provides some contexct for the movement of which Kobasa is a part, and contains some references to and quotes from Kobasa. Suzanne C. Ouellette, painter and professor emeritus at the City University of New York, whom Kobasa married in 1969.