An interdisciplinary introduction to the study of conflict, justice, and peace. The course engages students in developing an analytical and theoretical framework for examining the dynamics of conflict, violence, and injustice and the strategies that have been employed to attain peace and justice, including balance of power, cooperation, diplomacy and conflict resolution, law, human rights, social movements, social justice (economic, environmental, and race/class/gender), interpersonal communication, and religiously inspired social transformation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors.
Instructor: Confortini, Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Discussion based seminar deals with Japan both as a victim and as a victimizer during and in the aftermath of the World War II. It probes what drove Japan to aspire toward world domination; how the "ultimate bomb to end all wars" was used twice on Japan in August 1945; and how the Japanese "war criminals" are enshrined today at Yasukuni as "divine beings"; and how Yasukuni Shinto Shrine remains a major barrier in establishing peace between Japan and its Asian neighbors. The seminar is intended for students interested in the comparative and historical study of religion, Peace and Justice Studies, and East Asian Studies. Requirements: active participation in discussion, joint paper writing and presentation; no exams.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 119Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How can a candidate in a political race win the majority of votes yet lose the election? How can two competing candidates interpret the same statistic as being in their favor? How can the geometry of the voting district disenfranchise entire groups of voters? Can we quantify the power the President of the United States has? In this course, we will look at the mathematics behind these and related questions that arise in politics. We will study topics such as fairness, voting paradoxes, social choice, game theory, apportionment, gerrymandering, and data interpretation. The goal of the class will be to illustrate the importance of rigorous reasoning in various social and political processes while providing an introduction to some fascinating mathematics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 123,MATH 123
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Volic
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences are indispensable to understanding the climate crisis. Drawing on perspectives from across the liberal arts, the course instructors will plumb the depths of the climate crisis and imagine the possible ways of responding to it. What can the role of climate in human history reveal about our uncertain future? How do social constructions, including race and gender, shape our understanding of this problem? How have diverse cultures of the world related to nature and climate and how can our own relationships to nature and climate inform our responses? Can the arts help us to reconceive the crisis? How can the sciences help us assess and adapt to our future climate? Can we leverage psychological processes to change individual attitudes toward the environment? By examining such questions, we aim for deeper knowledge, both of the climate crisis and of the power of liberal arts education.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 80
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 125H
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Banzaert, Brabander, Kulik-Johnson, Morari, Shukla-Bhatt, Turner
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
What is the carceral state? What do girls, women, and transgender individuals’ experiences of policing and punishment in 21st century America reveal about its shifting dimensions? Despite public concerns about mass incarceration in the United States and calls for criminal justice reform, mainstream commentators rarely account for the gendered, racialized, and class dimensions of punishment, nor address the growing ranks of girls, women, poor and gender nonconforming individuals that experience carceral control and oversight. Interdisciplinary in scope, this course critically examines how race, gender, sexuality and class intersect and shape people’s experience with systems of punishment and control. It further explores the economic, social, and political factors that have influenced the development of the contemporary American carceral state and scholarly, activist, and artistic responses to it.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 20 1
Prerequisites: One WGST course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Melchor Hall
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides the student with an in-depth study of conflict and its resolution. We will explore the basic theoretical concepts of the field and apply this knowledge as we learn and practice skills for analyzing and resolving conflicts. The course seeks to answer the following questions at both the theoretical level and the level of engaged action: What are the causes and consequences of conflict? How do we come to know and understand conflict? How do our assumptions about conflict affect our strategies for management, resolution, or transformation? What methods are available for waging and resolving conflicts productively rather than destructively?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this course we explore the gendered dimensions of war and peace, including how gender as a symbolic construct configures how we makes sense of war making and peacebuilding; how differently gendered people experience war and peace; and how peace and war are co-constitutive with gender relations. We pay particular attention to the “continuum of violence”, from the “private” to the “public” sphere, from militarization of everyday living to overt violent conflict. We address issues such as the political economy of war, sexualized violence, the militarization of gendered bodies, and gendered political activism. Finally, we reflect on the implications of gendered wars for the building of peace, looking at the gendered aspects of “post-conflict” peacebuilding and gendered forms of resistance to political violence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3236
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is an introductory course for students interested in using qualitative methods in their research and studies. By qualitative methods, I mean methods that involve small numbers of intensive observations, and that do not rely on statistical tests for drawing causal inference. The course is designed to help students develop proficiency in the use of qualitative methods in two respects. The first is to understand and be able to articulate assumptions about empirical reality and arguments about knowledge production. Next, the course will address practical considerations by helping students develop basic knowledge of principal techniques used by qualitative researchers like: navigating the IRB process and ethics of research, conducting in depth interviews, engaging in participant observation, and tracing archival and historical research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2220
Prerequisites: One other course that satisfies the Social/Behavioral Analysis requirement.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Does education in the United States encourage social mobility or help to reproduce the socioeconomic hierarchy? What is the hidden curriculum—the ideas, values, and skills that students learn at school that are not in the textbook? Who determines what gets taught in school? How do schools in the US compare to school systems in other countries? What makes school reform so hard to do?
Questions like these drive this course. It offers students an introduction to the sociology of education by broadly exploring the role of education in American society. The course covers key sociological perspectives on education, including conflict theory, functionalism, and human and cultural capital. Other topics include schools and communities; the role of teachers, students, parents, mentors, and peers in educational inequalities (including tracking and measures of achievement), school violence, school reform, and knowledge production. We also look comparatively at education systems across the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 20 7,EDUC 20 7
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Considered since the Renaissance as a homoerotic haven, Italy was for a long time the favorite destination of many gay writers in flight from the rigid sexual mores of their home countries. In Italy’s warmer Mediterranean climate, rich and sensuous figurative arts, and ancient costumes, they found a culture that seemed more at ease with a nuanced idea of human sexuality. After all, Italy is the country that gave birth to famous artists who became icons of LGBTQ+ culture, such as the painter Caravaggio and the poet Pasolini, and that, unlike other Western nations, never had laws criminalizing homoeroticism. Today, paradoxically, Italy is the Western European country which is most lagging behind in passing legislation in support of LGBTQ+ rights. From the lack of a full legal recognition of gay marriage and adoption rights to the failure to approve a hate-crime bill for the protection of LGBTQ+ individuals, Italian society still shows great reluctance to grant full equal rights to LGBTQ Italians. With these historical contradictions in the background, this course will retrace the steps of the rich, complex, and often tortuous path of LGBTQ+ culture in Italy from the early representations of sodomy, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in works by Dante and Poliziano, to the shaping of a political and social discourse around homosexuality in literary texts by twentieth century writers, such as Saba, Bassani, Ginzburg, and Morante, to the emergence of a political debate on current LGBTQ+ issues, such as AIDS, homophobia, transgender and transexual rights, in works by contemporary artists, such as Tondelli, Bazzi, and Lavagna.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 210
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course students will engage with a spectrum of historic and contemporary school reform efforts across different contexts in the United States. Making use of a diverse array of texts from articles to podcasts and videos, students will struggle with both the promise of education as a tool for remedying race- and class-based inequalities and the stubborn reality that too often schools reflect and reproduce injustice. The structure of the course session and activities prompts students to learn about and experience alternative educational possibilities. Working in groups, pairs, and as individuals, students will explore scholarship and cases in educational anthropology, sociology, history, and critical theory, while questioning the purposes, processes, and products of schooling. Central to the course is the community students create with the instructor for mutual learning support and debate. All members of the course are engaged in a learning stance that centers a discipline of hope and engages with the proposition that communities can organize their own struggle to define and demand a humanizing and liberatory education. Students also have multiple opportunities to explore their own educational experiences and design their own research or educational initiatives to act on their learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 215
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martinez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
How do Arab-Islamic history and culture shape politics in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa? Why is the Arab world-despite its tremendous oil-wealth-still characterized by economic underdevelopment and acute gaps between rich and poor? How have the events of September 11 and the U.S.-led "war on terror" affected the prospects for greater freedom and prosperity in the Middle East in the future? What do the 2011 revolts mean for the existing regimes and prospects for democracy? These are some of the questions we will examine in this course. In readings, lectures, and class discussions, the analysis of general themes and trends will be integrated with case studies of individual Arab states.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 217
Prerequisites: One unit in Political Science.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the distribution of social resources to groups and individuals, as well as theoretical explanations of how unequal patterns of distribution are produced, maintained, and challenged. Special consideration will be given to how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect with social class to produce different life experiences for people in various groups in the United States, with particular emphasis on disparities in education, health care, and criminal justice. Consideration will also be given to policy initiatives designed to reduce social inequalities and alleviate poverty.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 219
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The course will examine epidemics and pandemics and how they shape society and culture. It will explore catastrophic disease events such as the 4th century BC Ancient Greek plague, the Black Death of Medieval Europe, the European infectious diseases that killed native populations of the Americas, the Spanish flu of 1918, the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the late 20th century, and the present-day coronavirus pandemic. Key questions that will guide the course are: 1. Who holds the bio-political power to guide the population through the danger of widespread morbidity, and how is this power used and/or abused? 2. What kind of socioeconomic, gender, ethnic ,and racial disparities are perpetuated and constructed in times of disease? 3. How do individual political entities cooperate and coordinate in their efforts to curtail disease? 4. How is the rhetoric of “war” employed to describe epidemic and pandemic diseases? 5. What are the effects of actual war, violence, and genocide that often follow epidemics? 6. What are the uses and the limitations of international public health organizations in addressing pandemics?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 220
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This interdisciplinary course investigates the role of international organizations, governments, nongovernmental organizations, the media, advocacy groups, and individuals, to consider how and under what circumstances the international community comes together to address transnational health issues. Questions we will address include: What role should different actors play? What should be the ethical bases for promoting health? To what extent do global actors’ interventions promote health equity? Focusing on a set of health challenges that have particular impact upon the poor (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, TB, maternal mortality, mental health, and NCDs), we will disentangle the relationships between health, politics, ethics, and the international community, and consider some of the fundamental difficulties in health governance, including expanding health coverage, governing global health, and setting global health priorities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3232
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Should you sell your house at an auction where the highest bidder gets the house, but only pays the second-highest bid? Should the U.S. government institute a policy of never negotiating with terrorists? The effects of decisions in such situations often depend on how others react to them. This course introduces some basic concepts and insights from the theory of games that can be used to understand any situation in which strategic decisions are made. The course will emphasize applications rather than formal theory. Extensive use is made of in-class experiments, examples, and cases drawn from business, economics, politics, movies, and current events.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 21
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 222
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. Open to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.
Instructor: Skeath
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Is the digital dream darkening? This course examines social justice movements and digital technologies in the age of surveillance capitalism. We will focus on the early promises and contemporary perils of the digital age by examining social movements and struggles for social justice around the world. Are inequalities based on race, ethnicity, gender, and class being exacerbated by digital technologies? Could new technologies create opportunities for advancing social justice?
We will first analyze the early cyber manifestos and imagined techno futures with the advent of the digital world. The second part of the course will focus on contemporary surveillance pressures on individuals and social movements by governments and private corporations with examples from around the world. We will also discuss cyber crimes. The final part of this course will discuss the possibilities and methods of building alternative futures of social justice by employing digital technologies. Our topics will include border surveillance, digital colonialism, platform-based labor, algorithmic biases, data justice, pharmaceutical patents, copyright restrictions, pirate parties, and green technologies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
South Africa’s new constitution and dynamic forms of social activism and cultural expression represent powerful forces for democracy and equality. However, the legacy of Apartheid and the constraints on the transition to majority rule in 1991-1994 still negatively affect people’s living conditions along the lines of race, class, and gender. This course traces South Africa’s history from 1652 to the present, with themes including: the establishment of colonial rule; the destruction of pre-colonial polities; slavery and emancipation; White nationalism and the establishment of Apartheid; African nationalist movements and other forms of resistance; the fraught transition to majority rule, including the Truth and Reconciliation process; South Africa’s dynamic popular and public culture, and ongoing efforts to counter poverty, public corruption, HIV-AIDS, gender-based violence, and “xenophobia”.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 224
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
PEAC/SAS 225 is a combined fall/Wintersession course, focusing on Mohandas Gandhi as a figure of global significance, and also one deeply rooted in Indian history and cultures. During the fall at Wellesley, students will study the sprawling and diverse cultural/political history of India; the many cultural and religious currents that influenced Gandhi's thought; his model of nonviolent action (Satyagraha); various models of contemporary grassroots organizing in India; and the art/skills of travel journaling. Then, during the winter, students will travel to Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Coimbatore, residing and studying for then days at FLAME University in Pune. The remaining ten days will be divided between Chennai and Coimbatore, where we will partner with Praxis- Institute for Participatory Practices- an organization working on social justice issues with a commitment to equity and participatory governance for poor and marginalized sectors of society. Students will keep an extensive travel journal during their time in India. This course will meet every other week. First day of the course will be Friday, September 14th.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 225
Prerequisites: PEAC 104
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt, Confortini
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will introduce students to core readings in the field of urban studies. While the course will focus on cities in the United States, we will also look comparatively at the urban experience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and cover debates on “global cities.” Topics will include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We will examine the key theoretical paradigms driving this field since its inception, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these shifts for urban scholarship and social policy. The course will include fieldwork in Boston and presentations by city government practitioners.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 227,AMST 225
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course serves as an introduction to urban anthropology. It is organized around four particular places on the cityscape that stand as symbolic markers for larger anthropological questions we will examine throughout the course: the market stall, the gated community, the barricade, and the levee. We will explore the rise of global cities, including the role of labor migration, squatter settlements, and institutions of global capitalism, and interrogate the aesthetic practices that inscribe social exclusion onto the urban built environment. We will approach the city as contested space, a stage on which social, economic, and political struggles are waged. And, we will ask how those experiences shape our understanding of contemporary forms of social, political, and economic inequality, and how people “made do” and make claims to their right to the city.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 231
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the development of antislavery thought in French literature from the end of the eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth century. We will analyze the imagery, narratives and presuppositions on which authors relied and in turn reproduced to express antislavery sentiment. We will pay attention to how the Haitian Revolution; French abolition of the slave trade and other models of abolition shaped a culture of moral repugnance at France’s ongoing economic dependence on the practice of chattel slavery. Referring to this context, we will consider the particular voice of antislavery literature in producing abolitionist arguments. On what grounds did French authors understand and denounce colonial slavery? How did antislavery texts participate in a movement towards abolition? How did authors depict enslaved individuals and how did these texts contribute to nineteenth-century discourses on gender and race in France? These questions will lead students to confront the ambiguous and complicitous intersections between abolition, antislavery literature, imperial expansion and racism prior to the definitive abolition of slavery in 1848 and the establishment of France’s Second Empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 235
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A quarter century ago the Institute of Medicine defined the work of public health as "what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy." Historically rooted in a commitment to social justice, U.S. public health is now renewing this commitment through 1) an epidemiological shift to examine the social, economic, and political inequities that create disparate health and disease patterns by gender, class, race, sexual identity, citizenship, etc., and 2) a corresponding health equity movement in public health practice. This broad-ranging course examines the debates shaping the above as well as the moral and legal groundings of public health, basic epidemiology, and the roles of public and private actors. Highlighted health topics vary year to year.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 240
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Harrison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the development of the Black Church and the complexities of black religious life in the United States. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this course explores the religious life of African Americans from twin perspectives: 1) historical, theological dimensions, and 2) the cultural expression, particularly music and art. Special emphasis will be placed on gospel music, Womanist and Black Liberation theologies as forms of political action and responses to interpretations of race in the context of American religious pluralism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 243
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
One of democracy’s greatest strengths is that it gives political power to the people. But what happens when “the people” is a diverse group with identities, interests, and desires that pull in many directions? Does democracy function best when everyone is treated the same? As if there are no differences among them? But what if some people are marginalized, subordinated, or stigmatized? Could pretending these stratifications don't exist actually weaken democracy? This course explores how democracy grapples with differences through texts in contemporary Western political theory. We will begin with liberal theories of democracy. Then we will study feminist, critical-race, queer, and other theorists to understand democracy from the perspectives of marginalized, subordinated, or stigmatized groups. We will not search for definitive answers or hard-and-fast conclusions about when democracy functions best. Rather, we are interested in getting a better sense of democracy’s many dimensions and tensions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 244
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
This course explores the role of written and cinematic narratives along with photography in response to traumatic historic events, focusing on select regions of Africa and on African Diaspora societies in the U.S. and Caribbean. We’ll explore the roles of (and relationships between) narrator, witness, audience and victim, both historically and in light of new social media, and discuss how these relationships give rise to particular representations of perpetrators, victims and saviors. Topics to be considered in relation to such narratives might include: colonization, genocide, apartheid, the continuing impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and systemic racism on African-American and Caribbean societies. Works might include Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart or No Longer at Ease; Chimamanda Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; short fiction of the Apartheid Era; short fiction/essays by James Baldwin; Films: Fruitvale Station, 13th, Kinyarwanda, Lumumba. Students will be introduced to postcolonial literary theory and trauma narrative theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 259
Prerequisites: Not open to student who have taken ENG 388/PEAC 388.
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the American Civil War, one of the central conflicts in US history, by placing it within the broader context of the making of the modern world. The course will explore the roots, consequences, and experiences of the war—the long history of slavery and emancipation, territorial expansion and industrialization, and the everyday experience of modern warfare. The class will do so by considering those events through the lens of global history. We scrutinize the political upheavals around the world that gave broader meaning to the Civil War; the emergence of modern weaponry and tactics and their consequences; and the development of the nation-state and colonialism, which resulted in new forms of governance and coercion that emerged in the wake of emancipation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 261
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
As author Viet Thanh Nguyen notes, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” The ways armed conflicts are represented play a determining factor not only our collective memory of them, but also in the way we conduct ourselves. This course will explore a range of approaches to representing war in the twentieth century. Among the questions we will ask are: When does war begin, and when does it end? At what distance do we sense war, and at what scale does it become legible? What are the stakes of writing, filming, or recording war, or for that matter, studying its representations? We will address these issues through units on violence, trauma, apocalypse, mourning, repair, visuality, and speed. Texts will include novels, short stories, Supreme Court cases, poetry, graphic novels, films, journalism, and theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 277
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rich
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines the experiences and cultures of Afro-Latinas/os, people of both African and Latin American descent, in the United States. We will consider how blackness intersects with Latina/o identity, using social movements, politics, popular culture, and literature as the bases of our analysis. This course addresses these questions transnationally, taking into account not only racial dynamics within the United States, but also the influence of dominant Latin American understandings of race and national identity. We will consider the social constructions of blackness and Latinidad; the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the Latina/o community; immigration and racial politics; representations of Afro-Latinas/os in film, music, and literature; and African American-Latino relations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 290
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A wide-ranging study of nonviolent direct action, in theory and in practice, as a technique and as a way of life. It begins with discussion of some classic and modern theories of nonviolent direct action but also some modern critiques of it. It then turns to a selection of classic case studies, among them labor movements, women's rights movements, India and Gandhi, the American Civil Rights Movement, campaigns in Europe and Latin America against authoritarian regimes. It then expands its range, looking at how nonviolent direct action has been deployed in campaigns of environmental justice and economic justice, and making space to consider whatever campaigns of nonviolent direct action are going on at the moment at which the course is being taught (e.g., in the United States today the work of Black Lives Matter).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 230 1
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores the intersections between social justice, conflict, and engineering using an interdisciplinary, hands-on, case study approach. We will explore four technologies (drones, cell phones, cookstoves and water pumps), exploring in each case both the embodied engineering concepts and the ethical and political implications of using the technology. The case studies will inform our discussions of the following big ideas: technology is directly linked to social justice and can have both highly beneficial and? highly problematic results for the development and transformation of conflicts; understanding technology at a deeper level is critical to understanding the justice impact on communities and people; media communication about technology and technological innovations' benefits can be hyperbolic and requires a critical lens. Peace and Justice Studies majors must register for PEAC 305. Students in other majors may register for either PEAC 305 or ENGR 305 depending on their preparation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ENGR 30 5
Prerequisites: For PEAC 305 - PEAC 104 and PEAC 204, or permission of the instructor (Confortini). For ENGR 305 - one ENGR course, or a comparable course at another institution, or permission of the instructor (Banzaert).
Instructor: Confortini, Banzaert
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
Cultural and intellectual life is still dominated by the West. Although we recognize the importance of globalizing scholarship, our research and teaching still prioritizes western canons and frameworks. Cultural and intellectual inequality are part and parcel of socioeconomic inequality. If we don’t do better at one, we will not do better at the other. We need to master a broader range of methods, tools, and ways of knowing. In this class, Wellesley College students work with students and faculty from Latin America, Asia, and Africa to explore what it means to produce, disseminate, teach about, and act upon knowledge more equitably in different parts of the world. Our goals are to (1) learn to read power in physical, intellectual, virtual, and cultural spaces by witnessing, evaluating, and then acting, (2) gain exposure to ways of asking and answering questions outside the West, (3) reread classical theories in context to explore how we can reinterpret their usefulness and meaning, (4) understand and develop new engaged and critical pedagogies and forms of education, and (5) promote a decentered attitude, that charts more equitable and inclusive forms of intellectual engagement and collaboration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 312,EDUC 321
Prerequisites: At least two 200-level or above courses in the social sciences including Peace and Justice Studies.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Human rights are an important issue in countries around the world and in international politics. But what are human rights? Is there a universal definition, or do human rights vary across time and space? Who decides when human rights are violated? When is outside action to stop such violations justified? These questions aren’t just philosophical; they’re deeply political. How political communities answer them shapes domestic and international policies on issues such as state violence, humanitarian aid, citizenship and migration, (neo)colonialism, global capital, and efforts of various kinds to promote human freedom. This course will use texts in contemporary political theory and historical and contemporary case studies to explore the intuitively important, yet vaguely understood, concept of human rights. Case studies will examine human rights in the United States (for example, interrogation torture policy, Black Lives Matter, or sanctuary cities) and the international context (for example, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, or the 2003 invasion of Iraq).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 318
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Is religion inherently violent, or do external forces like political factionalism and ethnic hostility exploit it to gain power? This course explores these and other questions to theorize the sources and manifestations of religious violence. Topics include the role of violence in sacred texts and traditions, intra- and interreligious conflicts, religion and nationalism, and religious violence in today's global society. Historical and contemporary examples selected from world religious traditions and global geography, with particular attention to the role of religion in the rise of violent American survivalist, paramilitary, and internet movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 330
Prerequisites: One of the following - HIST 205, REL 200, REL 230, PEAC 104, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 319.
A vital peaceful society depends on the active participation of its people. What does it take for people to engage productively as informed, skilled, and effective members in communities across the world? Whether we are scientists, doctors, engineers, advocates, public servants, or anything else, we are all members of pluralistic communities. Who is able and motivated to engage (much less lead), however, is often limited- leading to significant challenges for the practice of a just and peaceful society. Moreover, translating the people’s engagement into power is a strategic dilemma. This class seeks to overcome some of the limits to participation by combining theory and practice in a reflection of students’ experiential learning. First, the class examines theories of civic engagement, community organizing, monitoring and evaluation, service, and humanitarianism using real world cases and data. Next, the class examines practical hurdles and opportunities for the effective translation of participation into power and action. Then the class provides a framework, using Patti Clayton’s DEAL matrix, for a critical reflection and assessment of student’s real-world engagement. Finally, the class concludes with an exportable blueprint for making a more just and peaceful society. This class is the Senior Capstone course for all P&J majors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 and PEAC 204.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: The experiential learning position may be completed prior to or in tandem with enrollment in the course. The experiential position should be discussed with the student’s P&J major or minor advisor and may include Wintersession programs, summer or yearlong internships, course-related experiential education programs, or community service projects. This class is the senior capstone class for all Peace and Justice Studies majors and minors.
This course explores the complex relationship between literature and law, focusing on how each represents and responds to violence and its aftermath, especially in terms of memory and repair. Our goal will not be to judge the efficacy of literary and legal projects, but rather to study how they imagine and enact issues of testimony, commemoration, apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We will seek to understand how different forms of life correspond to the various legal theories and codes we’ll encounter, and how literature challenges or corroborates these specifically legal subjects, life worlds, and behaviors. We will also ask whether there are cases in which literature intervenes in jurisprudence, imagining or demanding its own model of law. The class will explore these issues in relation to existing twentieth-century juridical paradigms such as postwar military trials, human rights, reparations, and reconciliation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 334
Prerequisites: At least one literature course in any department or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Rich
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar considers the difficult paradox of the Bible as both a tool for colonization and decolonization. We will frame this problem in three parts. First, we will engage post-colonial theory to interrogate the biblical text as a record of interaction with the various empires of the ancient Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean. Second, we will interrogate the Bible as a tool of empire and the European and colonial agenda, with a focus primarily on British, French, and Spanish despoliation of Africa, the Middle East, and Central America. Finally, we will explore the Bible as a tool for decolonization by engaging biblical interpretation by marginalized groups (womanist, mujerista, indigenous, and queer approaches). Our goal is to investigate the role of the Bible as a source of both harm and healing in the history of the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 346
Prerequisites: A course in a relevant subject area such as religion, history, Peace and Justice studies, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
This course explores the interplay between technology, global governance, and global economy from the last quarter of the twentieth century to the present day. The course focuses on the rise of digital economy and its repercussions using a critical lens and analyzes various theories of knowledge economy and information society. We will examine the relationships between information and communication technologies, restructuration of the global economy and transformation of related international regimes. Our topics will include globalization of intellectual property rights, innovation, technology transfer, piracy, censorship, governance of cyber space, uses and misuses of surveillance technologies, entrepreneurial state, digital commons, global digital divide, and global value chains. We will analyze case studies such as pharmaceutical access during public health emergencies, cryptocurrencies, and technology and climate change mitigation. ?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 357
Prerequisites: POLS3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bedirhanoglu
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides an in-depth exploration of the Palestinian Israeli conflict from a comparative and social justice perspective. Our goal is to provide an analysis of events to engage in constructive academic debates. The class begins by contextualizing the study of the Middle East within the broader scope of comparative politics and Peace and Justice studies. Next, we focus on the origins of the conflict: the debate about 1948, the consolidation of the Israeli state, and the development of Palestinian and Israeli political and military organizations. The course then delves into different dimensions of the conflict: regional geopolitics, international relations, environmental debates, gender activism, terrorism, and the “Wall.” The last portion of the class considers peace negotiations, conflict mediation, compromise, and solutions: the refugee question, Jerusalem, TRCs, and the role of the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 358,POL 2359
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or PEAC 217/POL2 217 or PEAC 204 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PEAC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course explores the role of narratives in response to mass trauma, focusing on regions of Africa and African Diaspora societies. Drawing on the emerging fields of trauma narrative, we will examine the effectiveness of oral, written and cinematic narratives in overcoming legacies of suffering and building peace. Topics include: violence in colonial and postcolonial Central Africa, the Biafran war, South Africa during and after Apartheid and Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. We will also explore the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its impact on African-American and Caribbean societies. Types of narrative include novels, memoirs, films, plays, and data from truth and reconciliation commissions. Students will be exposed to trauma narrative not only as text but as a social and political instrument for post-conflict reconstruction.
Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 388
Prerequisites: At least one literature course in any department or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson (English)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Truth Commissions (TCs) have been a mechanism to uncover, document, and recognize human rights violations and to honor victims at moments of transition from dictatorships to democracies, and from wars to post-war contexts. TCs vary in their mandates, composition, and tasks, and have mixed records of success, despite the frequently high expectations. They often stand as acts of reparation, catalysts of larger processes of peacebuilding and dignification of victims. In this course, you will join a group of Notre Dame graduate students to study together the conceptual foundations of TCs and learn from different case studies. We will investigate the background and rationale provided for their creation, their mandate and scope, composition and structure, and analyze their work and post-report reception. We will pay attention to issues such as intersectional approaches of gender and ethnicity, the participation of victims and responsible ones, the complementarity of commissions with other forms of transitional justice, and the management and access to their archives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3392
Prerequisites: PEAC 104, PEAC 204, or permission of the instructor. Open only to juniors and seniors.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The seminar will examine a variety of topics concerning the dynamic between women and conflict including whether a lack of women’s rights leads to conflict, the contributions of women to security, women’s mobilization for conflict, the sex gap in conflict-related public opinion, and women’s rights after war. A variety of methodological approaches, including positivist as well as critical theoretical perspectives, will be covered to better understand the strengths, limitations, and complementarities of different approaches to studying women and conflict. In other words, we will use these different approaches to gain clarity on how we “know what we know” about women and conflict. Students will spend a significant portion of the class contending with issues of measurement, conceptual validity and ruling out alternative explanations. Key historical developments with relevance to women and conflict such as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women’s involvement in the military, and the passing of the Murad Code will also be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 393
Prerequisites: POL3 221. Another POL3 course, or a course in a related field such as history or economics is recommended.
Instructor: Torres
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
How does the international community try to establish and maintain peace? This course explores the ways in which international actors try to establish and maintain peace. It focuses on peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and international intervention more broadly. Throughout the course we will cover topics in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding fields such as what peace is, how conceptions of peace differ at the international versus the local level, by which avenues the international community tries to maintain peace, the conditions under which international peacekeeping and peacebuilding are effective, and the unintended consequences of international action. We will explore militarized and non-militarized international interventions, their development since the conception of peacekeeping and policy critiques against and in favor of international intervention as a means of maintaining peace.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 396
Prerequisites: POL3 221
Instructor: Torres
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: