Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Director of Undergraduate Studies:
Ernesto Verdeja
Assistant Director:
Anna Van Overberghe
Peace studies at the University of Notre Dame is centered at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Profiles of the peace studies faculty and information about activities in peace studies can be found on the Kroc Institute’s website.
Peace studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that draws on diverse academic disciplines to understand the causes of violent conflict; develop nonviolent ways to prevent and resolve war, genocide, terrorism and gross violations of human rights; and build peaceful and just societies.
As a field of study, peace studies links scholarship to practice and empowers students to become effective agents of social and political change at the global, national, and local levels. It develops critical thinking skills, strengthens research and writing ability, teaches specific strategies in areas such as conflict resolution and social change, and challenges students to develop their knowledge into new ways of thinking and acting in the world. Peace studies provides students with the capacity to imagine and build the global community as it ought to be (rather than simply how it is) through interdisciplinary coursework, faculty mentorship, a variety of research and practice opportunities, and an annual student conference.
The Undergraduate Program in Peace Studies offers a comprehensive, rigorous curriculum that draws from both the humanities and the social sciences. Courses for the major and minor are taught by top research faculty and respected scholar-practitioners who have a variety of expertise in theory, practice, and policy. The faculty instructors represent the many different academic disciplines that contribute to peace studies, including political science, anthropology, history, law, psychology, religious studies, literature, business, media, sociology, philosophy, and theology, among others.
The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies offers their courses under the subject code of: Institute for International Peace Studies (IIPS). Courses associated with their academic programs may be found below. The scheduled classes for a given semester may be found at classearch.nd.edu.
Institute for International Peace Studies (IIPS)
IIPS 20100 Peace Studies Proseminar (1 Credit Hour)
This 1.0 credit course is designed for students pursuing the peace studies supplementary major or interdisciplinary minor who seek more active reflection on the role of peace studies in their academic study, professional discernment, and personal development. The course seeks to (1) familiarize students with professional opportunities and career paths in the field of peace studies; (2) support student engagement in co-curricular opportunities—such as assisting with faculty research, pursuing internships and field work, conducting independent research projects, engaging in advocacy and activism, etc.—that enhance these many professional trajectories; and (3) acquaint students with the diverse faculty of the Kroc Institute and their particular areas of expertise. The course will meet once per week throughout the semester, and registered students are expected to attend every class.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20101 Introduction to Peace Studies (3 Credit Hours)
Armed conflict and state repression continue to occur across the globe, millions of people face overwhelming poverty, and systemic challenges like climate change imperil collective survival. Nevertheless, we have also witnessed the emergence of sophisticated civil society networks and social movements to address these challenges, as well as governmental and transnational institutions committed to promoting justice and peace at the local, national, regional and global levels. This course introduces students to the various ways scholars and activists define peace and the challenges faced in securing peace. It surveys: (1) the major causes of direct and structural violence; (2) various definitions of "peace" and the conditions under which it occurs and is sustained; and (3) the comparative success of various strategies such as building peace movements and promoting nonviolent social change
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKIN - Core Integration
IIPS 20501 International Relations (3 Credit Hours)
This course provides an introduction to the study of international relations and will cover several theoretical approaches to and empirical issues in the field of IR. Readings have been selected to highlight both traditional approaches to and more recent developments in world politics. The first half of the course focuses on contending theories of IR, while the second half of the course deals with more substantive issues. Empirical topics and subjects covered include: international security (nuclear weapons, ethnic conflict, and terrorism) - international political economy (trade, international finance, and globalization) - and 20th Century History (WWI, WWII, and the Cold War). In addition, we will examine several contemporary topics in international organization and law, including the environment, nongovernmental organizations, and human rights. We conclude by discussing the future of international relations in the 21st Century.
Corequisites: POLS 22200
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20504 The World in Rome: Pathways of Migration and Citizenship (3 Credit Hours)
How and why do some of the roads taken by migrants (including refugees) lead to Rome and Italy? What are the challenges faced by migrants upon their arrival, and on their path to citizenship? How does civil society intervene to mitigate those challenges, and to facilitate mutual integration and engagement? What are the distinctive features of Roman lay and Catholic approaches to migration? The course addresses such questions, building on contemporary Rome both as a compelling case study and as a gateway to the causes, lived experiences, and consequences of global migrations. Students investigate how the experience of the city is at the same time the experience of globalization, embodied in older and new residents’ everyday life in the built environment; and they appreciate situated social engagement and its potentialities. The course builds on anthropology as a holistic social science, and it attends to migration- related aesthetics (e.g., art, movies) and Catholic Social Teachings that prove extremely salient in Rome. Attention to the realities of the host civil society is fundamental: migrants’ reception and integration happens at the local, neighborhood level and in interaction with residents and larger communities. This indispensable attention to Roman realities, together with scholarly accounts from regions of migrant origin and transit, enables students to ground their knowledge in local, Italian, historical, and Euro-Mediterranean contexts. Thus, the course does not impart a collection of facts about immigrants as insular entities, but provides entry points into some of the patterns accounting for global migrations; the lived experience of international borders; the interplay of sovereignty, democracy, citizenship, colonialism, decolonization, racialization, and human rights; the relationship between Islam, Catholicism, and the gendered public sphere; human smuggling; and the emotional, ethical, and embodied aspects of migration and of civic engagement.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
IIPS 20506 Reconciliation (3 Credit Hours)
Reconciliation is increasingly becoming a popular notion in our time, finding its way into the political rhetoric and public policy of many governments. South Africa and its apparently successful Truth and Reconciliation Commission have captured the imagination of many post conflict societies (including nations like Rwanda, Bosnia, Northern Ireland and communities in the United States as they debate the merits and possibility of similar "reconciliation" efforts in their communities. Interest in reconciliation in the academic world has also increased, with scholarship on the topic and with institutions setting up "reconciliation studies" as a specialization sub field in the growing world of peace studies. It is perhaps not surprising that reconciliation has become a popular buzz world. The end of the cold war did not usher in a new world order of peace that many had hoped for. On the contrary, war, conflict and violence seem to be on the rise in a world marked by growing polarization between religious, ethnic and national identities. In the midst of such a fragmented and broken world, reconciliation is a rallying cry for some hope of healing, conflict resolution and solidarity among peoples. However, even as reconciliation has become popular, its meaning has remained vague, and its theological connections even more unclear. What difference if any does one's Christian faith make in the way one understands or pursues reconciliation? What's the Christian understanding of reconciliation anyway? What is the relation between reconciliation with God, and reconciliation in its social, political and economic dimensions? Why has Catholic discussions on reconciliation so much focused on "the sacrament of reconciliation" and not paid as much attention to the notion of social reconciliation? The course seeks to answer these and similar questions.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20507 Rebellion Against Authority (3 Credit Hours)
The objective of this course is to explore how and why individuals and social groups rebel against authority, particularly in risky situations when rebellion is likely to incur significant personal and collective costs. This course will investigate the conditions that stoke rebellion against immoral and oppressive power structures, shared conditions, and social norms; how we know when authorities are acting immorally or unjustly; why injustice and illegitimacy only fuel rebellion in some cases and induce conformity in others; the various forms that resistance and rebellion can take; and the factors that shape rebellion's varied forms, such as exit, sabotage, protest, withholding, reclamation, violent struggle, and revolution. The empirical topics covered will address a range of rebellion under tyranny, including but not limited to rebellion during slavery in the United States, rebellion against Nazi power and the Holocaust during World War II, and resistance to colonialism and imperialism.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20508 Catholic Social Teaching and Migration (3 Credit Hours)
The movement of peoples in a world of territorially bounded and sovereign nation-states was one of the earliest questions to arise in international thought and has been one of the most perduring. This course puts present questions about the ethics of migration, and the ethics of how receiving countries treat migrants, in historical, theoretical, and doctrinal context. The course begins by analyzing the role of hospitality rights in the claims of Europeans to travel and settle in the new world. It then moves to social analyses of migration patterns, a series of different theological and ethical frameworks for interpreting the contemporary challenge of migration - kinship; solidarity; communitarianism; human rights; justice; and responsibility -and the role of the theological notion of human dignity and a theologically grounded account of human rights in responding to challenge of migration.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
IIPS 20509 Christianity, Violence, and Peace (3 Credit Hours)
In Pope Francis' most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti he writes that there is "a need for peacemakers" who "are prepared to work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter" (#225). This course explores the Christian call to be peacemakers from the Sermon on the Mount to nonviolent activism in the 20th and 21st centuries. A central aim of this course is to consider what unique contributions the Christian tradition makes to our understanding of peace and nonviolence. In our own context, where peacebuilding has become an academic and professional enterprise, we will consider what it means to understand nonviolence as a way of life grounded in faith, spirituality, and growth in virtue. The first section of the course will give a very brief overview of how peace, violence, and nonviolence are discussed in current peace studies literature. The second part of the course will cover a biblical understanding of peace in the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament. We will also consider how Fratelli Tutti engages with scripture, specifically the story of the good Samaritan. The third section of the course will give a brief historical overview of approaches to peace and violence from the early Church to the Reformation. Topics that will be covered in this section include: martyrdom, the rise of just war theory, the concept of a "holy war," and the anabaptist commitment to nonviolence during the radical Reformation. The fourth part of the course will cover the development of Church teaching on just war and peace in the 20th and 21st centuries. Attention will be paid to contemporary issues such as nuclear weapons, the death penalty, and whether it is possible to have a just war today. The fifth section focuses on contemporary peacebuilding exemplars. Exemplars and communities that will be considered include: Franz Jaggerstatter, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, MLK and the Civil Rights Movement, Jean Zaru and the nonviolent activism of Palestinian Christians, Maggy Barankitse's work for peace in Burundi, and Christian Peacemaker Teams. In the final section of the course we will consider how peace intersects with other justice issues. In this regard, this course will focus on how Christian ecological ethics intersects with nonviolence and peacemaking. At the conclusion of this course students will be invited to answer the following question for themselves: In light of what we have studied together as a class, in our own context, what does it mean to follow Pope Francis' call to "work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter"? (#225).
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20510 Crime and Politics (3 Credit Hours)
Criminal groups and the state are often seen as antagonists: Politicians and bureaucracies aim to preserve public order and, in doing so, fight criminal groups who undermine it in their search for profit. However, the relationship between crime and politics is more complex. In some instances, states and criminal actors cooperate to provide public goods and enforce strict rules against "deviant" behavior. How does politics affect the criminal world? Why do criminals engage in political activities? Why do politicians delegate to criminal groups the provision of public order? What are the consequences for democracy of criminal-political partnerships? In this course, we want to understand how crime shapes politics and vice-versa. In the first part of the course, we will discuss essential concepts for the analysis of crime and politics. We will then explore different modes of criminal-political interactions, their causes and consequences. Throughout the semester we will look at past and present cases across the world—from 19th and 20th century US cities to the emergence of the mafia in Italy to contemporary Brazilian and Indian cities. We also use different sources (academic texts and popular culture, among others) to unveil the connections between the criminal "underworld" and politics.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20511 God and Slavery in the Americas (3 Credit Hours)
More than a century before African slaves were trafficked to the Virginia colony in 1619, Christopher Columbus transported captured indigenous peoples to Spain from the New World. The dispossession and enslavement of non-Europeans in the colonization of the Americas was justified by Christians but also condemned by Christians with different economic and political interests. This development course in theology introduces students to the challenging intersection of faith, slavery, and freedom by exploring key figures, events, and movements that have shaped the complex historical legacy of Christianity in the Americas, a hemispheric past that remains ever bound together. In addition to Christianity's role in colonial expansion and racial ideology, the course especially considers how lived faith in God provided a catalyst for the empowerment and resistance of the oppressed and their advocates in shared struggles to attain greater social justice, racial equality, and political autonomy. From the "Protector of the Indians" Bartolomé de las Casas to César Chávez, and the "Black Moses" Harriet Tubman to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the course explores these and other extraordinary figures of hope in the Americas who gave their lives to protest institutional violence and promote authentic expressions of faith. In the course, students will engage this turbulent past through a contextual approach to theology that examines idolatry, migration, land, liberty, poverty, social sin, nonviolence, and solidarity as normative categories relevant for addressing contemporary social crises afflicting our nation and the earth.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20512 Race and Film (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines representations of race, ethnicity, and ideology in the American cinema through a sociological lens. We will focus on understanding how film reflects and directs prevailing cultural norms and attitudes surrounding racial and ethnic relations. One goal is to uncover how racial and ethnic relations are reified on the silver screen through storytelling techniques such as narrative, style, aesthetics, and mise en scène. We will analyze the sociological context of each film to better understand the evolution of cinematic representations of race and ethnicity and what they mean for race relations and inequality in the broader society. This course will cover the American cinematic treatment of Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Italian Americans through feature length screenings and clips of particularly poignant scenes.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20701 Rich, Poor, and War (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the interrelationships between economic injustice and violence. It begins by investigating the gap between rich and poor both in the US and worldwide. We also look at the history of Christian thought on wealth and poverty. We then address the ways in which economic disparity intersects with the problem of violence in both domestic (violence against women) and political realms (war and revolution). Next, we canvass Christian thought on the use of violence. This raises the question of whether Christianity itself contributes more to violence or to peace. Finally, we pose the question of whether forgiveness for violence is advisable or feasible.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20729 The Askesis of Nonviolence (3 Credit Hours)
This course will explore the theology and practice of nonviolence as a form of askesis, or spiritual discipline. The material will include readings from Scripture, the early Christian tradition, and Catholic social teaching. Religious sources outside the Christian tradition will include Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Badshah Khan. This course will use the method of community-based learning and will require 20 hours of service at particular sites in the South Bend area.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20912 Ethics of Emerging Weapons Technology (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the ethical challenges posed by the ongoing revolution in the technology of war. After learning about some general, philosophical approaches to ethical decision making, we will examine a wide range of new weapons technologies, from "smart" bombs, drones, and robots to em (electromagnetic) weapons, cyberwar, and bio-enhancement, asking the question whether the existing framework of Just War Theory and the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) are adequate for war as it will be fought in the 21st century.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20914 Poetry and Peace (3 Credit Hours)
At the forefront of every social justice movement, you will also find poets; I contend that is evidence that they have something to teach us about the long labor for justice. In this class, we will read Peace Studies Theory alongside poets from around the globe who are deeply engaged in various struggles for peace—from Palestine-Israel, to Ukraine, to Afghanistan, to El Salvador, to Nicaragua, to Cuba, to Colombia, to Civil Rights and Indigenous Rights in the US. As an introduction course, this class requires no prior knowledge of poetry or peace studies theory, but rather, will lay the groundwork for how to critically use both for the sake of building a fairer, more just world, all the while growing as writers and readers.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKAL - Core Art & Literature, WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 20915 The Politics of Health and Disease in Africa (3 Credit Hours)
When diseases emerge in Africa, the media presents a relentless tide of infection, with AIDS and Ebola, for example, claiming thousands of hapless victims of “backward” thinking and rejection of western medicine. Western journalists express disbelief that people suffer and die because they refuse to take appropriate steps to protect themselves, whether it is taking the sick to the hospital, or wearing condoms to avoid contracting HIV. We are led to ask why treatable or even preventable diseases are claiming so many African lives. Why does popular thinking about health and disease on the African continent appear to be impervious to biomedical models? This class uses an anthropological perspective to look beyond the simple popular and medical answers to questions of sickness to examine the social and political frameworks that inform people’s understandings of the health of their bodies and communities. This course will introduce students to cultural perspectives on disease through an investigation of how people around the continent understand and experience illness, and why what appears to be simple medical knowledge is anything but simple when it is understood in its social and political context. We will investigate the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, examine why polio persisted in Nigeria, and compare how the HIV epidemics unfolded in South Africa and Uganda. In addition to infectious diseases, we will ask questions about the social experience of disability in Africa, investigate hospital care, and draw comparisons with western perspectives.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 23401 Nasty, Brutish, and Short: The Archaeology of War (3 Credit Hours)
Organized violence between human communities is one of the unfortunate realities of human existence, and its causes and consequences have consequently been of great interest. Is war an inevitable outcome of human nature, or the result of specific social, historical, and environmental circumstances? Archaeology is uniquely positioned to provide concrete insights into the history of human violence through study of its direct material correlates, including traumatic injuries on skeletons, fortified settlements, weaponry, and iconography. However, the archaeological record also documents the impacts of violence (reduced nutritional status and health, evidence for enslavement, cannibalism, and population decline) and can provide insights into why war occurred through examination of environment, population, and social conditions. In this course, we will explore what the archaeological record tells us about violence, human nature, and the veracity of claims for either a more violent or more peaceful past. We will examine theoretical models of war, anthropological studies of conflict, and archaeological case studies of both violent and peaceful times to understand the role that organized violence has played in human history and evolution.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 24500 Gender and Development (3 Credit Hours)
The objective of this module is to enable students to understand the role of gender relations and inequalities in processes of development, both at local and global levels. The module will provide students with the tools to understand and analyze gender relations and inequalities in their myriad forms, and will enable them to consider different approaches to development through a gender lens. The impact of North-South power relations and global inequalities on gender and development, the role of the United Nations in establishing and monitoring human rights and development norms and principles, and the intersections between local and global feminisms will be explored throughout. The module will address topics and issues such as economics, poverty, development, sexuality and sexual health, gender based violence and the role of men and masculinities. Overall, the module will provide students with critical conceptual and analytical tools for understanding and aiming to transform gender relations within an unequal world.
IIPS 24509 Religion, Gender, and Human Rights (3 Credit Hours)
The relationship between religion and human rights is controversial and contested. On the one hand is the claim that human rights require a religious grounding, and have their antecedents in religious traditions, while on the other hand is the view that human rights provide a necessary antidote to the prejudices and inequalities that are characteristic of religion. This module aims to explore the complex connections between religion and human rights, both in terms of the evolution of the contemporary human rights regime, and in relation to the specific disputed issue of gender. The module will begin with a consideration of contemporary understandings of human rights, of the role of religion in the evolution of the language, values and norms of human rights; and of contemporary debates about orientalism, colonialism, decolonialism, and post-colonialism in the articulation and implementation of human rights. The second section considers debates about the nature and politics of gender, the role that different religions play in the construction and maintenance of gender norms, and the manner in which different religions deal with the issues of women's rights. Key contemporary debates will be considered in depth including debates about conceptualisations of gender equality, embodiment, complementarity, and heteronormativity; about LGBTQIA+ rights and religion; sexuality, reproduction, and the role of family; and gender and religious practices. The module will conclude with a consideration of freedom of religion and the limits of accommodations, with a focus on how states should deal with religiously-motivated values and conduct that offend democratic values.
IIPS 24510 Genocide (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines such violent forms of identity politics as ethnic cleansing and genocide in an international and historical perspective. The program covers the genocides in Europe against the Jews and Roma, in Armenia, the Balkans, the Ukraine, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region. Ethnopolitics has been crucial in shaping politics and societies in recent time. It is frequently at the heart of disputes of international importance. This course covers different forms of identity politics including ethnopolitics, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, as manifested in the 20th and 21st centuries. We consider the politics of identity within the historical perspective, and also set in the international context. The program covers the Nazi and Communist genocides, European ethnic cleansing, and genocide including the cases of Armenia, Balkans, Ukraine, the Roma, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region. Other specific current case studies of genocide may be analyzed. Conceptualizations, theories, and the scholarly debate related to genocide as a political phenomenon are covered in a comparative way. Investigation of genocide across regions and time periods will be combined with the review of the debate about genocide's definition, its development in these two centuries, patterns characterizing its occurrence, and hypothesized causes (whose identification can be controversial and difficult given the long historical run-up between causal agents and eventual ethnic hostilities). Genocide is also analyzed as an international crime, together with the range of legal actions and human rights instruments presently addressing it. A major objective is to examine the causes of genocide and how genocide might be prevented.
IIPS 24702 Postcolonial Studies: The Case of Hong Kong (3 Credit Hours)
Considered as an "anomaly" in postcoloniality by Rey Chow, Hong Kong makes the perfect case for the study of major theories and concerns in postcolonial studies and their critical capacity and limitations. This course engages canonical theorists and texts in postcolonial studies in dialogue with local voices of critique across fields and disciplines to reexamine (post)colonial experiences of Hong Kong and their legacy expressed in the connections among culture, history, politics, and economics. By unpacking the anomalies of the case of Hong Kong and organizing critical local scholarship on cultural production and development often situated on the margin or caught in between domineering forces, this course also seeks to, as proposed by Stephen Chu, "reconfigure postcolonial discourse as a critical mode of imagination in a world altered now by global capitalism."
IIPS 30104 Collective Action in Europe for Social Justice (1 Credit Hour)
This class aims to introduce how people, and especially the youth, mobilize to change the world. Through cases of collective action targeting issues of systemic racism, climate crisis, urban inequality, and gender violence in various European contexts, we will discuss how protesting can change the social world. In response to structural violence and the failure of existing institutions to provide peace and justice, we are witnessing waves of mobilization worldwide, including in Europe. While drawing on European cases, we will also discuss the transnational and comparative aspects of collective action. This class will provide students with a creative space to think about the role of collective action in building just societies.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30105 Policy Lab: Urban Violence in the Global South (1 Credit Hour)
In 2020, 45 of the 50 most violent cities in the world were located in the Global South—especially in Latin America and South Africa. The intensity of (lethal) criminal violence in some cities rivals the level of violence observed in many civil wars, leading to demands for "iron fist" policies and, unsurprisingly, to militarized security policies. In this 1.0 credit policy lab, we will explore the characteristics of urban violence in the global south, critically appraise existing security policies and their results based on the best available evidence, and discuss other policy alternatives. Throughout the lab, we will also meet with practitioners who have shaped or implemented policies in cities of the Global South, community activists, and academics whose research has a more immediate policy relevance.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30204 Peace Research Methods (3 Credit Hours)
The purpose of this course is to provide undergraduate students with an overview of the epistemic and methodological approaches to peace research. Its goal is to equip students with a functional methodological literacy that will allow them to critically engage with peace studies research. As part of this course, students will have the opportunity to conduct original in-depth research, or to apply the concepts introduced in this course to a case with which they have familiarity. As an introductory course, it cannot equip students with an expert understanding of every method, but it will help students grasp the logic underlying different methodological approaches, their basic mechanics, and the kinds of questions that each is best equipped to answer. Students will: 1) develop an understanding of the logic underlying different methodological approaches to questions in peace studies research; 2) acquire methodological literacy that will allow them to critically engage with questions relevant to peace studies; 3) identify which methodological approaches are best applied to what kinds of questions; 4) apply a particular methodological approach to a question of interest to the student; and 5) hone skills of analysis, argumentation, and writing.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30205 Race Locales: Race, Space, and Place in the U.S. (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the socio-histories, movement, and settlement patterns of racial minorities in the U.S. The course will focus on how race and racial imaginaries shape the movement and settlement of racial minorities. It will include deep examinations of these mobility patterns and how they are constructed and articulated through laws, policies, and social arrangements. Special attention will be paid to the racialization of the United States, American-ness as whiteness, and the consequences for the social and physical landscape. And finally, the course will consider how the racial construction of the U.S. is manifested and buttressed through the built environment and the consequences.
IIPS 30206 The Quest for Constitutional Order in the Middle East (3 Credit Hours)
The Arab Spring represented a moment of challenge to intransigent repressive structures and aspiration to new democratic constitutional orders. To understand this moment we need to appreciate the complex history of the region. This is a survey course that approaches the intellectual history of Islam from a very specific angle: its encounter with Western political and intellectual thought. We will be looking at the first encounter with Greek political philosophy during the formative period of Arab-Islamic thought, in addition to Early and Late Modern responses to the European military and cultural challenge. The historical/comparative structure of the course makes salient the continuities and discontinuities in the thematic treatment of subjects like reform, representation, forms of government, the role of the community, and the rule of law. Some of the case studies that we will consider include Ottoman administrative and constitutional reforms, Arab nationalism, Lebanese consociationalism, and the Iranian Revolution and its constitutional project.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30207 Climate Change and Violence (3 Credit Hours)
This course is designed to allow students to think about issues of violence and peace as they occur in the midst of a worsening climate crisis. It aims to introduce students to a number of key ideas in a series of interconnected literatures, with a particular focus on climate driven conflicts, environmental peacebuilding and climate justice. The class will help to build the skills and knowledge to understand climate change as a multi-faceted conflict dynamic as well as to think about how we can design just and equitable solutions to both the global climate emergency and situations of violent conflict. Each student will produce a final paper analyzing an issue of climate violence of interest to them.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30304 Visualizing Global Change (3 Credit Hours)
The goal of the course is to compare the processes by which social scientists and filmmakers/photographers engage in social documentation. Students explore how global social problems such as rural and urban poverty, race and gender inequalities, immigration, and violence are analyzed across the social sciences and depicted in a variety of documentary film and photography genres. The course also explores the role that documentary photography and film play in promoting rights and advocating for social change, particularly in the realm of human rights and global inequality. It examines the history of documentary film and photography in relationship to politics and the development of concerns across the social sciences with inequality and social justice. It also looks at how individual documentarians, non-profit organizations, and social movements use film and photography to further their goals and causes as well as issues of representation their choices raise. The course is unique because it requires students to engage in the process of visual documentation themselves by incorporating an activity-based learning component. For their final project, students choose a human rights or social problem that concerns or interests them (and which they can document locally - no travel is required), prepare a documentary exhibit on the chosen topic (10-12 photographs), and write an essay analyzing how social scientists construct and frame the given problem. Students also have the option to produce a short documentary film.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKAL - Core Art & Literature
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30308 Structural and Cultural Violence (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers an in-depth analysis of the roles of structural and cultural violence in peace studies. Unit 1 (conceptual/theoretical) explores field-formative debates over the nature, basis, and viability of "structural violence" and "cultural violence" as analytical concepts, asking how they have shaped (or failed to, but perhaps ought to shape) the field of peace studies. We will examine their critical appropriations of early critical theory, and assess comparable theoretical approaches such as reflexive sociology (Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant), post-structural analysis (Michel Foucault), and later critical theory (Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth) while asking what advantages, if any, lenses of structural and cultural violence have vis-a-vis these resources for peace analysis and peacebuilding, and where they need to be supplemented. Unit 2 (cases/agents) studies cases in which some version of these analytical lenses have been deployed for purposes of peace analysis and peacebuilding. We examine recent uses of these lenses to examine poverty, global development, and global health in building peace (e.g. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Paul Farmer, Peter Uvin), religious/cultural identity (Veena Das), and race, class, and gender (Joshua Price on incarceration and prison abolition in the U.S; Alex Mikulich and Laurie Cassidy on white complicity in hyper incarceration).
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30313 Civil Rights in America (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the Black Freedom Struggle from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power and into Black Lives Matter. How have African Americans mobilized to secure recognition of human dignity from the American Political system? How did the Freedom Struggle shape American culture? By studying the Civil Rights Movement in America, this class opens up conversation on the central issues of American history: race, racism, rights, and freedom.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30314 Economics of Immigration (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines why some individuals decide to become immigrants through a cost benefit analysis, viewing migration as an investment in human capital. It addresses the selection among immigrants and how they integrate and assimilate in the destination country. Primary focus is given to the labor market, and wages in particular, of both immigrants and natives in the host country. A distinction is made between economic migrants and refugees, and discrimination in its varied forms is also studied. Finally, the fiscal impact of immigration is discussed along with immigration policy in a global context.
Prerequisites: (ECON 10010 or ECON 10011 or ECON 20010 or ECON 20011 or ECON 10091) and (ECON 10020 (may be taken concurrently) or ECON 20020 (may be taken concurrently) or ECON 10092 (may be taken concurrently) or FIN 30220 (may be taken concurrently) or ECON 14022 (may be taken concurrently) or ECON 24022 (may be taken concurrently))
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30316 Black Political Thought (3 Credit Hours)
This course will focus on the writings of Black political thinkers in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Through critical examination of the conditions against, and contexts within, which the political theories of these thinkers are situated, this course hopes to arrive at some understanding of the principles, goals and strategies developed to contest and redefine notions/concepts of citizenship (vis-a-vis the imperatives of race/racism and the global colonial formations), humanity, justice, equality, development, democracy, and freedom.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30318 Troublemakers or Peacemakers? The Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda, 1961 to 2021 (3 Credit Hours)
On March 10, 2020, the U.S. "Youth, Peace, & Security" (YPS) Act was introduced into the House of Representatives with broad support from international peacebuilding organizations. The bill is intended "to support the inclusive and meaningful participation of youth in peace building and conflict prevention, management, and resolution, as well as post-conflict relief and recovery efforts." But, is all of this attention on "youth"actually warranted? More importantly, is this attention good for young people both in the United States and globally? In order to answer these questions, this course will consider the historical context of the shifting politics of recognition related to youth/childhood over the course of the Cold War and its aftermath. We will explore which populations got counted as (vulnerable) children or (dangerous) youth in U.S. politics and foreign policy based on age-based, racialized, gendered, imperial, and other dynamics. Through examination of historical documents and tools of critical analysis, students will be prepared to evaluate the international youth, peace, and security agenda as well as monitor the mixed public responses to the U.S. YPS Act as they occur in real-time right now.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30319 Global Environmental Change and the Contemporary Human Niche (3 Credit Hours)
The rate and expanse of human caused global environmental change is unmatched in our evolutionary history. It is widely argued that these actions have produced enough change that the stable conditions found in the Holocene epoch of the last 11,000 years are over and we are transitioning to a new Earth Systems trajectory and epoch dubbed the Anthropocene - the time when humans are the single largest driver of geologic change. In this course we will seek to understand what characteristics of the contemporary human niche - the myriad socio-ecological practices, policies, institutions and lifeways that comprise how humans live their everyday lives around the globe - are producing the Anthropocene and what the implications are for different groups of people. We will pay specific attention to the distribution of global environmental change and corresponding risk to human health, historical and contemporary contributions to the production of this change, and what the implications are for human health, equality, and environmental justice. The focus of this course is more towards breadth than depth - we will sample and discuss many topics but will be unable to fully dive into each in a holistic way. This is by design, as the point is for us to develop a mutually negotiated and understood functional language and base understanding of the topics, such that after this course you are empowered to engage the topics most compelling to you and have the skills requisite to effectively dive in.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30320 Anthropology of Migration: Borders, Displacement, and Health (3 Credit Hours)
Migration is a prevailing global phenomenon that affects millions of peoples around the world. According to the UNHCR report, at the end of 2019, there had been 79.5 million forcibly displaced people around the world. At the same time, refugees and migrants experience migration- and displacement-related physical and psychosocial stress and trauma, which may increase their vulnerability and affects their health and well-being. This course will explore, engage, and analyze contemporary migration flows - movements of people across national and international borders - and the ways human mobility shape refugees' and migrants' lived experiences, cultural meanings, social values, and health. How and why particular modes of mobility are permitted, encouraged, and enabled while others are conversely, banned, regulated, policed, and prevented? How do contemporary forms of displacement may challenge conventional understandings of who gets to be defined and accepted as a refugee? Why do we have so many different categories of people who simply seek refuge? Do these different categories indicate different treatments? How is migration associated with higher levels of mental health disorders among refugee/migrant populations? The course will engage with such questions by focusing on events that occurred in the second half of the twenty-first century in Europe, including both the EU and non-EU states. We will rely on the selected readings and documentaries as they reflect an integrative anthropological approach to migration, displacement, and refugeeness. Taking into account lived experiences, identity, social values, cultural meanings, health, and well-being, we will explore migration, borders, and displacement as a subjective experience and sites of ethical, socioeconomic, political, and cultural examinations and critiques. Topics will include transnational migration, terminology, citizenship, borders, asylum policy, health, and well-being. This course will also enrich your understanding of the fluidity of different categories, processes underlying refugees and migrants' cultural and social tuning, as well as their biosocial responses, resilience, and adaptability under conditions of migration and displacement. The course will be run in a seminar-style, and students will be expected to analyze and debate core readings in class.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30321 Post-Conflict Politics (3 Credit Hours)
The first part of course examines the legacies of protracted conflicts (mostly civil wars) on a variety of political outcomes, from state-building and democratic institutions to political participation and social movements. The second part of the course explores different mechanisms by which states and the international community have dealt with these legacies, such as international courts, transitional justice and institution-building programs.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30322 Medieval Violence (3 Credit Hours)
Violence and bloodshed have long been central to the modern conception of the middle ages. In recent film and literature, the perceived "realism" of a given work tends, by and large, to correspond directly with the willingness of the creators to depict brutality. Even in the medievalism of popular fantasy, the depiction of violence in all its varied forms, from the battlefield to the bedchamber, has been justified and excused by claims of representing past realities of common experience. This course will question just how violent the middle ages were, and for whom. More importantly, it will seek to understand how the varied cultures and peoples of medieval Europe conceptualized and understood violence themselves, and what role it played in their lives and imaginations. In the course of our investigation, we will explore literary narratives of vengeance and crusade and farcical tales of household bloodshed. We will read law codes and sermons attempting to regulate and channel violence. We will read accounts, justifications, and repudiations of torture, execution, and mercy. We will read about peace-making and peace- breaking, and the stories that were told about it. We will question what constitutes violence, and how violence relates to shifting categories of gender, class, and group identity. In all of this, we will seek to identify the differences and similarities between their conceptions of violence and our own can teach us not only about them, but about ourselves.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKAL - Core Art & Literature, WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30323 Politics of Decolonization (3 Credit Hours)
This course is an exploration of the various processes, accounts and theories of colonialism and decolonization in Africa and the Americas. The aim is to chart alternative paths to rethinking the meaning and impact of these terms/concepts. Focusing on the various colonial/imperial tools employed to subjugate, exploit, and dominate colonized subjects, we will examine how liberal discourses/structures that are assumed to embody the terms of freedom and sovereignty have now become extensions of the colonial they were initially employed to overcome. The main objective of this course is to explore various approaches to redefining decolonization, noting the changing meaning of colonialism.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30324 Economic Insecurity in Developing Countries (3 Credit Hours)
Despite important progress in alleviating poverty in low- and middle-income countries, technological change, automation, and rising levels of training required for employment pose a great challenge for reducing economic insecurity and precarity as well as the future of work in these countries. A major challenge in attaining these goals is the tension between the global diffusion of innovation paradigms and national cultural traditions. This course will draw on concrete examples from countries such as India, Peru, The Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, and Kenya and on conceptual tools from across disciplines (economics, anthropology, sociology, and history) to provide students with the needed intuitions for examining the interplay between global economic transformations and the institutional and cultural characteristics of emerging societies. Throughout the course, we explore as well some of the ramifications for racial, ethnic and gender inequality resulting from these global economic changes and from the policy strategies adopted to address them.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30325 Global Ethics: Introduction to Ethics from a Global Perspective (3 Credit Hours)
This course will offer a systematic introduction into ethics from a global perspective discussing global moral challenges. It will negotiate the local and the global and offer "contextual ethical reasoning." Global ethics has emerged both as a term and as a (sub)discipline over the past few decades. The dynamics of globalization has cultivated a sense of global citizenship; the experience of limits of local contexts in dealing with challenges such as climate change and migration have motivated a sense of global problems, problems that affect the entire planet and the whole of humanity. This course will follow an approach to global ethics in conversation with key principles of the Catholic Social Tradition: human dignity, common good and solidarity, subsidiarity, integral ecology.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30326 Analyzing Policy and Development in Context (3 Credit Hours)
Many approaches to policy, development, and governance emphasize universal goals and patterns. In practice, however, all policies and processes of social development unfold in specific places, at specific historical moments. In this course, we will explore a vibrant body of scholarship from multiple disciplines, called “critical policy studies,” that combines social and cultural analysis with policy studies. Students will learn how to analyze global policy interventions and outcomes as the products of specific communities, cultural contexts, and historical settings. We will examine the history of core categories in policy, like “poverty,” “growth,” “progress,” and even “development” itself. We will then use case studies to explore specific examples of how cultural and historical context shape policy interventions and outcomes. In so doing, students will learn the core methods of critical and interpretive policy studies, in order to develop valuable skills for analyzing how policies are shaped by, and act on, social life in unexpected ways.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30327 Introduction to International Human Rights (3 Credit Hours)
Are human rights modern inventions or are they as old as humankind? Are they universal or culturally specific? How much progress, if any, has transnational human rights advocacy achieved? How and to what extent should human rights influence foreign policy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of encoding human rights in international law? By examining these and similar questions, this course initiates students in the study of international human rights. In addition to informative readings, intriguing podcasts, and interactive lectures the course features in-class debates on the most pressing human rights problems.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30328 American Hate: White Radicalism, Religion, and Domestic Terror in Contemporary America (3 Credit Hours)
Incidents of hate-driven political violence and domestic terrorism have increased in the United States in recent years and are the highest they have been in decades. Non-partisan studies show this upsurge in violence has been driven primarily by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim, and anti-government extremism. What are the causes of this upsurge in extremism and political violence? What is its impact upon contemporary society, religion, and politics? What do the categories and practices of peacebuilding have to offer for purposes of constructive and transformational responses to such violence and its causes? This course explores answers to these questions. It examines how the causes and conditions of the upsurge in extremist politics and political violence relate to racism, nationalism, xenophobia, and the political weaponizing of American religion. We will explore such factors as the role of ethno-nationalism in the wide-spread Evangelical Christian embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories and political organizing, the merging of Catholic and Orthodox Christian "traditionalism" with political authoritarianism (e.g. especially as modeled by contemporary Hungary, Poland, and Russia), the so-called "Alt-Right" organizing and activism (e.g. the "Unite the Right" marches and rallies in Charlottesville), the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capital, the relation of the so-called "Gun Lobby" to increased militance of political rhetoric and organizing, militia organizing and participation in political violence and terrorism, and invocations of a looming "civil war" as the inevitable result of deep and persistent political polarization in the U.S. Readings will include Janelle Wong's Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change; Kristen Kobes Du Mez's From Jesus to John Wayne; Cynthia Miller-Idriss' Hate in the Homeland; Barbara Walters' How Civil Wars Start; Sarah Riccardi-Swartz's Between Heaven and Russia; and Ryan Busse's Gun Fight, among others.
IIPS 30329 American Slavery (3 Credit Hours)
This course provides an introduction to the history of American slavery. After examining the origins and transformation of Atlantic world slavery, the course focuses particularly upon slavery in the United States. Between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the United States grew into the largest slaveholding society in the modern world. U.S. slavery's growth was driven forward by massive global economic transformations and territorial conquest. Yet, in the face of unprecedented violence, enslaved people themselves brought about the end of slavery and transformed the meaning of freedom in the United States. This course focuses upon this history from the perspective of enslaved people themselves with particular attention to struggles for freedom. Through an examination of this history and its legacies, the course will introduce students to histories of resistance.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
IIPS 30330 Deep Dive into Diplomacy (3 Credit Hours)
Diplomacy in its many forms is a way of doing politics: the established method of negotiating inter-state relations and of influencing the decisions and behavior of foreign governments and peoples through presence and engagement, dialogue, and negotiation. Diplomats are committed to their home country, but also their host country and the bigger picture of the common good. Contributors to peace building and peacekeeping, diplomats, serve political purposes through cultural engagement. In this way, they contribute to "integral human development" in the design of international relations. The Nanovic Institute invites undergraduate and graduate students to join our Diplomacy Scholars Program through Deep Dive Into Diplomacy. This course will examine diplomacy as a tool for social justice while providing students the opportunity to hone diplomatic skills such as conflict mediation, judgement and decision making, intercultural competencies, and written and oral communication. Students will learn from present and former diplomats about the diplomatic way of life and participate in a number of simulations and activities beyond the classroom. Enrollment in this course is by application only.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30331 Gender and Social Change (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines how gender and sexuality are understood, constructed, and implicated in relations of social power in various regions of the world. It will integrate scholarship from anthropology and women and gender studies to explore how ideas of maleness, femaleness, trans, queer, and heterosexual are reproduced, contested, and transgressed within different social contexts and the everydayness of these categories. We will learn about cultural changes in conceptions of gender and sexuality in North and South America, SWANA (South West Asia/North Africa), Southeast and East Asia, Central and Southern Africa, and Europe. In the first half of this course, we will consider traditional themes in cultural anthropology, including kinship, morality, ritual, emotion, politics, and the circulation of goods and labor, to examine how different communities produce cultural knowledge about gender and sexuality. The second half of this course will address contemporary themes such as activism, violence, and gender and sexual oppression. Using our knowledge of anthropological theories developed in the first half of the course, we will take up topics of concern such as masculinity and violence, LGBTQ rights and pinkwashing, and gender and nationalism to understand how gender and sexuality are relevant to post-colonial contexts and settler-colonial resistance movements.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30332 Democracy, Dictators, Rights, and Wrongs: An Introduction to Political Anthropology (3 Credit Hours)
The rise of populism around the world, coupled with the emergence of “neo-Fascist” leaders in Europe and new authoritarianism in Latin America and Africa invite a lot of worried questioning over the state of world politics, and indeed of the stability of a world that seems to grow more tense, divided, and partisan by the moment. In this course we will delve into topics in democracy, charismatic and authoritarian leadership, human rights, and social movements to probe, fundamentally, what social and political participation actually means, and where that participation leads people around the world. If there is no single concrete definition of democracy, do we actually know it when we see it? What factors indicate that it is corrupted or endangered? What accounts for the rise of charismatic leaders, and when is charisma positive, versus a move towards authoritarianism? How do social movements form, what might they accomplish, and when and why do they fail? Finally, are “rights” universal, or are there fundamental issues within “rights” themselves that prevent people around the world from flourishing?
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30333 Financing Social Impact (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the financial and economic tools that support sustainable solutions to social challenges, with a focus beyond traditional government aid and philanthropy. Students will explore the rapidly expanding fields of impact investing and microfinance, evaluating their roles in advancing social entrepreneurship, broad-based wealth creation, and equality of opportunity. Topics include emerging approaches to microcredit, the benefits and limitations of financial innovations, and the role of public policy in fostering effective initiatives. Through a combination of case studies, critical analyses, and applied projects, students will engage directly with real-world challenges such as poverty alleviation and inclusive economic development. No prior background in business or finance is required; the course is designed for students from all disciplines who bring curiosity, creativity, and a commitment to social problem-solving.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30424 Gender, Sexuality, and the State (3 Credit Hours)
This course provides an overview of the complex ways in which gender and sexuality are relevant to a study of the state, both domestically and on the international stage. This course will look at the gendered and sexual dynamics of war, state-building, nationalisms, international governance, as well as feminist and queer social movement responses to the state.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30425 Black Lives Matter Uprisings of 2020: Revolutionary Violence vs. Revolutionary Non-Violence (3 Credit Hours)
Is violent resistance and destructive populist uprising in response to injustice and structural violence ever justified? The apparent effectiveness of violent rebellion in the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020 suggests that the answer is ‘yes.' How do these developments compare and contrast to the debates surrounding violent vs nonviolent rebellion during the U.S. Civil Rights and Black Power Movements? How should the oppressed respond to their oppressors—conceptualize, fight for, and deploy power? What is the difference between rebellion and social movement, and how do their differences affect prospects for transforming systemically unjust and structurally violent conditions? This course explores answers to these questions by examining the conflicts surrounding the Movement for Black Lives over the last decade, while examining examples from the Civil Rights movement as cases for comparison. We will examine the background theories and ethical frameworks by which activists and practitioners conceptualize, implement, and justify—and argue with one another about—the necessities and limits of violent vs. nonviolent action and re-examine the roles that rebellion can play (and has played) in transforming injustice and structural violence, as well as in conceptualizing and pursuing liberation. What does the peace studies concept of "conflict transformation" have to contribute to these understandings and debates? We will consider challenges posed by rioting, property destruction and ‘looting,' and the risks and possibilities of avoiding so-called "backlash" responses of state repression and counter-protest. Readings include works by: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Omar Wasow, Angela Davis, Danielle Allen, Cornel West, James Baldwin, Eddie Glaude, Martin King, Stokely Carmicheal (Kwame Ture), Frantz Fanon, and Barbara Deming.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30428 Poverty, Business, and Development (3 Credit Hours)
The course adopts an entrepreneurial perspective in exploring the role of business in helping to address the poverty challenge in developing and developed economies. The multi-faceted nature of poverty and its implications when it comes to business and entrepreneurship are explored. Attention is devoted to venture creation as a pathway out of poverty, and to how the larger business community can be leveraged in poverty alleviation efforts. Students will examine case studies and meet low income entrepreneurs.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30430 Race, Ethnicity, and American Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces students to the dynamics of the social and historical construction of race and ethnicity in American political life. The course explores the following core questions: What are race and ethnicity? What are the best ways to think about the impact of race and ethnicity on American citizens? What is the history of racial and ethnic formation in American political life? How do race and ethnicity link up with other identities animating political actions like gender and class? What role do American political institutions the Congress, presidency, judiciary, state and local governments, etc. play in constructing and maintaining these identity categories? Can these institutions ever be used to overcome the points of division in American society?
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30434 Engaging World Religions: An Introduction to Religion and Global Affairs (3 Credit Hours)
In a religiously diverse and vastly troubled world, how do religious traditions motivate believers to work toward the common good? "Engaging World Religions," the course title, refers to three things we will examine. First, it describes how religions are intrinsically engaging: they draw in adherents by fulfilling their material, intellectual, and spiritual needs. Second, it specifies what various secular institutions like governments and development organizations must do in pursuing the common good across our planet -- most of whose inhabitants are religious. Finally, it characterizes our work in this class: exploring how various religious traditions conceptualize and work toward the common good in a global context. We will read historians, social scientists, philosophers, and critical theorists on how to analyze and interpret the role of religion in contemporary life, while examining case studies of how religious practices, beliefs, and identities intersect with issues in global affairs such as inequality, armed conflict, and climate change. In doing so, we will engage how religious traditions from the East and West -- from Asian and Abrahamic "world" religions, to a variety of indigenous "local" religions -- complicate or complement modern Catholicism's emphasis on Integral Human Development.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30435 International Law and Human Rights (3 Credit Hours)
What role does international law have in the advancement of human rights, and how does human rights, in turn, advance international law? This course introduces university students to the general system of modern international law (e.g. its norm-generating framework involving States and non-State actors; the roles of many State and non-State authoritative decision-makers in shaping expectations of peaceful, just, and responsible behavior in the international system; its varied constellation of dispute settlement courts and tribunals, alongside the prospects and limits of enforcing State compliance with international decisions), specifically viewed from the lens of historic global, regional, and domestic challenges to human dignity that influenced the first global codification of human rights norms under the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, up to the present development of the current international system of protection for human rights. The course situates the framework of modern international law and civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights, using five examples of the historic, defining, and 'constitutionalizing moments' for the international system: 1) the international abolition of slavery; 2) the evolution from classical to modern international law in dismantling colonial empires to enshrine the self-determination of all peoples and the equality of sovereignty of all nations; 3) the outlawing of the aggressive use of force since 1929, towards the peaceful settlement of maritime and territorial disputes and the humanitarian rules applicable to armed conflict situations; 4) the establishment of international accountability of individuals and States for genocide, crimes against humanity and other human rights atrocities; and 5) the global regulation for sustainable use, shared protection, and intergenerational responsibility over natural resources (land, oceans, atmosphere, outer space).
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30437 The Vietnam War and American Catholics (3 Credit Hours)
How did the most divisive war in American History shape the nation's biggest church community? This course explores Catholics as both supporters and detractors of the Vietnam War. American Catholics wished to see America defeat Communism but, importantly, the power of faith motivated many to criticize the state's escalation of the conflict. Students will explore the tensions and transformations of this important moment in American life. Lectures and classroom discussions will address decolonization, the global and national nature of American Catholicism, the power of the liberal state, conscientious objection, the "Spirit of the Sixties," sacramental protests, the rise of human rights, geopolitics, and the Cold War. Course readings will include the latest scholarship, but also primary sources like poems, films, songs, letters, prayers, newspaper articles, and art. Students will have access to the rich materials of Catholic peace activists found in the University of Notre Dame Archives.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30439 Human Centered Design for Social Innovation (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces the foundational theories of human-centered design (HCD), its critiques, and the subsequent development of design principles, followed by a practical, hands-on exploration of HCD methods. It approaches design as a broadly applicable practice across multiple domains, including – but not limited to – social innovation and computing for social good. The course is organized into four modules. The first module examines the foundations of HCD, its critiques, and its evolution toward community-driven, value-aligned, and justice-oriented approaches. The next two modules provide hands-on experience in design research, prototyping, and reflection, where students learn to integrate technical, ethical, and social insights into actionable design strategies. In the final module, students will address real-world design challenges drawn from domains such as global development, sustainability, and public policy. The course welcomes students from the social entrepreneurship and innovation minor, global affairs, computer science and engineering, poverty studies, business, public policy, science-technology-values, and peace studies who are interested in designing for social impact.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30440 German Colonialism and Its Legacies (3 Credit Hours)
Bismarck once declared that, as long as he was Imperial Chancellor, Germany would not pursue a colonial policy. He was mistaken. Colonialism would fundamentally shape the German Empire as well as the diverse places and peoples it colonized. The legacies of colonial rule remain critically important today. Between 1884 and 1918, Germany would establish colonies in Togo, Cameroon, Southwest Africa, East Africa, China, and on islands across the Pacific. During this comparatively brief period, colonialism transformed both the German Empire and its overseas possessions in radical, often horrifically violent, ways. This course will examine why the German Empire embarked on a policy of colonial expansion, how Berlin laid claim to such vast territories far from Central Europe, and the complex ways in which German colonial states and colonized societies interacted with each other. It will examine how colonialism reshaped political structures, cultures, religions, economies, national identities, notions of race, and ideas about gender in both Germany and colonized societies. Finally, it will explore the profound legacies of colonialism which continue to shape Germany, its former colonies, and their contemporary relations.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30441 Hong Kong Decolonized and Recolonized (3 Credit Hours)
Colonialism is almost universally denounced. When, then, would Hong Kong activists wave the Union Jack in various demonstrations over the years? Why do they long for the British colonial era as the good old days? This course examines Hong Kong's struggle for democracy and autonomy in the intersection of colonial and Chinese history. It discusses what happened before and after the city's return to the Chinese government under the "one country, two systems" model in 1997. It studies how Hong Kong, once "a city of protest," has been turned into a city of fear today. Under the draconian National Security Law imposed in 2020, Hong Kong has effectively been recolonized. An estimated half a million Hong Kongers will have left by 2023. This class will supplement academic readings with memoirs and documentaries. It will also bring in Hong Kong activists to speak to the class about their dreams and despair.
IIPS 30442 Mobilizing Memory: The Politics of Memory in Modern Europe (3 Credit Hours)
This class analyzes the politics and cultures of remembrance in Europe from the late nineteenth century to today. Taking examples such as the politicization of Holocaust memory in Europe or the grassroots removal of monuments in Britain as points of departure, students will learn about processes of remembering and forgetting, and how memories of the past have shaped European identity and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will pay particular attention to the mobilization and commemoration of Europe's traumatic pasts, including the World Wars, imperialism and decolonization, the Cold War, and histories of genocide, to investigate how Europeans have remembered these difficult histories and how these memories have shifted over time. We will look not only at how the traumatic past is represented today; but how memory work was enacted at the time and how Europeans have fought to revise these representations and demand new recognition of alternative visions of the past. In its focus on memory, broadly defined, this course will deeply explore how representations of the past have shaped European identity, culture, and politics both at the time and today. In its focus on memory and memorialization, this class also attends to the visuality and material culture of history and historical research. Students will learn to read visual and material sources as sources akin to political tracts, diaries, and memoirs. We will engage with sources including photo albums, monuments, memorials, museum spaces, memorial landscapes, film, cultural kitsch, and art all as critical primary sources to understanding the production and circulation of memory. We will read foundational texts on collective memory and remembrance to understand how scholars and theorists have defined and conceptualized memory. Students will also conduct an original research project on a topic of their choosing by exploring a case study of memory work or collective memory in the context of Modern Europe.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30443 The Holocaust and Its Legacies in Contemporary Politics (3 Credit Hours)
In the wake of the Holocaust, the German author Gunther Grass concluded that we now finally knew ourselves. The Holocaust changed everything. Nazi Germany murdered more than six million men, women, and children in a systematic effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Its shocking and spectacular barbarism shattered comfortable ideas about European civilization and called into question the essential goodness of humanity. It compelled scholars to search for new ideas about evil, new words like "genocide" simply to place and comprehend the scale of the slaughter and devastation. Politics, art, culture, and even religions would be fundamentally and irrevocably transformed by the Holocaust. This course will investigate why Nazi Germany attempted to systematically exterminate the Jews of Europe, explore why so many Germans either participated in or accepted this act of mass violence, and consider why other Europeans so often assisted them. It will investigate the legacies of the Holocaust; how survivors and their families attempted to rebuild their lives in the wake of horror, how Germans variously struggled to come to terms with what they, their countrymen, or their ancestors had done, and how various understandings of the Holocaust have shaped political, cultural, and social discourses around the world. Along the way, students will practice the skills of historical literacy. They will digest, analyze, and criticize scholarship (secondary literature). They will discern the relevance of particular interpretations for important debates. They will use sustained analysis of primary sources to develop, articulate, and defend their own historical interpretations and arguments.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30444 Global Environmental Issues and Policy (3 Credit Hours)
Fracking, Water Wars, Deforestation of the Amazon, Droughts, Global Warming, Climate Change, Unsustainable Agriculture, Hurricanes, Pollution, Species Extinction, Invasive Species, Poaching, Overfishing, Depletion of Fossil Fuels, Overpopulation, Wastes, Ocean Acidification, Wildfires, Oil Spills, Overpopulation, Overconsumption, Land degradation - the list goes on! These complex environmental problems are occurring constantly and rapidly; their consequences are global in scope and transcend national boundaries; and they embody the complex relationship between humans and the natural environment. This course is about developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between humans (society) and the environment. We will examine the historical and contemporary environmental challenges of global concern, the underlying role of humans, and attempts by society to address, mitigate, and adapt to such complex problems through policies, institutions, and governance. We will pay attention to the roles of different state and non-state actors in environmental policy making. Overall, students will draw from both the social and natural sciences to develop a deeper understanding of how society - through consumption, culture, politics, power, ethics, values, economic growth, location, etc... contribute to, or solve, environmental problems.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30445 Dancing in the Street: Music and Social Change in the USA (3 Credit Hours)
In 1964, when Martha Reeves sang, "Calling out around the world/Are you ready for a brand new beat?/Summer's here and the time is right/For dancing in the street," was she beckoning listeners to join a party or the civil rights struggle? Or both? From spirituals sung by enslaved workers to protest anthems shouted at union rallies, music has provided the soundtrack to social justice causes throughout American History. Whether performed by rank-and-file reformers or famous recording artists -- from Frank Sinatra to Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and beyond -- popular music has accompanied and sometimes fueled transformations in American politics, culture, and social life. In this course students will explore American popular music in its many forms -- blues, country, jazz, folk, rock, punk, disco, hip hop, tejano, and more -- to understand its power and limits as both a force for social change and a window into major themes of the American experience.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30493 American Adventurism in the Muslim World (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines US engagement in hotspots across the Muslim world before and after 9/11. In particular focus are nations in South Asia and the Middle East: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. We will also look at US relations with important Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as policies toward Israel-Palestine and the Bosnian War in Europe. US engagement abroad takes many forms, including public diplomacy, trade, sanctions, alliances, covert operations, financial and military aid, and direct military intervention. What are the drivers of American decision-making in the region? Why is there so much anti-American sentiment in Muslim societies? Does peace depend on a critical reassessment of US foreign policy or the reform of a radical Islamist theology? Do certain interpretations of religion make conflict inevitable, or is it possible to attain reasonable outcomes even when dealing with extremists? Through a blend of history, investigative journalism, case studies, opinion polls, literature, and film, this course broadens our perspectives on some of America's longest wars in the Muslim world.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30506 The Northern Ireland "Troubles," 1920 to the present (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the history of the six north-eastern counties of Ireland which became "Northern Ireland" in 1920/1. Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom and had a built-in Protestant unionist majority, while the Catholic minority, alienated from the state from the outset, looked across the new border and to Dublin, capital of the Irish Free State, as the site of their allegiance. Northern Ireland was thus, from the beginning, dysfunctional, scarred by sectarian violence and systematic discrimination in housing and employment. After examining the origins of the state and the early decades of it existence, the class will turn to its main concern, "the troubles," which broke out in the late 1960s. The major episodes under scrutiny include the civil rights movement, Bloody Sunday, the hunger strikes, and the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30521 Global Africa (3 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to the history of the peoples of Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present day. During the term, we will consider the ways in which Africans shaped and were shaped by the transformative events of the period. In the second half of the nineteenth century, European powers conquered and colonized much of the continent. Over the next sixty years, Africans lived and died under the yoke of European rule; some resisted, others collaborated, but all influenced the nature of colonialism and its eventual collapse. By the 1960s, most Africans were free of foreign rule. Since then the peoples of Africa have endeavored to achieve political stability, navigate Cold War politics, harness development aid, and adapt to a globalizing economy. In recent years, they have succumbed to brutal wars and endured devastating famines, but they have also inspired the world with their triumph over apartheid, emerging vibrant democracies, rich cultures, and deep history. In this class, we will identify, problematize, and debate these major themes in Modern African history. We also will make use of a variety of texts, from historical documents to classic academic works to works of African art, film, and fiction.
Corequisites: HIST 22191
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30548 Genocide in the Modern World (3 Credit Hours)
This course investigates modern genocide. We will consider several cases: Armenia, the Jewish Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, and possibly Darfur and/or Gaza, and examine the conditions that lead to genocidal violence. We will also examine the uses of humanitarian interventions, trials, and strategies of societal reconciliation, and relevant conceptions of justice, guilt, forgiveness and moral responsibility.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30554 Human Rights and Human Wrongs (3 Credit Hours)
This course will examine theories of human rights and their applications and implications for international politics.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30561 International Criminal Justice (3 Credit Hours)
This course critically examines the phenomena of international judicial intervention and ‘criminalization of world politics'; the actors, ideas, and rationales behind the international criminal justice project; the operation of international criminal justice in a world of power politics; its accomplishments, failures, and financial costs; and the future of international criminal justice. The course includes Skype conferences with a war crimes investigator, a war crimes analyst, a defense counsel, a victim representative, a State Department official, and a staff member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30564 Contemporary Civil Wars (3 Credit Hours)
Most current wars are civil wars, and these are longer and more violent than other forms of conflict. This course explores the politics of contemporary civil war. It examines the logic of rebel strategy, key trends in violence, and transnational dynamics including trafficking, terrorism, and international intervention. It takes a multi-scale approach to probe the roles of armed groups, civilians, national militaries, humanitarian organizations, and United Nations peace operations. It examines how the interaction among these actors reshapes the strategies, local economies, and duration of war. Students will compare the voices and experiences of civilians and rebels in warzones with intervention and conflict mitigation at the global level, and will examine implications for post-conflict transitions and conflict mitigation strategies. Students will build skills in conflict analysis, evidence, and assess gaps between public narratives of civil war and clandestine actions.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30571 Elections and Social Protest in Latin America (3 Credit Hours)
Elections and social protest are the two most important means of political participation in Latin America today. Every year, millions of Latin Americans go to the ballot box to elect their representatives, but millions also march to their country's capitals to oust elected politicians or simply to demand public goods or policy changes. Are Latin American citizens taking to the streets to contest market-oriented reforms, as it is often portrayed? Or do they take to the streets because elections don't work in Latin America's dysfunctional democracies? Are Latin American voters electing leftist politicians to move the economies away from neoliberal policies? Do the rich vote for the Right and the poor for the Left? In this course we want to understand who votes, who protests, and why they do it. We also want to understand the relationship between elections and protest. The course first provides a general overview of democratization, economic reforms, electoral behavior and social protest in Latin America. We then analyze electoral and social dynamics in six countries: Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Guatemala. The in-depth analysis of these countries will provide you with a solid understanding of markets, democracies, voters and protesters in Latin America and will give you skills on how to assess public opinion surveys.
IIPS 30572 Rise and Fall of Dictatorships and Democracies (3 Credit Hours)
Winston Churchill famously said in a speech in the House of Commons in 1947, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." For generations, social scientists have studied what makes democracy emerge and then survive or break down. And because some dictatorships have huge consequences for their own populations and the world, social scientists have also devoted considerable attention to analyzing the emergence, survival, and breakdown of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. This course will examine these issues. The first part of the course will examine different theoretical approaches to understanding why democracies and dictatorships emerge and then survive or fall. The second and longer part will focus on the emergence, survival, and fall of democracies and dictatorships in Europe and Latin America, mostly in the 20th century.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30580 Our Global Environment: History and the Anthropocene (3 Credit Hours)
No one under 30 has ever lived through a month of global temperatures below the 20th-century average." Why bother with history if the future, because of climate change, will be nothing like the past? That's the central question of this course. Scientists now tell us that the relatively benign epoch of human flourishing designed the "Holocene" is over. The change is so great and so rapid that some scientists have even proposed a new epoch called the "Anthropocene" to designate this irreversible rupture with the previous 11,700 year when human beings first discovered agriculture, created cities, and developed writing systems?when most of what historians have called "history" occurred. To confront this dilemma, this course asks three questions: (1) What is the "Anthropocene" and what are scientists telling us about this epoch which began by most accounts in the mid-twentieth century with the Great Acceleration in economic activities and population growth? (2) What does history show us about how we arrived at this crisis? Historians have long been interested in political and economic questions about power, state structures, democracy, and development, but have they sufficiently considered the relationship between their own stories of modernity and the dilemmas we now face? (3) Were there political and economic formations in the past more conducive to environmentally sustainable communities and can historians now help by uncovering them? The readings combine scientific debates over the "Anthropocene" with historians' work on sustainable communities from Victorian England and early modern Japan. We end by reading the famous novelist and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30581 Classical Islamic Political Thought (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the development of political thought in classical Islam (7th-14th centuries). The course runs in two parallel tracks. The first track introduces students to Islamic history and culture. Here, students will present themes that will set the background for the second track. Each class starts with student presentations on the major dynasties that ruled different parts of the Muslim world at different times with an emphasis on politically contested issues and culturally relevant debates. The second track considers the different schools of political thought: the philosophical, the juristic, and the humanist. Here, the emphasis is on textual analysis. In the second part of each class, we turn to the works of Al- Farabi, Al-Mawardi, and Ibn Khaldun and we study them within the context set by student presentations. Throughout, we consider how their work dealt with issues of political stability and conflict and we examine, within a comparative framework, their relevance for today's concerns.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30582 Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War (3 Credit Hours)
This course asks how we should narrate and understand the great ordeal of Civil War and emancipation. Reading both primary and secondary sources, it considers the Civil War era and life of Abraham Lincoln in light of the rise of abolition and antislavery politics; attitudes toward race, slavery, and labor; the political and social meanings of war and emancipation; the political and social challenge of reconstructing the nation amidst the tangled legacies of racial slavery and a destructive war.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30603 War, Peace and the Catholic Imagination (3 Credit Hours)
The Catholic Church boasts a rich tradition of reflection and action on war and peace. This course introduces students to the most well-known and well-developed part of that tradition: just war and pacifism. But it goes further and considers the relationship between the just war-pacifism strands of the tradition and the development of a theology, ethics and praxis of peacebuilding - i.e., the Church's approach to conflict prevention, conflict transformation and post-conflict reconciliation. In considering these topics, the course will emphasize (1) the "living" nature of the tradition, the link between theory and practice, principles and policy; and (2) the importance of grounding ethics and action on war and peace in an understanding of Christian vocation. Drawing on my seventeen years as a senior official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and my current role as coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, the course will examine these broad topics in light of specific cases and issues, including the Iraq interventions, humanitarian intervention, nuclear disarmament, the landmines campaign, the role of the UN, conscientious objection, the Church's role in Track Two diplomacy and truth and reconciliation processes, and other issues. Students will have an opportunity to engage directly with Catholic leaders who are working on these issues. This course will also afford students the opportunity, primarily through a research paper, to contribute to the Catholic Peacebuilding
Network's (cpn.nd.edu) work in the Philippines, Colombia, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and South Sudan. Other course assignments will help students develop their written and oral skills in applied ethics through policy memos, opinion pieces (or blogs), homilies, and video-taped media interviews. There will be no in-class exams.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30730 Screening 'The Irish Troubles' (3 Credit Hours)
This course will look at how political conflict in Ireland from the 1916 Rebellion and the War of Independence up to and including what became known as "The Troubles" in the North of Ireland has been represented on the screen. Students will analyse a wide variety of cinematic texts, mainstream commercial Hollywood features as well as independent Irish and British films. Documentary film will also be analyzed. Certain seminal events such as Bloody Sunday and the 1981 Hunger Strikes which have a diverse representational history on screen will be given particular attention. Among the films discussed will be <i>Mise Eire, Saoirse</i>, <i>Michael Collins</i>, <i>The Wind that Shakes the Barley</i>, <i>Some Mother's Son</i>, <i>In the Name of the Father</i>, and <i>Bloody Sunday</i>.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30736 Memory, History and Violence in the Middle East (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the interplay between history, memory and violence in the modern the Middle East. We will discuss specific case studies of violence and war and their social, political and cultural dynamics of commemoration, forgetfulness and silence. The course will start with an overview of theories and concepts emanated from the field of Memory Studies and then continue with our case studies. These will include the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), the 1948 war that led to the establishment of Israel and Palestinian displacement, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the violent regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Armenian genocide during World War I and the Algerian war of independence (1955-1962).
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30803 How to Change the World: The Strategies and Tactics of Nonviolent Action (3 Credit Hours)
This course teaches the fundamentals of effective organizing for peace and social justice. Students will become familiar with theories of nonviolent change and the methods of social action. Topics of focus include the principles of strategy, the use of media communications and coalition building. The course will examine lessons from previous peace movements for addressing the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine today. It will look at the relationship between social movements and institutional politics with reference to the November 2024 elections. Relevant historical and contemporary examples will be reviewed, including the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March and the climate change movement. Course work consists of readings, lectures, videos, guest speakers and class discussion on the identified topics. Students will participate in class activities and team learning exercises.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30806 Children, Youth and Violence (3 Credit Hours)
In this course, we will examine the particular social, cultural, and political positions occupied by children and youth in contexts of violence, and the practices in which they engage to survive. Children have inhabited a position in popular imagination as unmitigated victims of violence—as the refugees, the slaves, the kidnapped child soldiers—while youth have contrarily been portrayed as the willing perpetrators of violence: its rebels, gang members, and rioters. In this course we will investigate notions of child and youth autonomy, gendering, socialization, liminality and resistance through case studies ranging from the streets of Pakistan to the juvenile prisons of the US and the rebel camps of Sierra Leone.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30807 Psychology of Peace (3 Credit Hours)
This course will provide an overview of the growing field of peace psychology, which seeks to apply psychological theory in order to better understand violence, its causes, its effects on human development, and the ways in which psychology intersects with peacebuilding processes. Within each of these domains, we will discuss multiple levels of understanding (e.g., interpersonal, community, structural) and will draw direct connections to conflict-affected settings through the use of case studies, film, and group activities.
IIPS 30809 Gender at Work in U.S. History (3 Credit Hours)
Gender has been fundamental to the organization of nearly all human societies, but what gender has meant in terms of identity, opportunity, and economic activity has varied widely across time and space. This course will explore gender at work in US history, taking a chronological approach to show gender's evolution and ongoing intersections with class, race, age, religion, region, and sexuality from 1776 to the near present. The term "gender at work" expresses a double meaning here -- first, it connotes that this is a labor history course, with an emphasis on the ways gender has operated at the workplace; second, it suggests the ubiquity of gender in shaping Americans' lives, experiences, and imaginations not only at the workplace, but also in formal politics, informal communities, and every space in between. By exploring the ways gender has been both omnipresent and contingent throughout US history, students should better understand -- and perhaps act upon -- seemingly intractable contemporary conundrums involving questions of equal opportunity and pay, household division of labor, work-life balance, and the proper relationships among employers, workers, households, and government.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30902 Social Movements (3 Credit Hours)
This course provides you with tools needed to engage in research on social movements and collective action. An important component of the course involves becoming familiar with core theoretical insights in the field. However, we will also devote time and energy to developing your own research projects and developing additional research questions that could form the basis of future research projects. We begin by considering micro-level foundations of collective action. We will move on to study the emergence of social movement activism. Importantly, we also consider questions about how, and if, social movements matter in bringing about social change (e.g., either intentional or unintended consequences of activism).
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30918 U.S. Environmental History (3 Credit Hours)
This class considers the environment's role in shaping history. We will discover how our stories of the past change when we include microbes, pigs, and the climate, alongside of more typical subjects like presidents, wars, and ideas. We will ask what nature has meant in the past to a range of people, from the Comanche on the Great Plains, to settler-farmers in New England, to coal miners in Colorado. Throughout the course we will also ask the question: What is nature? And how have ideas about nature changed over time? A premise of this course is that nature is not something "out there," but in fact is everywhere. Thus, we will explore a robust set of thematic topics that will illumine the the varied meanings of "nature": the ways it is constructed, how ideas about it have changed over time, how it surrounds us, nourishes us, has been used to justify violence and racism, how it impedes on our lives.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
IIPS 30922 Labor in America since 1945 (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the relationships among and between workers, employers, government policymakers, unions, and social movements since the end of World War II, as well as the ways in which those relationships have shaped and been shaped by American politics and culture more broadly. The United States emerged from the Second World War as the globe's unequaled economic and political power, and its citizens parlayed that preeminence into a long postwar economic boom that created, however imperfectly, the first truly mass middle-class society in world history. At the heart of that new society was the American labor movement, whose leaders and members ensured that at least some of the heady postwar profits made it into the wallets of workers and their families - and not just the wallets of union members, as working Americans generally experienced great improvement in wages, benefits, and economic opportunity during the quarter-century ending in 1970. During those same years, civil rights activists challenged the historic workplace discrimination that kept African Americans at the bottom of the labor market, confronting the racism of employers, unions, and the government, and inspiring others, primarily Mexican-Americans and women, to broaden the push for equality at the workplace. Since that time, however, Americans have experienced a transformation in the workplace -- an erosion of manufacturing and the massive growth of service and government work; a rapid decline in number of union members and power of organized labor; and unresolved conflicts over affirmative action to redress centuries of racial and gender discrimination. Meanwhile, income inequality and wealth disparities have grown every year over the past three decades. What accounts for the decline of organized labor since 1970, and why have the people of the mythic land of milk and honey experienced declining upward mobility and widening gaps between the rich and everyone else? Are these phenomena linked? What has the decline of the labor movement meant for workers specifically, and the American economy and politics more broadly? How and why have popular perceptions of unions changed over time? What has been the relationship of organized labor to the civil rights movement, feminism, modern conservatism, and the fortunes of individual freedom more broadly? What is globalization, and what has been its impact upon American workers? Through an exploration of historical scholarship, memoirs, polemical writings, and films, this course will try to answer these questions and many others. It will also address the prospects for working people and labor unions in the twenty-first century. This course satisfies the university history requirement and is open to all students; no previous knowledge of the topic is required.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
IIPS 30924 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation (3 Credit Hours)
Social Entrepreneurship has sparked dialogue and debate for two decades. Its very definition is much debated, as well as its capacity to create sustainable, scalable, systems-changing impact. This course explores the theoretical concepts, practices and strategies associated with the dynamic discipline of social enterprise and innovation. For our purposes, social entrepreneurship is the landscape, of which paradigm-shifting solutions like microfinance, MSME (Micro-Small-Medium Enterprise) development, bottom of the pyramid, fair trade, impact investing, and the like, are components. This course will study many of these concepts, focusing on their opportunity for social impact, and as a vehicle for wealth creation in vulnerable and disenfranchised communities across the globe. Further, the course covers examples of various social enterprise models (for-profit, non-profit, hybrid), requiring students to analyze and devise strategies to improve the efficacy of these ventures. Finally, the course engages students in research seeking to advance the field of social entrepreneurship at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Notre Dame.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30925 Race & Ethnicity in the United States: Social Constructs with Real World Consequences (3 Credit Hours)
We are living through a watershed moment in United States history. Structural racism is at the forefront of the national discourse. Yet, the threat that racism holds on our nation's most cherished ideals of democracy and justice is hardly new. Generations of activists, scholars, and everyday people have fought and persevered to bring about social, cultural, and policy change.
This course engages deeply with topics relevant to the national discourse on racial and ethnic relations in the U.S. The first part of the course examines key concepts, focusing on the social construction of race and ethnicity, prejudice, and discrimination. The second part reviews the historical experiences of Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans. The third and final part of the course centers on four critical issues that are especially relevant in 2020: (1) immigration; (2) political disenfranchisement; (3) racial and ethnic disparities in health; and (4) racism in the criminal justice system.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30927 Global Migrations (3 Credit Hours)
How do people in immigrant-receiving countries shape their attitudes toward immigrants? What are the differences between refugees and other migrants? How is immigration related to urban "immigrant riots"? And what can anthropological studies of borders and national policies tell us about the transnational world in which we live? We will examine these and related questions, and more generally the causes, lived experiences, and consequences of migration. We will acquire a sound understanding of migration in its social, political, legal, and cultural facets. Fieldwork accounts from countries of origin and from the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan will enable us to appreciate both global and US distinctive trends. Rather than merely learning a collection of facts about immigrants, we will address how migration intersects with gender and class; the mass-media; border enforcement; racism; the economy; territory and identity formation, and religion.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30938 Global Activism (3 Credit Hours)
This course is about transnational networking, mobilizing, and campaigning for or against social change. Equal attention is paid to conceptual and substantive issues. Conceptual issues include framing, strategies, and actors. Among the substantive issues examined are human rights, women's rights, gay rights and gay marriage, climate change, and global gun control. We are particularly interested in the emergence over the last two decades of a ‘global right wing' and the globalization of the culture wars.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 30945 American Conspiracies (3 Credit Hours)
This course will explore modern conspiracy theories in and about the United States, discovering what they tell us about American culture and about how the rest of the world perceives the United States. The "truth" we will be seeking will not necessarily be whether secret forces have ever conspired or currently conspire to influence specific world events, but what conspiracy theorizing can tell us about modern American identities, communities, and social hierarchies including race, gender, class, religion, and national origin. In other words, we will take theories of conspiracy seriously as vernacular narratives that contribute to collective and individual identity formation, produce powerful symbolic systems for ordering and inverting hierarchies, and help communities negotiate religious, political, and ethnic differences. Beginning with the Cold War and moving on to the War on Terror, we will discuss why some theories gain preeminence in certain historical contexts and among different social groups. The course will have a transnational bend, studying how theories of conspiracy travel across national boundaries. In addition, we will interrogate the role the label "conspiracy theory" plays within contemporary dynamics of knowledge/power. What types of knowledge are respected and acceptable and what types are stigmatized and mocked, and why? Assignments include in-class presentations, a take-home midterm, and a research-based final paper.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 33100 Peace Praxis Seminar (1 Credit Hour)
This 1.0 credit course offers students the opportunity to practice applying their knowledge to a specific issue that impacts peace. The topics, formats, and instructors will vary by semester, but may include simulations, case studies, policy exercises, or other pedagogical approaches to support students in developing a rich, reflexive understanding of the relationship between peace studies theory and practice.
Course may be repeated.
IIPS 33101 Perspectives on Peacebuilding (3 Credit Hours)
This junior seminar is a required course for the supplementary major and minor in peace studies. The course focuses on strategic peacebuilding, an analytical framework for investigating the causes and dynamics of conflict, conflict resolution and transformation, and post-conflict reconstruction and justice. This seminar seeks to: (1) deepen student knowledge of foundational concepts and questions in peace studies; (2) introduce students to a variety of methodological approaches common in peace studies research; and (3) explore the relation between ethical, empirical and practical approaches in the field. The course provides students with the tools necessary to carry out their later research in the peace studies senior seminar and encourages a deeper understanding of how their own research interests connect to peace studies. This course is open to peace studies majors and minors only.
Prerequisites: IIPS 20101
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 33204 Contemporary Issues in Race and US Law (3 Credit Hours)
What do terms like “structural,” “systemic,” or “institutional” racism mean? What are the structures, systems, and institutions that historically have contributed, and continue to contribute, to racial injustice in the United States? Most importantly, how can understanding these concepts help us dismantle the barriers to racial justice in America? This course will focus on the ways that the law and the legal system in the United States has been a tool to create and sustain racial inequity, as well as the reforms, both historic and ongoing, to redress them. Course materials will include cases and commentary. Together, we will examine legal structures in the areas of housing, education, banking and finance, voting, employment discrimination, criminal law, and environmental justice, among others. The course will draw from the Klau Institute’s archives in its five-year long Building and Anti-Racist Vocabulary lecture series featuring authors, public intellectuals, faith leaders, and external and internal members of the academy. Throughout the course of the semester, students will compose a variety of short papers, lead classroom discussions, and complete a final project incorporating independent research on related topics.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 33205 Diversity Dialogues: Conversations about Race (1 Credit Hour)
How does racism impact society and our everyday lives? Why is it important that we consider issues of race, identity and ethnicity as we address needs within our local communities? How can we have a productive conversation about race that includes diverse constituencies? Using an intersectional framework informed by weekly readings, this course is designed to create space for students interested in dialoguing on the issues of race and ethnicity. The Diversity Dialogues employs the "study circle" to conduct a series of conversations dealing with questions of race and identity as well as ways that participants might bring change to their local setting. Respect for each other's ideas and allowing everyone a fair hearing are hallmarks of the study circle approach; the process of building relationships between members of the group is as important as the issues discussed. The study circle is small-group democracy in action; all viewpoints are taken seriously, and each member has an equal opportunity to participate. By the end of the course students will have gained a better understanding of challenges in overcoming racism in contemporary society and have a new set of tools to engage in difficult conversations on race, identity and power dynamics.
IIPS 33703 Everyday Justice (3 Credit Hours)
The course will adopt a broad anthropological perspective to introduce students to the cultural and utilitarian contexts of justice that speak to the everyday experience – urging students to rethink issues of education, health, housing, wage, economy, communication, environment, and spirituality, including the issue of justice itself. We will read some classic and contemporary works on justice that may have (or have not) garnered attention in a world emerging from a pandemic. By the end of the course, students will learn how to use the framework of ‘just-ness’ in things they do on the campus, at home, offices, marketplaces, and inside other social and civil arenas – and unpack their drivers as budding scholars in the humanistic social sciences.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 33905 Rethinking Crime and Justice: Explorations from the Inside Out (3 Credit Hours)
This course includes attention to some of the issues behind the current call for criminal justice reform, including mass incarceration, racial disproportionality, and reentry challenges. Yet the focus of the course is on deeper concerns, including why criminal justice systems rely on punishment, what else they could be accomplishing, and what responsibility we have as citizens for the justice systems operating in our names. As part of the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course involves inside students (men who are incarcerated at the Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, IN) and outside students (people enrolled at Notre Dame, St. Marys, or Holy Cross) learning with and from each other and breaking new ground together. Most weeks of the semester, campus students travel to Westville for class with the incarcerated students; all are responsible for the same reading and writing assignments, and participate together in class activities and discussions. Together the two groups examine myths and realities related to crime and to punishment, explore the effects of current criminal justice policies, and develop ideas for responding more effectively to crime in our communities. Apply online via the Institute for Social Concerns website: https://socialconcerns.nd.edu.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 34100 Religion, Peace, and Development in Africa (3 Credit Hours)
One of the factors that strike many about the African continent generally is the role that religion seems to play in all spheres of life. Africa thus remains a religiously diverse and dynamic continent, where not only Catholicism, but also Christianity in general, Islam, and African indigenous traditions are at home. While this is the case, on the political and economic front, things do not seem to be so positive. Political instability, civil wars, poverty, and increasingly ecological degradation are ever growing challenges. How do we understand and account for this apparent contradiction between a culturally and religiously rich continent and an economically and politically distressed continent? What role does religion—Christianity in particular—play in development? Religion, Peace and Development engages these and similar questions through a three-week immersive cultural, international, and educational experience in Uganda. The overall objectives of the course are to: 1) enable students to learn about Uganda's cultural, religious and political history as an introduction to the broader trends that shape history in sub-Saharan Africa; 2) offer students an immersive experience into the natural, cultural and social dimensions of African life; and 3) provide students with an opportunity for community engagement as a way to deepen their understanding of the challenges and possibilities of peace and development in rural Uganda.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKIN - Core Integration
IIPS 34101 Catholic Approaches to War and Peace: The View from Rome (3 Credit Hours)
The Catholic Church boasts a rich tradition of reflection and action on war and peace. This course introduces students to Catholic teaching on war and peace and how it applies to a range of pressing international issues. It introduces students to the most well-known and well-developed part of the tradition: just war and pacifism (or principled nonviolence). But it goes further and considers how the just war-pacifism debate must be considered in the wider context of a theology, ethics and praxis of peacebuilding - i.e., the Church's approach to conflict prevention, conflict transformation, and post-conflict reconciliation. While lived Catholic peacebuilding is most evident in the midst of conflicts from Colombia and Congo to South Sudan and Ukraine, Rome offers a global perspective on the Church's teaching and action related to peace. This course introduces students to the peacebuilding role of the Holy See/Vatican - the source of official Church teaching, a respected diplomatic actor on a wide range of justice and peace issues, and a catalyst for a proliferation of Catholic peacebuilding activities around the world. It also introduces students to the peacebuilding work of other key Catholic actors, such as Caritas Internationalis, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Focolare Movement, and religious orders.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines
IIPS 34102 RIS Independent Research in Peace Studies (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers students in the Rome International Scholars program the opportunity to conduct independent research on a peace studies topic during their semester in Rome. The project must be supervised by a faculty member at the Kroc Institute and students must also participate in a required discussion forum led by faculty at the Rome Global Gateway. In order to receive credit, students must submit a formal research proposal during the semester prior to participation, for review by the program director.
IIPS 34300 Social Movements and the Politics of Change (3 Credit Hours)
Social movements play a central role in defining the form and function of political institutions, and why and how they change. From nationalist movements in Latin America, Asia, and Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries to the movements of the 1960s, where people organised in support of civil rights, gay rights, feminism, peace, and the environment, social movements have played a fundamental role in shaping the architecture of political institutions. More recently, new technologies have furthered cross-border organisation and intensified the global context of extra-institutional politics. This unit examines how and why people participate in politics through social movements, and the complex relationship between rulemaking and rulebreaking. Covering a range of movements from Sovereign Citizens to Extinction Rebellion, the unit enables students to develop a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of social movements and their actions; the drivers of their formation and methods of organisation; movements' relationships with states, institutions and markets; and their impacts.
IIPS 34403 Post-Genocide Restoration and Peacebuilding (3 Credit Hours)
The Post-Genocide Restoration and Peacebuilding course is designed to provide students with in-depth and multidisciplinary approaches to post-genocide restoration and rebuilding in the areas of peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and economic development. The course explores institutional processes of memory preservation, transitional justice, and post-genocide aesthetic representation, in addition to an analysis of Rwanda's expanding economic development efforts. The course provides a comparative approach to the post-conflict situation in the Great Lakes region, including an excursion to northern Uganda that enables a comparison of post-conflict transformation in the Acholi community. The lecturers include leading Rwandan academics and professionals working in the areas of justice and development.
IIPS 34409 Migration and Transnational Identity (3 Credit Hours)
The Migration and Transnational Identity seminar provides the main context for students to engage academically, epistemologically, and intellectually with the theme of migration. Students utilize a multi‐level and multi‐disciplinary approach that considers core issues about the local and global cultural politics, development policies, and their implications on national economies, local communities, and human rights in the context of transnational mobility. The seminar facilitates the student's development of a critical perception capable of assimilating the reality about the interconnectedness and trans‐nationalization not only of problems, but more importantly, of viable alternatives. The Migration and Transnational Identity seminar is divided into modules which explore Mediterranean migration, refugees and human rights, gender and migration, development and transnational identity, and transnational Islam. The seminar balances guest lectures by local experts, class discussions, and field visits. Some of the sessions take place during program excursion to the Netherlands.
IIPS 34410 International Law and Holocaust (3 Credit Hours)
A big part of contemporary international law has a direct connection to the Holocaust. This course examines the evolution of international law from World War II on with a particular focus on genocide, and crimes against humanity. Students will learn, examine, and evaluate modern theories of international law and political science. Which theory best explains the evolution of international law? Are post WWII theories better able to redefine pre-existing ideas about human behavior in times of conflict? We will examine how the Holocaust and World War II have shaped the need for interstate peace, and how these events became major catalysts for modern international justice. We will also consider the meaning of international justice (empirical and via theoretical lenses), its execution on the international arena, and the way that this concept has evolved in the post-war period. This seminar embraces an interdisciplinary approach to teaching: we will study international law through visiting historical landmarks in Poland (Auschwitz concentration camp, Stutthof Museum and Archives, Museum of Polish Jews, the Warsaw Rising Museum, Museum of the Second World War, Westerplatte, Solidarity Museum), focusing on international law/political science theories, in-depth interviews, participants observations, documentary films, and meetings with Polish policymakers.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
IIPS 34412 Human Rights and Social Movements in a Multicultural Context (3 Credit Hours)
This seminar aims to introduce students to the major current debates on the questions of human rights and social movements in the Moroccan hybrid political context. In the aftermath of the February 20, 2011 movement (the Moroccan version of the Arab Spring; since commonly known as the February 20 Movement), Morocco has witnessed many social protest movements across the country. These movements opened the door for a fundamental rethinking of the prevalent paradigms used to understand Moroccan political social dynamics. Students look at movements in terms of large-scale, dramatic events, while also paying close attention to the social infrastructure and actions of ordinary people that sustain movements on a daily basis. Using a perspective of "human rights practice" the focus is on analyzing how groups and organizations operationalize human rights, and view human rights through action rather than simply as legal norms. The seminar engages Moroccan academics, artists, civil society activists, policy makers and students in debates on the development of a multicultural society in a political hybrid regime.
IIPS 34417 The Ethics of War (2.5,5 Credit Hours)
This course will discuss a classical issue for international relations and political theory: the ethics of war. It will exemplify the role of norms in warfare and discuss the major dilemmas that armies, politicians, and civilians are facing in throughout history, with a specific focus on contemporary challenges. This class' approach is mainly interdisciplinary, drawing insights from moral and political philosophy, international law and international relations. By analyzing case studies, we will address the legitimacy of resorting to war, we will discuss legally and morally the coherence of certain rationales and principles aiming at justifying the use of force, and finally we will explore future challenges of the field (cyberwar, artificial intelligence). Ultimately, the course aims at providing the students with concepts and references they can deploy to build their own argument on justice and war.
IIPS 34418 War, Peace and Conflict Resolution (3 Credit Hours)
The course is divided into five major sections designed to accompany students to the major phases of armed conflicts. During each section, the student will be introduced to the major scholars, practitioners, ideas and theoretical works which have attempted to respond to them. The first section begins with an introduction to the various approaches to war and peace in the political science tradition and defines various ways of both understanding and measuring political conflict and peace. The second section considers why wars begin and whether global politics offers any suggestions to preventing armed conflicts. The third section explores why wars last, and what factors, including religious, ethnic, institutional and economic vulnerabilities, impact the length and intensity of wars. The fourth section asks what practitioners and political scientists can teach us about ending wars, including through the use of force, negotiation, education, consciousness-raising, international institutions, non-governmental and religious groups, exhaustion and peace-enforcing. The final section explores strategies to recreate peace, including truth and reconciliation processes, war tribunals and post-conflict reconstruction.
IIPS 34419 THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND REALITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST (3 Credit Hours)
This upper-level seminar represents an attempt to combine general theories and concepts of international relations with the empirical reality (or realities) of the contemporary Middle East in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular. The course is divided into three main sections. In the first section, we will discuss general theories and concepts of international relations, alternating each general discussion with a specific implementation and discussion about the Middle East. The relevant theories and concepts will be power and alliances (Realism); interdependence, globalization, transnational actors and integration (Liberalism); international law and sovereignty (the Grotian approach), and norms and identity (Constructivism). In the second section, we will focus on theories and concepts related to war and peace. Finally, in the third section students will present their term papers.
IIPS 34420 Racism & Indigenous Australia (4 Credit Hours)
In this unit, students critically exam race and racism and their impacts on Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Students consider theories of structural and cultural violence; how racism is linked to poverty, justice, and human rights; critical whiteness theory; and race representation. With an emphasis on Indigenous Australia, students gain an understanding of visible and invisible racism and skills for unmasking racism in a process of constructive individual and social change.
IIPS 34421 Negotiating Middle East Peace (3 Credit Hours)
This reading seminar focuses upon the topic of negotiations and conflict resolution in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1977 to the present. The course is divided into three parts. First, we will present the general theoretical framework for explaining and understanding negotiations in international relations. In addition, we will refer in general terms to the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the main issues and patterns of negotiations. Second, we will address several case studies of successes and failures of negotiations between Israel and its several Arab neighbors, including Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians. In this context, we will attempt to understand the failure of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Finally, in the last part of the course, we will play a simulation and students will present their papers.
IIPS 34422 Overview of South African History (3 Credit Hours)
This course is specifically designed to help international exchange students gain sufficient general knowledge of South Africa's history to better understand the many nuances of this complex country. We apply a broad historical lens - spanning more than 100,000 years - to South Africa's past, covering early humans, the indigenous San and Khoi people, and other complex pre-colonial societies. We also apply a critical lens to the colonial era, including a 'history from below' examination of the Cape's slave history and the socio-economic impact of the mineral revolution in the 19th century. The second term examines the root causes of one of the most infamous parts of South Africa's history: apartheid. We explore the development of Afrikaner nationalism from social, economic, and political perspectives, as well as the philosophies and strategies of the anti-apartheid struggle, including African nationalism, the Black Consciousness Movement, unionism, and both passive and armed resistance. The course concludes with a critical look at the democratic transition and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, complemented by a field trip to the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation in Cape Town. We will also address key themes of the post-apartheid era, such as AIDS, #FeesMustFall, state capture, decolonization, and more. Classes are interactive, and students are encouraged to participate in debates on fundamental issues of race, class, economics, and social justice, sharing their experiences from their home countries with the class.
IIPS 34423 Modern Chinese History (3 Credit Hours)
The first half of this course will survey chronologically the various eras of modern Chinese history, ranging from the late-Qing to Xi Jinping era. The second half will build on the first half by focusing on the historical developments that have taken place in modern China in the areas of economic development; historical and dialectical materialism; crime and capital punishment; women, gender and sexuality; health and environment; international relations; and non-mainstream perspectives. Many questions will be raised in class discussion, such as: ''What were the major causes of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty?'', ''What was the May 4thMovement and how did it shape modern Chinese?'', ''What were the social and political forces that culminated in civil war?'', ''What was the nature and significance of China's nascent 20th century nationalism?'', ''What are the major political movement in modern China and how did they shape the contemporary Chinese history?'', and ''Despite all the changes in China over the last century, how does the past continue to influence the present?''
IIPS 34424 China's International Relations (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers a survey of China relations with the world in the modern age. It examines how China's relations with other countries changed since the sixteenth century until the present day, focusing on political, economic, military, educational and cultural exchanges between the Chinese and other peoples. Based on abundant facts, it will reveal how China's foreign policies are largely made by domestic politics. In addition to government-to-government relations, we will also discuss how the lives of common people can be influenced by diplomatic changes. Students are encouraged to challenge existing Western and Chinese views on different issues related to foreign policy and international relations, and to learn to analyze critically how the differences in interpretations and perspectives are likely to reflect China's behavior and policies towards other nations.
IIPS 34425 Poverty, Welfare, and Justice (3 Credit Hours)
Underpinned by the idea of the right to a `basic minimum¿, welfare states are a major feature of many societies. Ostensibly a major role of the welfare state is to ensure redistributive justice, alleviate poverty and de-commodify basic needs from reliance on the labour market. Yet poverty as a global and local phenomenon persists. Over the course of this module, and focusing on both Irish and international examples, students will explore the concepts of poverty, welfare and justice and examine how they are related. The module begins with a focus on poverty, taking in histories, definitions, international comparisons and lived experiences. From here the focus shifts to welfare states as response to poverty by focusing on historical welfare state development, comparing welfare state models and exploring how welfare recipients experience the welfare state. The final part of the module will explore the concept of justice, focusing on the concept redistributive justice in-particular while also examining the role of welfare states in promoting environmental and ecological justice.
IIPS 34513 Comparative Conflict Regulation: Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland. (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces to the devices used to regulate ethno-national conflicts by examining two of the most prominent examples: Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. It provides students with an understanding of the tools available to groups, states, and policy makers to both wage and manage such conflict. Following a thorough introduction to the twin concepts of nationalism and ethnicity, the course analyses these divided societies in three main thematic blocks: partition, hegemonic control, and power-sharing /negotiated settlements.
The goals of the course are to introduce students to the discipline's main themes, terms and theoretical debates, thereby providing thorough foundation knowledge, to introduce students to the respective history and main issues of the Northern Irish and Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to enhance students' understanding of the field by linking theory to detailed empirical case studies
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
IIPS 34517 Democracy, Human Rights, and International Humanitarian Law (3 Credit Hours)
Taught at a host institution. This course addresses issues related to democracy and fundamental freedoms. It deals with contemporary scholarship on democracy, and its variations, causes of transitions to democracy and sources of democratic stability. The relations between democracy and other values such as equality, efficiency, justice, freedom of thought including freedom of worship, freedom of expression, freedom of association and at the same time, the right to security, the protection of individuals and their property, the right of peoples to self-determination, prohibition of the use of force to dominate a nation will be discussed. In addition the course will focus on the Arab experience and the demands for democracy and human rights.
IIPS 34904 Approaches to Poverty and Development (3 Credit Hours)
Seminar format: Study of meaning and significance of poverty in Latin America from theological and social science perspective. Mandatory 2 credit field work component
IIPS 34912 Social Justice Movements (3 Credit Hours)
SSJ 20050 Social Justice Movements at UCD; Across the globe, people stand together in struggles to create a better world. Social justice movements refer to forms of collective action that seek to challenge oppression and transform society. The overall objective of this module is to provide students with a theoretically-informed understanding of these movements. The module uses a case study approach, applying various theoretical perspectives to illuminate attempts to achieve social change. Some of the social movements covered include anti-capitalist, feminist, civil rights, sexual identity and disabled people's movements. On completion of the module, students should: 1. Have developed a theoretically-informed and conceptually grounded understanding of social justice movements and be able to demonstrate knowledge of the current academic debates in the field. 2. Be able to apply their knowledge and understanding to develop arguments and critical perspectives on the dynamics of social justice movements and the challenges they confront locally and globally. 3. Be in a position to identify and deploy appropriate frameworks of analysis to particular cases and to evaluate the outcomes of various movements. 4. Be able to communicate their knowledge and understanding of the key issues, in both critical group discussion and in the production of a scholarly, well-researched essay on the subject of social justice movements. 5. Have the learning skills and critical awareness of important issues necessary to undertake further studies in the field.
IIPS 36000 Directed Readings (1-3 Credit Hours)
This independent study course allows students to engage in intensive readings and reflection on a theme or topic within peace studies not covered by regular course offerings. The topic must be pre-approved by the director of undergraduate studies, and the proposed study plan must be consistent with the number of intended credit hours. A maximum of three credits (in total) may be applied toward the peace studies minor or supplementary major. The coursework must be completed under the direction of a Kroc Institute faculty member, and the student will receive a standard letter grade at the end of the semester. Please contact the assistant director of the undergraduate program for permission to register.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40100 Truth Commissions: Conceptual Foundations and Case Studies (1 Credit Hour)
Truth commissions have been established around the world to uncover, document, and recognize human rights violations and atrocities as well as to honor victims at moments of transition from dictatorships to democracies and from wars to post-war contexts. In most cases, expectations about their results are set high: victims, the international community, prosecutors, and civil society organizations expect that the truths uncovered become undeniable. As a result, for many people truth commissions stand as an act of reparation in and of themselves, and also serve as catalysts for larger processes of reconciliation and the dignification of victims. In this course, we will study the conceptual foundations of truth commissions and learn from different case studies, including Colombia, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Kenya, and South Africa. We will seek to comprehend truth commissions' contributions to processes of peacebuilding and reconciliation, analyze their implementation and identify gaps and opportunities to advance peacebuilding, and engage in conversation about the challenges of creating a "never again" culture.
IIPS 40101 Business and Peace: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1 Credit Hour)
Could business be an instrument of peace or is it more likely to be an agent of division that foments conflict? While the course will touch on questions of whether trade and economic development as well as different economic systems impact causes of violence, the class focuses specifically on the role of for-profit and non-profit institutions within the context of current economic systems. This course draws upon three perspectives to undertake a 360-degree assessment of this question about business's role. First, it will examine the ways in which the actions of business exploit populations, profit from war-making, and sometimes actively engage in the promotion of violence. Second, it looks at an area of academic inquiry sometimes called Business For Peace, in which the ways in which businesses can be instruments of peace have been explored. The ways businesses might do this include being more actively involved in peacemaking and peacekeeping in zones of conflict as well as more general, incremental forms of peacebuilding that could occur both in and outside of zones of conflict. Third, the course looks at newer, nuanced theories from political theorists that assess the positives and negatives of the role of business in engagement in peace.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40202 Reimagining Global Futures (3 Credit Hours)
In a tumultuous and changing world, how do we imagine possible futures? How do we navigate amidst the uncertainties of our complex global arena to steer towards the futures we want, and away from those we don’t want? This class will explore the future-oriented imagination in the context of contemporary global challenges related to peace/conflict, democracy, human rights, climate change, and other pressing issues. We will do this by using the tools that professional “futurists” have used to make predictions about the future, as well as to provoke “out of the box” thinking about alternative future possibilities. These include techniques for forecasting, visioning, scenario planning, experiential play, and design thinking. We will also discuss religious and literary forms of future imagining, including apocalyptic, messianic, and redemptive narratives, along with fictional depictions in science fiction and speculative genres such as Afrofuturism. We will consider the relevance of utopian and dystopian narratives for understanding contemporary global problems and dilemmas. Finally, we will consider how social movement activists and community groups around the world have used futures thinking to transform unjust conditions and generate more humane ways of living and working together.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40300 Peace Agreements: Global Perspectives and the Colombian Experience (3 Credit Hours)
The signing of a peace agreement is often celebrated as the end of conflict, but it is more accurately the beginning of a complex and challenging peacebuilding process. Why do some agreements succeed while others fail to bring lasting peace? In this course, we will critically examine the design and implementation of peace accords through a research, policy, and practice lens. We will explore key themes such as disarmament, transitional justice, political participation, and socio-economic development, drawing on case studies from around the globe. A central component of this course is a deep dive into the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement. Using the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM) database—a unique resource housed at the Kroc Institute—we will analyze the accord’s provisions and track its implementation trajectory. We will engage with diverse sources, including academic research, policy reports, and the lived experiences of those directly affected by the conflict. This course includes a required experiential learning trip to Colombia during spring break. This immersive experience will allow us to engage directly with local peacebuilders, policymakers, and community members. We will witness firsthand the challenges and successes of peace implementation, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application. Through this learning-by-doing approach, we will collectively reflect on the roles that peace agreements play in shaping post-accord societies and our own understanding of peace and war. To apply for this course, complete the following form no later than November 10, 2025: https://forms.gle/MwaRjk4xz2u5F2nXA.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40301 Digital Peacebuilding and Peacetech (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores how social media and other new technologies are profoundly reshaping the world, impacting democratic institutions, social cohesion, conflict, and the peacebuilding field. We will engage in deep-rooted analysis of technology's positive and negative impacts on society, drawing on neuroscience, psychology, political analysis, and economic research of the profit models, affordances, and designs of current technology platforms. Students will analyze the impact of digital technology on fifteen global conflicts and explore twenty spheres of digital peacebuilding. The course includes a policy analysis of proposed government regulations on technology companies. Participants will learn through case studies and policy dialogues to identify best practices for using social media to support peacebuilding.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40302 Environmental Anthropology and the Intersectionality of Justice (3 Credit Hours)
As the Flint, Michigan water situation began to attract attention and condemnation, Michigan State Representative, Sheldon Neeley, describing the troops on the ground and the Red Cross distributing water bottles, said that the Governor had "turned an American city into a Third World country." At a Congressional hearing, the Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee said, "This is the United States of America - this isn't supposed to happen here. We are not some Third World country. What is a "third world problem?" This introductory environmental anthropology course examines how such imaginaries materialize in development programmes and literature, and bespeak charged geopolitical, racial histories; and invites reflection on what futures for working in common they enable and constrain. We will examine how crises are imagined and constructed, and the governance regimes they give rise to. How does water - as natural resource, public good, kin, human right, need, commodity - determine the contours of such regimes? We will also study chronic, quieter environmental problems and the responses they (do not) generate. Working through a variety of writing genres - ethnography, policy literature, and corporate publicity material - will enable students to appreciate what anthropology can contribute to the conversation on environmental justice. Class readings will draw on examples from a wide range of settings across the world, and group projects, in partnership with local environmental organizations and efforts (or done independently), will (i) narrate histories and map geographies of water access and toxicity, and (iii) imagine futures of more equitable water access in South Bend. The course is offered as an introduction to environmental anthropology and takes students through key themes - infrastructure, race, class, privatization, justice, violence - by focusing on water. It requires no background in anthropology. Students will cultivate the ability to read and write with care and to critique responsibly; develop a sense of overarching trends in anthropological approaches to categories such as nature, environment, ecology, violence and justice; relate contemporary issues of water in/accessibility, toxicity and privatization across disparate geographies.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40303 Jewish Politics and Modernity (3 Credit Hours)
What is the relationship between the Jewish tradition and Israeli politics? Why can't we talk about Jewish modernity without talking about Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the occupation of Palestine? What are the legacies of Jewish social justice activism and Jewish anti-racism in Israel and the diasporas? What are the intersectional experiences of Jews of Color, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, and other non-European Jews and how do they challenge normative accounts of Jewish modernity and Jewish assimilation into "whiteness"? This course will examine Jewish modernity with a special focus on the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism in Euro-America and shifts from Jewish powerlessness to Jewish power as they manifest in cases from Jewish anti-apartheid activism in South Africa and solidarity during the Civil Rights Movement in the US to the Israeli regime which has been defined by multiple Jewish and non-Jewish organizations such as Amnesty Internaitonal as "apartheid." The course will examine narratives of Jewish displacement, belonging, and de/coloniality and will centralize approaches and experiences of marginalized communities as a way to interrogate Jewish modernity and politics.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40304 Narrative, Violence, and Migration (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines how historical, political and cultural violence shape language, narrative, and collective and individual identities, and considers art as a form of transformational testimony. In this class, we will ask: How do writers and artists navigate the invisible restrictions placed on speech in order to translate the pain of war, forced migration, and state sanctioned violence into language? How have writers and artists productively challenged grammars of denial and the politics of erasure? How do literary and artistic practices confront the challenge of displacement, subjugation and cultural erasure by creating new sites of memory, knowledge production, and visions of reconstruction? We will read literature from Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, China and beyond and study visual art, films and performance pieces that engage with and respond to state-sanctioned violence, document the psychic, spiritual and material consequences of displacement, and generate new visions of identity, community and nationhood in an increasingly global world.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40305 Colonialism and Imperialism: Past and Present (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces students to the histories of colonization and imperialism, looking at the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of foreign rule. We will look simultaneously at an analysis of these structures as well as at social movements' attempts to move beyond them. We will ask the question: is the world really postcolonial or do we live in a new, reconfigured form of empire? How do structures of empire and colony intersect with issues of gender, race, sexuality, and religion?
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40409 Peace, Ecology, and Integral Human Development (3 Credit Hours)
A major source of conflict - increasingly so - is environmental issues; both climate change-related conflicts about (more and more scarce) resources as well as secondary conflicts (conflicts that arise because of the resource conflict, i.e. climate migrants) pose a major challenge to the planet. Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si has offered ways to think about an "integral ecology" that takes the environment, life on the planet, the human condition and culture seriously. The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot be separated. Laudato Si has to be read against the background of the concept of "Integral Human Development." This concept, inspired by the works of Joseph Lebret, OP, was introduced by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Populorum Progressio (1967). It refers to "the development of the whole person and the development of all persons." The course explores the connection (intersectionality) between peace, (integral) ecology, and (integral human) development. It will do so with in-class room teaching sessions and working with select case studies on integral ecology.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40413 Consulting and Development (3 Credit Hours)
This course will involve students, in a structured format, in assessing, prioritizing and creatively solving problems encountered by low-income and other disadvantaged South Bend entrepreneurs. We will employ a process-consulting approach and introduce a number of other useful tools and frameworks. Students will work with both for-profit and non-profit enterprises, producing tangible deliverables that help clients launch, grow and sustain their ventures. In addition to class time, students will meet with clients on a weekly basis at a Notre Dame facility located downtown, with transportation assistance available for those needing it. The class will meet for a normal session on Tuesdays. On Thursdays, students will consult with local entrepreneurs in one hour blocks during the evening hours at the Center for Civic Innovation. This consulting time is flexible with students' schedules and based on appointments made by local entrepreneurs.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40416 Palestine/Israel through Film (3 Credit Hours)
What is the Palestine/Israel conflict about? How did it start? How might it be resolved? Some interpretations rely on claims of ancient hatreds. Others invoke sacred and biblical narratives as their authority for claims to a land deemed holy by many different religions. Still others underscore the ills and legacies of settler colonialism and indigenous accounts of historical presence. Some invoke international law and human rights to make their claims. This course will explore these arguments surrounding the Palestine/Israel conflict through screening and discussion of cinematic representation, narrative argument, and documentary films. Multiple genres provide powerful tools to introduce students to multiple perspectives, conceptions of history, experiences of injustice and grievances and loss, and imagining peace and justice. Each screening will be paired with relevant and interdisciplinary reading material. The students will emerge from this course with a detailed and complex understanding of the Palestine/Israel conflict from the present dating back to the late Ottoman period, the British control of historic Palestine, and the definitional moment of 1948 which is marked both as Israeli independence and the Palestinian catastrophe (the Nakba).
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40417 Forced Migration and Refugees: Laws, Policies, and Practice (3 Credit Hours)
Millions of people around the world have been forced from their homes by interlinked factors including persecution, armed conflict, natural disasters, development projects, socio-economic deprivation and increasingly climate change. Resolving large-scale displacement represents a critical challenge for contemporary peacebuilding, development and climate justice. This course is designed to introduce students to various theoretical and methodological frameworks that inform and shape forced migration laws, policies and practice. Specifically students will: (i) examine international, regional, national and local responses to the problem of forced migration; (ii) investigate the obstacles to effective protection and assistance for refugees and displaced persons; (iii) explore the challenge of resolving displacement crises, and (iv) discuss some of the moral dilemmas raised by forced migration.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40419 Marketing of Social Initiatives, Causes, and Ventures (3 Credit Hours)
This class explores the use of marketing principles and concepts to support initiatives, causes and ventures that are social in nature. Attention is devoted to the marketing and communication challenges involved when attempting to do good, and how these issues can be overcome without spending large amounts of money. Sample topics include identifying and understanding target markets for social initiatives, constructing a value proposition, developing positioning approaches, designing communication programs, use of guerrilla techniques, the roles of price and place, and how to set goals and measure performance.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40421 Francophone Peace Studies: Worldwide Activism in Literature and Film (3 Credit Hours)
This course closely examines Francophone works of literature and film that grapple with the difficulties of promoting peace in various locations around the world today. Not only are activism and peacebuilding crucial questions in the creative texts we study, but they are also the focus of discussions that extend "beyond" the text, as we explore the efforts of writers and filmmakers to serve as advocates for positive change in very real ways. Various concepts of "engagement," as well as relationships between language and politics, are at the center of our reflections. There is a substantial theoretical component to this course, including works by French thinkers Pierre Bourdieu, Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Serge Margel, alongside the writings of postcolonial critics and recent publications in the area of peace studies. The course is taught in French.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKLC-Core Adv Lang & Culture
IIPS 40422 Engaged Anthropology and Service: Anthropological Research and Social Justice (3 Credit Hours)
This graduate level seminar will explore the philosophical, theoretical, and ethical underpinnings for inclusive and collaborative practices in anthropology, particularly research that combines approaches from more than one anthropological subfield. Taking a global approach, students will examine a wide range of case studies in community-based and collaborative anthropology, aiming to identify best practices and develop skills which students can then apply to their own projects. Attention will be paid to the importance of context, including geography, colonial histories and decolonization, war and conflict, economy, and environment, that shape engaged approaches to working for and serving communities instead of working on or studying communities with an extractive approach.
IIPS 40519 Social Movements for Health and Disability Justice (3 Credit Hours)
Although advances in science and technology have made tremendous gains in promoting health and longevity, these achievements have not been experienced evenly. Instead, devastating health and disability-based inequities persist, such as environmental racism and disability-based discrimination. As a result, social movement groups and organizations are fighting to protect vulnerable communities and promote civil rights. This class will therefore address how social movements have impacted the health and human rights of vulnerable social groups in the US and beyond today. To do so, we will (1) use a sociological perspective to investigate the structural determinants of health and the social construction of disabilities, and (2) investigate how advocates, activists, and organizations fight for good health and disability justice. This course will require participation in a daylong multi-fieldsite visit, weekly readings, presentations, and a final paper.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40520 Religion, Nationalism, and Settler Colonialism (3 Credit Hours)
This interdisciplinary course will examine the conceptual logic of using a settler-colonial lens to interpret the history and politics of Palestine/Israel. We will explore the religious dimensions of settler colonial narratives and practices and their intersections with secular, religious, and apocalyptic nationalisms. We will ask what the deployment of a settler-colonial lens illuminates, what it obscures, and why. We will scrutinize the recent proliferation of scholarship that has taken a comparative settler colonial approach. We will triangulate it with the literature on Israel’s Jewish identity, its meaning, and how and why it shifted over the decades. We will likewise engage in another set of conversations on nationalism and political theologies and identify the relevance of global anti-racism social movements and their uses and abuses of Palestinian struggles and Israeli narratives.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40607 Love and Violence: Religion, Civil Disobedience and Nonviolent Resistance (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the ways in which religious ethicists, social critics, and activists have employed conceptions of love and violence for the purposes of criticizing and resisting oppressive political conditions, and for radically transforming existing social arrangements. We begin by exploring the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau concerning the moral status of civil disobedience in the context of the U.S. abolitionist struggle, with particular attention to the influence of the Bhagavad-Gita upon their thinking. We will examine the ways that both Thoreau's writings and the Gita influenced Mahatma Gandhi on questions of non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi's exploration of the power of non-violence in light of the Sermon on the Mount from the Christian New Testament, and his correspondence with the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. We will investigate how this entire mosaic of influences came to inform Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work and the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. during the 1960s, Malcolm X, and the black power movement. We will engage critical perspectives on these thinkers and ideas, such as criticisms of Gandhi by George Orwell and Arundhati Roy, Frantz Fanon's claims that colonialism is an essentially violent phenomenon that requires an essentially violent response, Malcom's criticisms of Martin, arguments against pacifism on the basis of political realism by Max Weber. We conclude by brief examination of principled vs. strategic and revolutionary forms of non-violence in the work of Gene Sharp. (To hear more about the aims and purpose of this course, see Prof. Springs explaining it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qezuGBQlKPA )
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40609 Modern Islamic Thought: Re-Making Tradition in Modernity (3 Credit Hours)
Understanding religious communities and their values are crucial to understanding human societies and global affairs. One particular group of interpreters of Islam, namely the traditional or orthodox religious scholars called the ulama and their institutions, are often hidden from contemporary accounts of Islam when in fact they are critical players. This course will provide historical contexts in order to explore how traditional Muslims navigate the discourses of modernity and how they resist it. We will read original texts in translation and secondary sources of descriptions of representatives of the orthodox tradition in regions of Asia, the Middle East and in the West. The course will pay particular attention to the institutions of learning known as madrasas, jami` and hawzas. Of course, the orthodox views are challenged by other Muslims and some of those debates will also be channeled in the class while the focus will remain on the Ulama. The course aims to equip students with analytical skills and the resources to understand how religious ideas impact religious communities and global affairs.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40611 Improvising Peace: Toward a Theology of Peacebuilding (3 Credit Hours)
From a Christian theological point of view, peace is both a gift and a mission. Using life stories of exemplary Christian peace builders from around the world, the course will highlight five practices and disciplines: scriptural imagination, lament, hope, advocacy and spirituality, which define the Christian vision and practice of peace. The course is meant to serve as an extended argument for why and how the church matters for peace in the world, but also to display that the pursuit of peace is not the reserve of a few experts (peacebuilders), but the gift and mission of every Christian - "anyone in Christ."
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40719 Catholic Social Teaching (3 Credit Hours)
The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with the tradition of Catholic social teaching with a view toward developing skills for critical reading and appropriation of these documents. We will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document in its proper historical context. We will also hold recurring themes in conversation with the broader theoretical framework of Catholic social thought and relevant secondary literature.
Students cannot enroll who have a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40800 Community Peacemaking: Theory and Practice (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the theory and practice of community peacemaking. It covers the benefits, challenges and methods of local peacemaking, as well as the relationship between peacemaking and peacebuilding. Content will draw on practitioner experience in South Africa, South Bend and elsewhere. Guest lecturers will include community activists from South Bend.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40804 Structural Violence (3 Credit Hours)
What is structural violence, and what role does it play in shaping human lives and human interactions? In this course, we investigate the often subtle, systematic sources of harm that damage health and hinder individual and community potential, while often remaining rationalized, invisible, or simply taken for granted as the world “as it is”. Structural violence is distinguishable from “hot” forms of violence in its diffuse and seemingly agentless source, where no one person is to blame. We will target these diffuse sources—from bureaucracy to urban planning to corporations to policies meant to help the poor—in order to identify the hidden abode of violence and the consequences these hold for ordinary life. Structural violence is influenced by, and in turn influences, cultural violence, which we will also investigate as a source of persistent harm. Structural violence will emerge in this course through a diverse set of studies; from American housing policy, to medical discrimination, to toxic “sacrifice zones”; and racism in disease epidemics. Our inability to interrogate these structures hinders our ability to create a just and sustainable world, and recognizing and redressing the existence of structures can be a productive path towards healing the wounds—and ending the violence—caused by the invisible trappings of power. This form of inquiry is also productive in understanding why decades-long stand-offs—whether or not an official state of violence exists—are never resolved simply through the absence of active fighting. We will finish the course with case studies of people who actively resist or attempt to escape structures, with varying levels of success.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40807 Social Movements, Conflict and Peacebuilding (3 Credit Hours)
In many of the recurring conflicts around the world, at issue are demands for justice. Whether these revolve around economic inequality, political repression, environmental devastation, civil and political rights, ethnic or religious exclusion, or discrimination on the basis of race, class, gender, sexuality or disability status (to name just a few), social movements are often the carriers of these calls for justice. In this course, we will examine how social movements emerge from, contribute to, and suggest resolutions for various types of social conflict, as well as explore their potential contributions to sustainable peacebuilding. We will examine theory and research on how social movements emerge, escalate, consolidate and decline; how they choose (and change) protest tactics; how they articulate their visions and goals; how they generate emotions, solidarity and commitment; how they interact with networks of allies, opponents and powerholders; and how they influence (or fail to influence) agendas, policies, and regimes. We will put a particular emphasis on the comparative study of social movements in different regions of the world, as well as on the challenges and opportunities posed by transnational movements that seek to organize across borders.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40809 Religion, Gender, and Development (3 Credit Hours)
Is religion an obstacle or opportunity for women's empowerment? Religion is often seen as institutionalizing and perpetuating patriarchy and thus operating in contradiction to women's agency, rights, and equality. This course will grapple with the tensions and contradictions between the imperative of gender justice foregrounded in the Sustainable Development Goals and religions' competing conceptions of women's roles. The course will overcome some of this dichotomizing of secular and religious paradigms of development by looking at the theoretical and practical work of religious feminists. In responding to the question "is religion an obstacle or opportunity for women's empowerment?" we will debate why feminists and religious actors are hesitant to collaborate on development agenda and what does this indicate about the potential relations between development and religious reform. We will also examine feminist and queer theologies to the degree they contribute to reimagining international development praxis and the intersections of feminist theologies and environmental and decolonial justice.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 40921 Prisons and Policing in the United States (3 Credit Hours)
Scholars and activists use the concept of the "carceral state" to describe the official, government use of policing, surveillance, and mass imprisonment to exercise control over society. This course examines the histories, cultures, politics, and economics of prisons and policing in the United States, in order to determine how the U.S. carceral state has been a factor in the social construction of race, gender, and citizenship.
We will study the genealogy of the U.S. carceral state -- beginning with the surveillance embedded in the earliest practices of slavery and settler colonialism, tracing its development through the 19th and early 20th centuries, and concluding with the rise of the modern prison industrial complex. We will then focus on contemporary U.S. prisons, policing, and surveillance, using case studies including the "war on drugs," immigrant detention, sex-crime regulation, and police violence. Finally, we will consider alternatives to prisons and policing, as we learn about academic research and activist movements working to end state and police violence, abolish prisons, and create opportunities for restorative justice.
Over the course of the semester, students will learn about the historical development and ongoing maintenance of the carceral state, using an intersectional framework that highlights the ways in which prisons and policing have both shaped, and been shaped by, race, gender, citizenship, and economics. Along the way, students will ask and address such questions as: How does the U.S. carceral state function as a tool for social control? What histories, policies, and ideologies underlie the carceral state? How have individuals and organizations worked to transform or abolish the carceral state? How have art and cultural production been used to normalize and/or critique the carceral state? And can we imagine a world without prisons or police?
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43101 Peace Studies Senior Seminar (3 Credit Hours)
The peace studies senior seminar is a capstone course for both the supplemental major and the minor in peace studies. The centerpiece of the course is a seminar paper that students research and write on a subject of their choice in light of the theme of the course. The course also consists of readings and discussions that explore familiar topics in peace studies in greater depth as well as introduce research methods to the students. This required course is open to peace studies majors and minors only.
Prerequisites: IIPS 33101
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43501 The Social Organization of Secrecy and Deception (3 Credit Hours)
One would think that secrets are hard to keep, and lies hard to maintain, because it doesn't take much for the truth to escape and once it's out, it can't be put back into the bottle. Yet secrets and lies reside at the heart of much social and political order, sometimes for years and even decades at a time. The objective of this course is to advance our scientific understanding of how this is possible, drawing on sociological, psychological, and historical research on such things as performance, secrecy, lying, forgetting, doubt, denial, and inattention. Case studies will include instances of corporate malfeasance (such as Ponzi schemes and insider trading), Big Tobacco's cover-up of the health consequences of smoking, the lies told by the totalitarian regime of North Korea, the secret British program to break the German cipher during WWII, elaborate attempts to cover up government atrocities, and the cat-and-mouse game between international inspectors and regimes thought to be developing banned weapons. Throughout, we will be concerned with the distinct methodological challenges of studying things many people want to keep secret. Requirements will include midterm and final examinations, reading quizzes/reaction papers, participation, and a final research paper.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43505 Unequal America (3 Credit Hours)
America is the richest country in the world and yet roughly three million American children now grow up in families surviving on just $2 a day. As America's richest 0.1% have seen their incomes more than quadruple over the last forty years, the incomes for 90% of Americans have barely changed. These financial disparities reflect deeper inequities in educational opportunity, incarceration rates, social status and more. In this course, we will examine the nature and consequences of American inequality. Through close reading and spirited discussion, we will address such questions as: What is the meaning of meritocracy in an age of profound inequality? What is the lived experience of American poverty and American privilege? How are race and gender inequalities (re)produced throughout the life course? And, finally, how do all of these issues manifest in the successes and struggles of students at Notre Dame?
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43506 Race and Activism (3 Credit Hours)
Throughout much of American history, individuals have organized and acted collectively to advance interests based on a common racial or ethnic identity. In some instances, groups have organized in an attempt to overcome discrimination and to stake a claim to rights and privileges enjoyed by majority group members. In other cases, members of the majority group have organized to restrict opportunities for the minority and to protect an advantaged position. We will consider the causes and consequences of both progressive and conservative social movements--such as the civil rights movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and the contemporary alt-right - giving particular attention to how theories of social movements help us to understand episodes of race-based collective action.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43507 Resisting Change (3 Credit Hours)
Sociologists who study social movements and activism typically address questions about how disadvantaged groups are able to organize and engage in sustained protest in hopes of bringing about progressive change. In recent years, however, we have witnessed the growth of many organizations that aim to prevent change with hopes of preserving benefits that they enjoy. To understand this form of organized resistance to change, we need to closely examine how power operates in society to understand conditions that give rise to activism that resists progressive change. We consider the extent to which theories designed to explain progressive activism fail to account for conservative activism. The ultimate goal for the course is to provide you with the tools needed to formulate your own research questions and to engage with the academic literature to theorize your questions in a way that could lead to publishable research.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43704 Sesame Street Around the World: Organizations and Globalizations (3 Credit Hours)
In this course we will examine how different kinds of organizations and institutions (corporations and firms, NGOs and non-profits, economic development organizations, social movement organizations) respond and adapt to cultural differences in a globalizing world. We will begin by analyzing the processes by which the children's educational television program Sesame Street is transformed and spread around the world, and how the organization that creates it builds relationships with its international partners and counterparts. We will then compare Sesame Street to other organizations that translate, locally adapt, and diffuse various kinds of innovations around the world, from products (toys and soap operas) and policies (health care and anti-discrimination laws), to norms and ideas (human rights, peace building, and democracy).
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43705 Gender Studies Interdisciplinary Seminar (3 Credit Hours)
Students in the Interdisciplinary Seminar read widely across feminist and queer scholarship in multiple fields, including the interdisciplinary field of Gender Studies, and consider how disciplinary norms and boundaries shape scholarly inquiry. Student research and writing for the course will synthesize disciplinary ways of knowing and produce original, interdisciplinary Gender Studies scholarship or creative work. Although each iteration of the course focuses on a unique topic, all Interdisciplinary Seminars put multiple disciplines in conversation in order to deepen students' mastery of key Gender Studies concepts.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43706 Society, Faith, and the Future of Nature (3 Credit Hours)
This is an upper-level course that examines the relationship between contemporary society and the natural world from a sociological vantage. The readings and lectures are designed to be accessible to all. They introduce theory by means of concrete historical and cultural cases, so that history and theory illuminate one another. Students who have been exposed to sociology will find that it builds on the foundations they already have gained. Topics covered include population and demography, industrialization, capitalism as a system, consumer culture, social justice, the environmental movement, global environmental issues, the role of culture and religion when it comes to framing and mobilization, and civic responsibility. The main focus of the course is American society, but it also takes into account other societies and cultures. After taking this course, the students will have honed a range of powerful insights and tools for making sense of the environmental issues that we confront.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43707 Islam and Feminism (3 Credit Hours)
What is Islam? What is Feminism? On their own, these two terms are debated enough. But what about their intersections? This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the complex, contested, and evolving relationship between Islam and Feminism through an intersectional, historically grounded, and power-conscious approach. We will trace historical shifts in gender norms within Muslim-majority societies, examine how diverse Muslim beliefs and practices intersect with contemporary rights debates, and study the important roles Muslim women have played in the history of transnational feminism. We will learn about contested readings of Islam's key religious texts, the impact of colonialism and imperialism, and cultural hybridization on the so-called "Muslim woman question" This will be our opportunity to read pioneering works by Muslim women and queer authors and watch and discuss the coolest Muslim- and POC-led TV series in recent memory, This is Lady Parts.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43911 Developmental Psychopathology: Conflict, Kids and Culture (3 Credit Hours)
The goal of this course is to articulate key principles, assumptions, concepts and methods that underlie the developmental psychopathology framework, and to use them to provide a foundation for understanding the processes underlying development, with a special emphasis on relations between conflict, violence and youth adjustment domestically (i.e., family and marital conflict) and in international contexts (i.e., political violence and armed conflict). Following an introduction to the developmental psychopathology framework, the course will include a focus on special issues in developmental psychopathology, as well as on understanding development from a developmental psychopathology perspective in the context of conflict at proximal and distal levels of the social ecology, including family and marital conflict and international contexts of political violence, armed conflict and youth adjustment.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 43913 Faith and Power: Religion, Politics, and Nationalism in a Secular Age (3 Credit Hours)
This course investigates how religion influences what Americans think about politics and how they are involved in public life, including political participation and volunteering and community service. We will examine, for example, how and why religion influences positions on controversial social and political issues, such as abortion and immigration. And how the relation between religion and politics in American society has changed from the Christian Right and Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, evangelicals, and Christian Nationalism. At the organizational level, the course seeks to understand what religious congregations are doing for their communities and how they are active in political life, such as mobilizing protest, inviting political speakers, talking about politics, or organizing voter registration drives. The analysis will pay close attention to religious tradition differences, including investigating whether and why evangelical Protestants differ in involvement in civic and political life compared to Catholics, Black Protestants, mainline Protestants, or the nonreligious. By investigating the social roots of the relation of religion and politics, the course will shed light on the complex and shifting relationship between religion and public life in the United States.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 44508 The Northern Ireland Conflict (7.5 Credit Hours)
This module will give students an in-depth understanding of the recent conflict in Northern Ireland. Students will be introduced to a range of theoretical perspectives and concepts from across IR (such as nationalism, identity, peacebuilding, consociationalism, political violence and memory) to explain and understand aspects of the conflict era and post-conflict Northern Ireland. Students will gain an understanding of the social and political factors which gave rise to violence in the 1960s. They will study the trajectory of the conflict, examining the main protagonists in the violence as well as the key actors and processes that achieved the fragile peace of the 1990s. Students will discuss the aftermath of that conflict and contemporary efforts to deal with legacy issues. They will examine challenges to the current precarious peace. Crucially the module equips students with analytical skills and conceptual tools that they can apply to other cases and contexts in their wider studies.
IIPS 44704 Geography of Development (3 Credit Hours)
This course aims to give insight in the problem of developing countries from the geographical point of view. Four approaches are entangled: historical perspective; insight in the relationship of developing countries with the developed countries and the world economy; an approach that combines international, national, regional and local geographic scales; and an approach that considers the relation between society and physical environment as the framework for sustainability. The course will provide a critical and holistic perspective on development and its variegated geographies. It introduces concepts and theories to understand uneven development and discusses important social, political and ecological issues related to uneven development. It is an intensive and interactive course featuring guest lectures, discussion seminars, a World Cafe, and a group work project. There will be both compulsory and suggested readings.
IIPS 44705 Poverty and Social Exclusion (3 Credit Hours)
This course reviews the main theoretical and conceptual approaches used to understand the phenomena of poverty, inequality and social exclusion. The main methodologies used, as well as the measurements and their historical evolution, will be reviewed. It will study how these phenomena have changed over time and what the social policies and interventions are in this area.
IIPS 45000 Peace Studies Internship (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers qualified undergraduates the opportunity to earn credit for academic work produced as part of an approved summer or academic-year internship. Students are responsible for identifying and obtaining the internship, and the position and/or organization must be related to peacebuilding work in the field or have some substantive thematic connection to peace studies. The credit earned will not count toward the peace studies supplementary major or minor, and the written work produced will be evaluated as satisfactory or unsatisfactory by the director of undergraduate peace studies. Students seeking internship credit must contact the assistant director of the undergraduate peace studies program well in advance of the position's start date for details on coursework expectations and to arrange the necessary approvals and permissions.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 45904 Identity, Equality, Democracy (3 Credit Hours)
How are identities important in a world of frictions and connections? How do different societies deal with cultural, linguistic, religious, gendered, embodied, intergenerational, and racialized diversities (and related injustice or inequality)? How are these accommodated within (more or less) democratic regimes? How do democracies change as a result? What are the differences between multiculturalism, relativism, and pluralism?
The course addresses such questions by focusing on issues including but not limited to police violence and urban riots; Arab Uprisings; Muslim-Christian-Jewish relationships (conflict and coexistence) in Egypt and Iran; gendered practices and embodied aesthetics; the experience of refugees, and the crafting of identities, in the journey between Somalia and the US. We will also use news/magazine articles, as sources of information and as artifacts to be analyzed.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 46000 Directed Readings (1-3 Credit Hours)
This independent study course allows students to engage in intensive reading and reflection on a theme or topic within peace studies not covered by regular course offerings. The topic must be pre-approved by the director of undergraduate studies, and the proposed study plan must be consistent with the number of intended credit hours. A maximum of three credits (in total) may be applied toward the peace studies minor or supplementary major. The coursework must be completed under the direction of a Kroc Institute faculty member, and the student will receive a standard letter grade at the end of the semester. Please contact the assistant director of the undergraduate program for permission to register.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.
IIPS 47000 Peace Research Lab (1-3 Credit Hours)
This course offers selected undergraduates the opportunity to assist in a faculty member's ongoing research project(s) for credit. Depending on the nature of the research, student work might include (but is not limited to) literature review and annotated bibliographies, data collection and field research, or more in-depth independent projects. The work will be graded, but the credit hours do not count toward the peace studies major or minor.
Course may be repeated.
IIPS 48000 Directed Research (1-3 Credit Hours)
This course facilitates intensive independent research on a special, particularized topic in peace studies, under the guidance of an individual faculty member. The course must culminate in a written, scholarly paper or seminar-length essay (20-25 pages) and at least one presentation of the work in an appropriate format and setting. Credit hours do not count toward the peace studies major or minor unless explicitly approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students should contact the Undergraduate Program Manager to secure permission to enroll in this course.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Peace Studies (Supp.) or Peace Studies.