NEH Enduring Questions Course on Peace and Violence

FAIN: AQ-228768-15

Millsaps College (Jackson, MS 39210-0002)
Kristen Brown Golden (Project Director: September 2014 to August 2017)
Lola Williamson (Co Project Director: May 2016 to August 2017)

The development and teaching of a new course using historical, biological, and comparative cultural approaches to explore the question of whether peace is possible or violence is inevitable.

The proposed course will explore a question that philosophers, politicians, artists, and others across time and cultures have grappled with: Is peace possible? Through analyses of biological studies, historical documents, artworks, novels, and memoirs, students will juxtapose the view that violence is inevitable with the idea that people are free to choose peaceful ways of solving conflicts. The class will also examine ways in which interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations are connected when violent or peaceful actions are taken. Beginning with a consideration of biological arguments, the class will then move to an examination of World War I, then to the relationship between rape cultures and rape as a strategy of war, and, finally, to select peace cultures, including the Ashokan era in India, Timbuktu during its Golden Age, William Penn's "Holy Experiment," and nonviolent elements of the Civil Rights Movement.