Conflict, Violence, and Peace

A senior seminar that treats conflict, violence, and peace as a single analytical problem, drawing on sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political philosophy rather than sticking to one disciplinary lens. You'll spend the term in discussion-heavy sessions working through theories of why conflicts emerge, escalate, and become intractable, and what reconciliation actually requires, with your grade resting on consistent participation, one case study, and an open-book final. It's a capstone-style elective that pulls together earlier coursework in political theory and comparative politics, and matters for anyone heading toward peace studies, IR, or policy work where understanding the human dynamics behind violence is as important as the institutional ones.