Conflict, Violence, and Peace

This is a seminar course that dwells on various theories of social and political conflict, violence, and peace. The course brings together different theoretical approaches developed in sociology, social psychology, cultural anthropology, and political science in addition to some classical texts in philosophy with regard to conflict, violence, and peace. Some of the issues covered are: the origins of social conflict, functions of conflict in a society, different types of social conflict, structure-agency debate with regard to conflict, escalation of conflict, psychological dynamics of social conflict and violence. The course will also examine different theoretical approaches that developed in various social science disciplines with regard to peace and reconciliation.