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Course Description

Summary

This course is a cross‐cultural exploration of violence.   We will ask: What is violence?  How do we experience, perceive, think and write about violence as a political concept?  The course will begin with the political philosophy of violence.  It will then move to ethnographies written about violence and look at how other disciplines write about violence.  It will consider how different cultures understand violence and related issues such as force, power, sovereignty and resistance.  The course will explore violence in relationships between individuals, families, kin groups, ethnicities, neighborhoods, and countries.  In our readings and discussions, we will look at how anthropologists conduct research amidst violence, write about it and address the concept ethnographically.  Cases will include studies of colonial violence, interethnic violence, violence within communities and war from a range of geographic areas, particularly the Middle East, South Asia and North America.  Topics include conceptions of masculinity and violence, torture and international politics, terror and violence, and writing about the Holocaust. Registration for this course will begin on Thursday, May 18 at 1:00pm in Barn 203. Students with Plans that will benefit from the course will be given first priority.