Essentials of GMAP

Catalog description

This is an intensive and broad-based exploration and evaluation of the current mechanisms, challenges, successes and failures of efforts to predict, mitigate, and where possible prevent the commission of acts of genocidal violence and mass atrocities. Due to its focus on prevention, the course is by design trans-disciplinary. The course presupposes no particular disciplinary perspective or set of skills, and demands that students maintain an open attitude toward approaches and methodologies with which they have little if any familiarity. The course is also designed to “point outward” from the practice of university-based instruction and research, and toward the global community of atrocity prevention practitioners, whether in the national or global diplomatic community, the global network of non-governmental organizations, or elsewhere. As will become clear during the progress of the course, this designed openness outward from academic to non-academic networks and communities of practitioners is itself not only a procedural but also a substantive part of the exploration and assessment of best practices for prevention. The course’s design makes the case that best prevention practices are most likely to emerge as the boundaries between the academic and the practitioner communities become more porous, and exchange between those communities becomes more intensive and productive. Offered annually.