Conflicts: Race, Region, Religion

Catalog description

Prior to “conflict resolution,” there is conflict. But what is conflict and how do we understand it? This introductory lecture course proposes to explore established objects in their presumed ties to the fact and concept of “conflict.” We will inquire into the nature of conflict as well as into the kinds of conflicts that operate, or seem to operate, perhaps even to structure, the understanding of race, of region, and of religion. We will attend to the solidity and fragility of geographic divisions (regional and trans regional conflicts), their history (modern / premodern, colonial / pre- and post-colonial), the emergence of race (racial and ethnic conflicts), the pertinence of religions (religious strife and violence), their relation to political associations (religion and politics, religion and nationalism) and to other social and/or economic divisions (class, gender). We will interrogate the analytic and descriptive value of keywords like war, enmity, dispute, division, partition. We will also reflect on disciplinary tensions and divisions toward an understanding and perpetuation of conflict. Finally, we will think about the possibility and impossibility of “speaking with the enemy.”