Nonviolence in Movements for Social Change

Catalog description

This course will examine the ways in which nonviolent movements have successfully influenced modern societies. While a major focus will be on the American civil rights movement beginning with the Niagara Movement in 1909, we will also study the philosophy and tactics employed by the 1989 Friedliche Revolution (Germany), the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Argentina), The Community of Peace People (Northern Ireland), the Kenyan Women’s movement (whose “no sex” strategy harkens back to Lysistrata), as well as the moral arguments embedded in the Religious Society of Friends and other “peace churches.” Notions of nonviolent resistance and pacifism as well as the philosophy employed by such leaders as George Fox, A. Philip Randolph, Rosa Parks, Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Mairead Maguire will aid us in understanding how nonviolence has been employed to effect social change in many different scenarios and cultures. Texts may include: Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch, Raising up a Prophet: The African American Encounter with Gandhi by Sudarshan Kapur, The Children by David Halberstam, and such films as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others, Henry Hampton’s documentary series Eyes on the Prize, Lee Hirsch’s Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, and Gini Ritiker’s Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Musical works by Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Beatles may also be utilized for analysis and chronicling of nonviolent movements.