HUM 201: Peace and Conflict Studies

Overview

People do not always agree with each other. In fact, they often hold incompatible views, and contrasting interests and claims. In other words, they experience what is commonly called conflict. This is true for the interaction between spouses, friends, family members, employers and employees, and for ethnic, cultural, national, and international groups.

Conflicts might be inevitable, but they can sometimes be a force for constructive change. Positive outcomes occur only if we are able to understand and to alter the causes of conflict. We must also acknowledge the potential of peaceful efforts for permanently a worthy goal resolving conflicts, a worthy goal.

This course is intended as an introduction to conflict, conflict resolution, and attaining peace. You will examine a wide range of conflict situations ranging from interpersonal conflict to global conflict.You will also examine a variety of peace approaches. The intent is to familiarize you with a wide assortment of conflicts, showing their similarities and differences, and the various ways of managing them.

Throughout the course you will be working on a course paper in which you select a specific conflict and examine the causes, escalation, and consequences of that conflict as well as peaceful methods of dealing with the conflict.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze real-life conflicts in terms of their structure, dynamics, and underlying narrations and belief systems.
• Explain and apply the problem solving and transformative mediation approaches to conflict resolution.
• Explain negative and positive peace efforts and their effects on conflict.
• Critically describe the various goals and methods of peace education.
• Examine the causes, escalation, and consequences of a real-life conflict as well as peaceful methods of dealing with conflict.
• Analyze efforts toward achieving world peace and the organizations in existence that help nations resolve conflict.

Required Texts
HUM 201 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore