POST 121 PZ -Religion, Conflict & Violence

Institution: Pitzer

Description: This is a course about the possible connections between religion and violence, focused particularly on organized armed conflict. This is a topic that has received, surprisingly, very little sustained attention from social science literatures and the main purpose of the course is to explore what the contours of a theory of religion and violence would like. The course is organized around major historical and theoretical monographs (a book a week) designed to structure class discussions and the course is, therefore, reading intensive. The readings have been designed to give students a sense of what answers historians and social scientists have given to the puzzle of religion and violence while stimulating the participants to ask provocative questions.
This is a course in the historical sociology of religion and violence. Given the vastness of the subject I have had to be extremely selective in the time and places that we will be examining. The overall geographical bias of the course is Western Eurasia with equal time dedicated to the modern and premodern periods. We will also, in the interests of context, consider the case of 19th and 20th century South Asia.

Prerequisite(s): Please check course schedule for requirements.

For up-to-date information on current course offerings and details, please refer to the Pitzer class schedule on MyCampus2 Portal.