Undergraduate Course: Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding: The Role of the Arts (THET10068)
Course Outline
| School | School of Divinity |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | In Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding: The Role of the Arts students are encouraged to analyse in detail a range of works of art, primarily emerging out of the First World War and the Israeli-¿Palestinian conflict. Through this analysis and engagement with pertinent secondary literature, students will investigate the ambivalent role of the arts in the complex evolving relationships between religion, conflict and peacebuilding. |
| Course description |
Academic Description: The aim of this interdisciplinary course is to enable students to be able to analyse in detail a range of works of art including individual paintings, plays, films, memoirs and novels, that have largely emerged out of the First World War or the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through this analysis and engagement with pertinent secondary literature, students will investigate the ambivalent role of the arts in the complex evolving relationships between religion, conflict and peacebuilding. Detailed analysis will focus upon how individual works can contribute to building peace.
Outline: (precise topics may change from year to year). Different kinds of art created over the last one hundred years will be considered in detail, including: visual arts (weeks 3-4), film (5-6), theatre (7-8), novels/memoirs (9-10), and music (11). Following two introductory weeks (1-2), sessions will alternate between focusing upon the First World War (weeks 3,5,7 and 9) and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (weeks 4,6,8 and 10). Students will be strongly encouraged by the end of the first two weeks to have read set Introductory texts to lay the necessary historical foundations.
Learning Experience: The course involves one two-hour seminar per week and one one-hour tutorial in smaller groups. The full class seminar (2hrs) will consist of a combination of interactive lecture-style presentations, discussion and analysis of both the primary and secondary texts. The smaller tutorial groups (1hr) will provide the opportunity for students to discuss the week's set text(s) in greater detail. Each student will be required to give a short presentation on the text for the day at one tutorial during the semester. Through participation in seminars, prepared readings and tutorial discussions, as well as through the written work included in the assessment schedule, students will demonstrate their achievement of the intended learning outcomes.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Analyse and interpret set artistic texts in a critical, discerning and imaginative fashion.
- Summarise, compare and critically discuss specific interpretations of individual works of art. Engage explicitly with significant & relevant literature, & where interpreters disagree students should be able to rehearse debates & adjudicate between differing accounts.
- Draw upon different appropriate critical approaches when interpreting the religious themes within the set works of art.
- Demonstrate an ability to identify and understand key terms, concepts and themes, as well as good judgement about how to assess the relative importance of items on course bibliographies, especially in relation to the set texts.
- Develop transferable skills in presentation, discussion and communication in a group context, especially in relation to religion, conflict and peacebuilding, in relation to the arts.
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Reading List
Indicative Secondary Bibliography:
Abu-¿Nimer, Mohammed, ed. Reconciliation, Justice and Co-¿existence. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001.
Appleby, Scott, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation.
Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
Armstrong, Karen, Fields of Blood: Religion & the History of Violence. London: Vintage, 2015.
Banks, M. H. and Christopher Mitchell. Handbook of Conflict resolution: The Analytical Problem-¿Solving Approach. London: Pinter, 1996.
Baum, Gregory and Harold Wells, eds., The Reconciliation of Peoples: Challenge to the Churches. New York, Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997.
Biggar, Nigel. ¿Forgiving Enemies in Ireland,¿ Journal of Religious Ethics 36.4.Dec 2008: pp559-¿579 and two responses to ¿Forgiving Enemies in Ireland,¿ Journal of Religious Ethics 36.4 (Dec 2008) pp.581-¿593.
Biggar, Nigel. Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice After Civil Conflict. 2nd Edn. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2003.
Browning, Robert L. and Roy A. Reed, Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Moral Courage: Motives and Designs for Ministry in a Troubled World. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 2004.
Boesak, Allan Aubrey. Dare we Speak of Hope? Searching for a Language of Life in Faith and Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2014.
Brudholm, Thomas, Resentment¿s Journey: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive,
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008.
Bunton, Martin. The Palestinian-¿Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Cejka, Mary Ann, Thomas Bamat. Eds. Artisans of Peace: Grassroots Peacemaking Among Christian Communities. New York: Orbis Books, 2003.
Clark N. and W. Worger, South Africa: the Rise and Fall of Apartheid, Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2004.
Chandler, David, Peacebuilding: The Twenty Years¿ Crisis, 1997-¿2017, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Cortright, David. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Curle, Adam. Tools for Transformation. London: Hawthorn Press, 1990.
Danaher, W.J., ¿Music that will bring back the dead? Resurrection, reconciliation, and restorative justice in post-¿Apartheid South Africa,¿ Journal of Religious Ethics. January 2010. vol. 38. no. 1: pp. 115-¿41.
de Gruchy, John W. Reconciliation: Restoring Justice. Canterbury, UK: SCM Press, 2002.
de Gruchy, John W. Christianity, Art, and Transformation: Theological Aesthetics in the Struggle for Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Fisher, Ronald J., Interactive Conflict Resolution. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
Howard, Michael. The First World War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Hurley, Michael, ed. Reconciliation in Religion and Society. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994.
Janes, Dominic and Alex Houen, editors Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-¿Modern to Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Jenkins, Philip, The Great and Holy War: How World War One Changed Religion for Ever.
New York: Harper One, 2014.
Parker, Stephen G. and Tom Lawson, editors, God and War: The Church of England and Armed Conflict in the Twentieth Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).
John Paul II, ¿Post-¿Synodal Exhortation: Reconciliation and Penance¿,
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-¿ ii_exh_02121984_reconciliatio-¿et-¿paenitentia_en.html
Johnston, Douglas and Cynthia Sampson eds. Religion the Missing Dimension of Statecraft. New York: OUP, 1994.
Kim, Sebastian, Pauline Kollontai and Sue Yore, Mediating Peace: Reconciliation through Visual Art, Music and Film, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2015.
Kollontai, Pauline, Sue Yore and Sebastian Kim, The Role of Religion in Peacebuilding: Crossing the Boundaries of Prejudice and Distrust, London: Jessica Kingsley, 2018.
Lederach, John Paul. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997.
Lederach, John Paul. Little Book of Conflict Transformation. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2003.
Lederach, John Paul. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. New York: OUP, 2010.
Lederach, John Paul and Angela Jill Lederach. When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation. New York: OUP, 2011.
Liechty, Joseph and Cecelia Clegg, Moving Beyond Sectarianism: Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Dublin: Columba Press, 2001.
Liechty, Joseph. ¿Putting Forgiveness in its Place: The Dynamics of Reconciliation,¿ in David Tombs and Joseph Liechty, eds., Explorations in Reconciliation: New Directions in Theology, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006.
MacGinty, Roger. International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Mitchell, Jolyon. Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence: The Role of Religion and Media.
London and New York: Routledge, 2012.
Mitchell, Jolyon. Media Violence and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Murphy, Andrew R. The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010.
Naude, Piet J. Neither Calendar nor Clock. Perspectives on the Belhar Confession. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010.
Omer, Atalia; R. Scott Appleby and David Little, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Pettan, Svanibor and Jeff Todd Titon, (editors), The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology. New York: Oxford University Press 2015.
Philpott, Daniel and Gerard Powers, Strategies of Peace. New York: OUP, 2010.
Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, London: Burns & Oates, 2012.
Powers, Gerard F. and Daniel Philpott, eds., Strategies of Peace: Transforming Conflict in a Violent World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Ramsbotham, Oliver, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall. Contemporary Conflict Resolution. 3rd Edn. London: Polity Press, 2011.
Redekop, Vern Neufeld. From Violence to Blessing: How an understanding of deep-¿ rooted conflict can open paths to reconciliation. Ottawa: Editions Novalis, 2002.
Reychler, Luc, Thania Paffenholz. Eds. Peacebuilding: A Field Guide. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002.
Richmond, Oliver P., ed., Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Richmond, Oliver P., ed., The Transformation of Peace. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, (2005) 2007.
Richmond, Oliver. Peace: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Richmond, Oliver P. and Audra Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-¿Liberalism, (2012) 2016.
Robinson, Leah, Embodied Peacebuilding: Reconciliation as Practical Theology (Studies in Theology, Society and Culture) Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2015.
Schimmel, Solomon. Wounds not Healed by Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Schreiter, Robert J., R. Scott Appleby and Gerard F. Powers, eds., Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology Ethics and Praxis. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2010.
Shore, Megan. Religion and Conflict Resolution: Christianity and South Africa¿s Truth and Reconciliation Process. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
Tombs, David, and Joseph Leichty, Explorations in Reconciliation: New Directions in Theology. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006
Tolstoy, Leo, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894)
Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996.
Volf, Miroslav. The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World,
Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2006.
Winter, Jay Sites of Mourning, Sites of Memory: The Great War in European cultural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
(Additional texts, especially on The First World War and The Palestinian-¿ Israeli Conflict
will be added for 2019 and recommended as appropriate each week during the course).
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
i. Gather, analyse, evaluate and critique evidence from a wide range of primary and secondary sources.
ii. Organise and structure arguments and draw these together into a coherent conclusion in written and oral form.
iii. Formulate a coherent written or oral presentation on the basis of material gathered and organised independently on a given topic.
iv. Organise their own learning, manage workload and work to a timetable.
v. Effectively plan, and possess the confidence to undertake and to present scholarly work that demonstrates an understanding of the aims, methods and theoretical considerations relevant to students working in areas such as: Theology/Religious Studies and/or other relevant Arts/Humanities disciplines.
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| Keywords | Religion,the Arts,Peacebuilding,Memory,The First World War,The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Jolyon Mitchell
Tel: (0131 6)50 8922
Email: Jolyon.Mitchell@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Katrina Munro
Tel: (0131 6)50 8900
Email: Kate.Munro@ed.ac.uk |
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