Alternatives to Violence (Washington Center Syllabus, 2002)

Alternatives to Violence

The Washington Center

Spring Semester 2002

Prof. Colman McCarthy

COURSE SCHEDULE

Beginning Monday January 28, we will meet every Monday, 5 p.m., at the first floor chapel of the Luther Place Memorial Church, 1226 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington DC. Use the N Street entrance, which is between Vermont and 13th St. NW.

COURSE DESCRIPTIION

Few of us went to schools where the literature of peace or the philosophy of nonviolence were taught as academic subjects. This course offers some remedial assistance. Amid so much of the world’s violence—among governments, families, tribes, gangs and often deep in our own psyche—studying alternatives to violence seems at best an exercise in irrelevant fantasy. But is it? If every government claims it wants peace and if every human heart yearns for peace, what better way to move toward those goals than by examining the writings of the peacemakers and peacebuilders, and see how well their idea hold up.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Our class meetings will include a fair amount of discussion, dissent and any other kind of fairminded intellectual exchange. Let’s listen well to each other. Listening is an act of caring. Each class is based on readings from the course texts. The assigned readings will be announced for the following class. Students are expected to read and intellectually absorb the assigned essays and be prepared to discuss them in class. We will not be rushing through the essays for the ignoble goal of covering ground. Teachers who like to “cover ground” should be encouraged to become football coaches. Students are encouraged to write letters-to-the-editors to the Washington Post and New York Times, as a way of making your voices heard on the issues of the day.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Solutions to Violence edited by Colman McCarthy (Center for Teaching Peace, 1999)

Strength Through Peace edited by Colman McCarthy (Center for Teaching Peace 2002)

All of One Peace by Colman McCarthy (Rutgers University Press 1996)

Best excuse for missing class is a death: yours or mine.

Choose two of these three:

a 1500 to 2000 word reflection paper on any of the essays in the three course texts. Your paper, for example, might offer your reflections on the death penalty. All three books have chapters on it. Refer to the texts and specific ideas in them. Avoid parroting back what the texts state. Instead, use them to present your own well-reasoned thoughts and come to your own grounded and defendable conclusions. Merely spouting opinions is useless. Save that for late night bull sessions with roommates, preferably when they’re sober.

A second paper, same as (a).

Keep a week by week journal, based on class discussions, your thoughts on the assigned readings, the useful of nonviolence in your own life and how it squares with the day’s political events.

The writing should be cliche-free, imaginative, and the kind of prose you’d be proud to show your parents. Full effort on the papers is expected.

The writing counts for most of the grade, with the remainder based on attendance, doing the readings, challenging the professor, going all out.

AVAILABILITY

(202) 537-1372. Center for Teaching Peace 4501 Van Ness St., Washington DC 20016. Appointments at convenient times.