University of North Georgia

Department of English

ENGL 4810: Visions of Peace in the East and West

Spring 2016

Dr. Donna A. Gessell dgessell@ung.edu Dunlap 201A 706-864-1528

Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:00 to 5:00 pm and by appointment

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course leads students on an intellectual journey to examine the idea of peace, within different Eastern and
Western historical and cultural contexts to reveal its complexities and ways that conditions of peace can
unsettle political and social relationships.
This course may be taken as a minor or major requirement in History, Philosophy, or English or for the
Environmental Studies or European Union Certificate, and if so must follow prerequisite or co-requisite
requirements for 3000 level courses. It also may be taken as an elective by non-majors, with no prerequisite
requirement.

COURSE OBJECTIVES (EXPECTED OUTCOMES)

Students will be able to discuss the philosophy of peace and violence by paying special attention to
historical contexts of culture from the ancient to the contemporary period.
Students will describe individual, social, and cultural values that have influenced aspects of peace and
violence throughout time.
Students will be able to define multi-dimensions of peace in historical, philosophical, and personal terms.

Required Texts
Aksu, Esref. Early Notions of Global Governance. University of Wales Press, 2008.
Anonymous. Song of Roland. Penguin.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. Non-Violence in Peace and War, 19421949. New York: Garland Press, 1972.
Kalantzis, George. Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service. Cascade Books, 2012.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Penguin.
Nepstad, Sharo Erickson. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century. Oxford Univ. Press, 2011.
Raaflaub, Kurt. War and Peace in the Ancient World. London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006.
Supplemental Readings: Provided on the D2L course website and online

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
Students will learn through diverse pedagogies including readings, short lectures, small and large group
discussions, debates, and research projects and presentations. The latter may engage the campus community
through campus surveys, video/audio productions and presentations, and campus displays and presentations.

EVALUATION METHODS AND COURSE GRADING

Grading Scale: A+= 98, A = 95, A-=90, B+= 88, B = 85, B-=80, C+= 78, C = 75, C-=70, D+= 68, D = 65, D-=60, F = 59 0
Students are required to complete ALL of the following assignments, the performance of which will determine the
final grade:

% of
Assignment course Due Date Comments
grade
Student-led group 15% As Each student will lead four in-class discussions on the merits of the
discussion scheduled assigned topics and texts. We will discuss this more in class and a rubric
for grading will be distributed.
Weekly (4 papers) 40% Weekly Students will read the assigned readings and produce a two-page
thought/reaction through response (for any 4 weeks) that evaluates the materials in light of the
papers (2-3 pages Week 11 topics designated. The response will explore the implications providing
each) assertion, evidence, and discussion.
Group reading 10% Week 13 Students will choose one of the contemporary books (see below) to
project read and will present to the class. The rubric for grading will be
distributed.
Research Project 20% Week 14 Each student will design a research project based on an approved topic
or theme. Students may work as individuals or in a small group. A
separate handout will detail expectations for the assignment as well as
a rubric for grading. The project will include a prospectus, mid-project
outline and annotated bibliography, and a six-page research paper.
Presentation of 10% Week 15 Each student will present on an aspect of the final project at a campus
Research Project event, details of which will be provided. A grading rubric will be
at campus event distributed.
Final reflection 5% Final exam The final exam will be an in-class essay addressing the issues, concepts,
paper and approaches to Peace. We will discuss this further in class.

COURSE CALENDAR
This syllabus may be adjusted if deemed necessary by the instructor.

Week Topic Area Assignments

1 1/12 Violence and Society Psychology D2L articles
and Culture
2 1/19 Approaches to War: Ancient China Confucius, Analects; Shu Jing; Mozi, Universal Love;
Philosophical Daodeching; Legalism
Raaflaub, War and Peace, Ch. 2. Weekly Paper?
3 1/26 Approaches to War: Ancient Greece Thucydides, Selections 15-36, 39-46, 52-56, 66-76, 77-
Intercultural & Rome 87, 102-109, 111-120; Livy, Selections
Raaflaub, War and Peace, Chs. 6, 8, 9. Weekly Paper?
4 2/2 Religion and Violence Christianity & Kalantzis, Caesar and the Lamb, Chs. 1-5, 8, 12. Weekly
War Paper?
5 2/9 Religion and Violence Islam & War Koran, Selections; Supplementary documents
Raaflaub, War and Peace, Ch. 12. Weekly Paper? Research
Project One-Page Prospectus and Bibliography due 2/11
6 2/16 Religion and Violence Medieval Song of Roland. Raaflaub, War and Peace, Ch. 11. Weekly
Europe Paper?
7 2/23 Politics, Culture, and India Laws of Manu, Mahabhrata, selections.
Violence Weekly Paper?
8 3/1 Politics, Culture, and Early Modern Machiavelli, The Prince. Weekly Paper? Research Project
Violence Europe Annotated Bibliography due
9 3/8 Politics, Culture, and Early Modern Qing Documents, selections 3-198 for Tuesday; 199-298
Violence Asia for Thursday. Weekly Paper?
10 3/22 Politics, Culture, and Enlightenment Aksu, Early Notions of Global Governance, Chs. 1-9. Weekly
Violence Paper?
11 3/29 Violence/Non-violence Contemporary Tuesday: Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace and War, section 1
and 4; Nepstad, Nonviolent Revolutions. Part 1 //
Thursday: Nepstad, Nonviolent Revolutions. Parts 2 & 3
Weekly Paper?
12 4/5 Violence/Non-violence Contemporary United Nations Genocide Convention, selections King, A
Letter from a Birmingham Jail Malcolm X By Any Means
Possible (film)
13 4/12 Group Reading Project
14 4/19 Research Project Workshop/Research Project Draft
15 4/26 Rehearsal for Presentation/ Research Project
Presentation
Final 4/5 Reflective Essay
5:30-7:30
TEXTS AND OTHER MATERIALS

Group Reading Project Books (Each student will read one of the following texts.)
Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.
New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998.
Iweala, Uzodinma. Beasts of No Nation. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Klay, Phil. Redeployment. New York: Pengiun, 2014.
Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York: Knopf, 2006.
OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Ricks, Thomas E. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Ung, Loung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhause Five. New York: Dial Press, Reissue edition 1999.
Wright, Evan. Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. New York:
Penguin, 2004.

Supplementary Readings
Ackerman, Peter. A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-Violent Conflict. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2001.
Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969.
Bainton, Roland Herbert. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation.
New York: Abingdon Press, 1960. Print.
Balch, Thomas Willing. mric Cruc.(Nabu Press, 2010).
Bellamy, Alex J., et al. Understanding Peacekeeping. 2nd edition. Cambridge, UK: Polity Books, 2010.
Black, Jeremy. War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continents, 1450-2000. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2000.
Boulding, E. Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
Ceadel, Martin. The Origins of War Prevention: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1730-1854.
Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Chenoweth, Erika. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2011.
Christie, Daniel, et al. Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century. I A Books (reprint edition),
2008.
Classen, Albrecht and Nadia Margolis, editors. War and Peace: Critical Issues in European Societies and Literature
800-1800. Germany: De Gruyter. 2011.
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Transl. Michael Eliot Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press; Reprint edition, 1989.
Cortwright, David. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Crocker, Chester A., et al. Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World. United States Institute
of Peace, 2007.
Doyle, Michael. Ways of War and Peace. (New York: WW Norton and Co., 1997).
Erasmus, The Complaynt of Peace. Translated from the Querela Pacis of Erasmus (Theophania Publishing, 2011).
Feldman, Yael S. "From Essentialism to Constructivism?: The Gender of Peace and WarGilman, Woolf, Freud."
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 2, no. 1 (2004): 113-145. http://muse.jhu.edu/.
Fellman, G. Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The compulsion to win and its threat to human survival. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1998.
Forcey, Linda Rennie. Peace: Meanings, Politics, Strategies. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 1989.
Guanzhong, Lao. Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Hastings, Tom H. Meek Ain't Weak: Nonviolent Power and People of Color. Washington, D.C.: University Press Of
America, 2002.
Housley, Norman. Crusading and Warfare in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
Howard, Michael. The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order. (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2000).
Johnson, James Turner. The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1987.
Lindley-French, Julian and Yves Boyer, eds. The Oxford Handbook of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Livy. The Rise of Rome, Books 1-5. Trans. T.J. Luce. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Lowe, Ben. Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340- 1560. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1997.
Lynn II, John A. Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Matyok, Thomas, ed. Critical Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy. New York:
Lexington Books, an Imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, 2012.
Muhaiyaddeen, M.R.B. Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi. Philadelphia: PA: Fellowships Press 2002.
Nepstad, Sharon Erickson. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century. Oxford Studies in
Culture and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Qing Imperial Documents
Pizan. Christine. The Book of Peace. Edited by Karen Green, Constant J. Mews, and Janice Pinder. University Park:
Penn State Press, 2008.
Pugliatti, Paola. Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Simon & Schuster; Edition Unstated edition,
2004).
Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Smoker, Paul. Small Peace. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 18, No. 2, Special Issue on Theories of Peace (Sage
Publications, Ltd.,1981): 149-157. Article Stable URL: http:// www.jstor.org/stable/424206
Thucydides. On Justice, Power and Human Nature. Trans. with intro. and notes by Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis and
Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993).
Tomkinson, L. Studies in the theory and practice of peace and war in Chinese history and literature. Shanghai:
Published for the Friends' Centre, by Christian Literature Society, 1940.

Academic Integrity Policy: Cheating and Plagiarism

Honor Code: On my honor, I will not lie, cheat, steal, plagiarize, evade the truth or tolerate those who do.

Plagiarism means that you have used either the words or ideas of another author in work that you represented
as your own. This includes copying straight from the book, using a paper from another student or the internet. It
also means using the ideas of an author without citing the title of the book and page number of where you found
that idea. Cheating on tests, including copying answers from another student or bringing in notes, will not be
tolerated. Those caught cheating will receive an F for the course and be subject to further discipline by the
university. Please, if you have any questions about either cheating or plagiarism, consult the student catalogue or
see me.

Suspected violations of the Academic Integrity policy should be referred by students to the instructor. If the
instructor concludes that a violation of the Academic Integrity policy has occurred, the instructor will either (1)
penalize the student and file an incident report with the Academic Integrity Council or (2) refer the matter directly
to the Academic Integrity Council. If an incident report is filed by the instructor, the instructor will review the
completed report with the student and will request that the student sign the report as an indication that the
student is aware of the contents of the report.

Plagiarism and Turnitin.com:

Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity
review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents
in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the
Turnitin.com service is subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use posted on the Turnitin.com site.

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities:

UNG is committed to equal access to its programs, services and activities for people with disabilities. If you believe
that you have a disability requiring an accommodation, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the instructor
and Student Disability Resources. In this case, contact Thomas McCoy, Coordinator, Student Disability Resources at
313 Stewart Center, 867-2782.
Class Evaluations:
Class evaluations at UNG are now conducted on-line through Banner. Evaluation of the class is considered a
component of the course and students will not be permitted to access their course grade until the evaluation has
been completed. The evaluations will be accessible beginning one week prior to Final Exam week.

Student Success Program

I am committed to your success in this course and at this university. I may, therefore, refer you to other persons
and/or services available to help you achieve academic success. In turn, if you are referred, you will be expected to
comply with the referrals. Please understand that such referrals are not a form of punishment, rather, they are
intended to help you. If you are referred to the Student Success Program, an e-mail will be sent to your North
Georgia account. It is important to check this e-mail regularly, and to respond in a timely manner.

Nota Bene: While it is not anticipated, the instructor retains the right to change any part of the course syllabus