Learning

Description/Goals/Format
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Humans have been making war and peace throughout their recorded history. We
can be fairly certain this was the case well before civilisation emerged. Conflicts
always seem to erupt over scarce resources, contentious values and ideas, fissures
in relationships, fault lines in societies, the list goes on. And, intertwined with these
conflicts are efforts to end violence, to heal wounds and reconcile, to share
resources, to create or re-establish a semblance of harmony between peoples. Most
of all will perceive these human activities as binary opposites, as mutually exclusive,
leading us to invest particular meanings in each to distinguish them further from
each other. Indeed, thanks to influences from culture, media, from our communities,
families and leaders, we typically perceive war and peace as suffering versus
happiness, action not stillness, a zone of masculine combat versus one of safety for
women and children, and much more. These ingrained perceptions shape our
decisions, actions and relationships in fundamental ways, determining our behaviour
and experiences in all spaces and times, whether we have construed them to be in
the context of war, peace, and anything beyond or in-between. Since our views of
war and peace are so fundamental to our life experience, this course asks us for a
deeper engagement of our prior knowledge.

Through critical engagement with a variety of disciplines and empirical contexts, we

will consider the intertwined phenomena of war and peace in theory and praxis. The
course explores the value systems we attach to each, why, and with what
consequences for ourselves and others? We investigate how our notions of war and
peace contribute directly to the construction of our identity as well as ideas about
belonging, power, justice, progress, and more. In so doing, we look into the ways
people, their customs, laws and culture respond to their perceptions and
experiences of war and peace; reflect on how they debate the purposes of war-
making and peace-making; and discuss how they compete and cooperate for the
spoils of both war and peace. Also, we will study how our knowledge of war and
peace may continually change over time. By the end of the course, students will
have an expansive understanding of how these two phenomena come together in
ways that structure and define their everyday lives.

Learning Description/Goals/Format 1
 COURSE GOALS:
Through in-class lectures and discussions, students will gain familiarity with debates
about what is gained and what is lost through the various processes that define “war”
and “peace”. Students will explore and critically assess these debates from various
perspectives, the aim being to enter into these discussions and articulate their own
points of view.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Disciplinary and multidisciplinary knowledge: Students will become conversant
with the various disciplinary discussions and debates concerning the many
conceptions of war and peace.

Intellectual and creative skills: Students will be able to move fluidly and critically
between perspectives, synthesising and drawing comparisons/contrasts between
them as they refine their perspectives about the intersections between war and
peace.

Global citizenship: Students’ will be able to problematise their value systems with
regard to war-making and peace-making and, thereby, reformulate and defend their
new worldviews.

COURSE READINGS/SCHEDULE:

Learning Description/Goals/Format 2
Learning Description/Goals/Format 3
 COURSE READINGS/SCHEDULE: Please note that this syllabus may change
somewhat over the course of the term; when in doubt, please refer to the weekly
reading guidelines given during class. Do note that the disciplinary tags listed next to
each text are indicative – most of these texts easily span multiple disciplines. Texts

Learning Description/Goals/Format 4
 focused on Singapore are marked with an asterisk (*). You will also notice that the
‘Optional’ section often includes novels, autobiographies or collections of letters,
which are marked with a hashtag (#).You are not expected to read these texts in
their entirety (though you may do so if you wish). Rather, consider these texts that
you can dip into in order to explore the week’s themes more fully in an enjoyable way
– read as much or as little of these texts as you choose.

Learning Description/Goals/Format 5