Syllabus for Peace In Pieces This Fall at SFAI

HUMN-237-01 | Fall 2017

Peace in Pieces: Histories, Theories, and Practices of Nonviolent Politics

Instructor: Dale Carrico; e-mail: dcarrico@sfai.edu

Thursdays, 4:15-7pm Room: MCR; August 30-December 6, 2017

Course Blog: https://peaceinpiecessfai.blogspot.com/

Rough Basis for Grade: Attendance/Participation, 15%; Co-Facilitation, 15%; Reading Notebook, 15%, Midterm Precis/Toulmin, 3-4pp., 20%; Final Paper, 5-6pp., 35% (subject to contingencies)

Course Description:

The arc of the moral universe is a longing... and it bends from just us. In this course we will read canonical texts in the theory, history, and practice of nonviolent resistance and world-making. This course is provoked and inspired by stories and strategies of reconciliation connected to traditions of nonviolent politics. But is this "non-violence" simply an alternative, at hand, or another fraught artifact we are making under duress? We will take seriously and look critically at the subtle and structural violences that ineradicably shape everyday life. We will consider legible testimonies to violation, in a variety of textual forms, while simultaneously considering the cultural ideals of persuasion which often accompany definitions of violence and its limits. We will both take up and take on the many paradoxes of nonviolent activism and violent order that complicate the teaching of what passes for peace. The State as site of violence and alter-violence. Nonviolence, interfaith dialogue, and freethinking. Spontaneity and training. Assembly, occupation, Black Bloc. Prerequisite: ENGL-101 Satisfies: 3-Units of Humanities; Critical Studies Elective, Liberal Arts Elective

Week One | Thursday, August 31

Introductions

Week Two | Thursday, September 7

Buddha, Let A Man Overcome Anger by Love

Howard Zinn, Introduction to Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown

Week Three | Thursday, September 14

Karuna Mantena, The Power of Nonviolence

Correspondence of Count Leo Tolstoy with M. K. Gandhi

M. K. Gandhi, TheDoctrine of the Sword

M.K. Gandhi, My Faith in Nonviolence

Week Four | Thursday, September 21

Screen film, "Iron-Jawed Angels,"dir. Katja von Garnier

Ken Butigan, Alice Paul's Enduring Legacy of Nonviolent Action

Jane Addams, New Ideals of Peace: Passing of the War Virtues

Week Five | Thursday, September 28

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam

Ella J. Baker, Bigger Than A Hamburger 

William C. Anderson, A Call for Self Defense in the Face of White Supremacy

Week Six | Thursday, October 5

A simplified Toulmin Schema

Also: Karl Rogers and Rogerian Synthesis

Week Seven | Thursday, October 12

Gene Sharp, selections From Dictatorship to Democracy

Arundhati Roy, War Is Peace

George Ciccariello-Maher, Planet of Slums, Age of Riots

[Midterm grading]

Week Eight | Thursday, October 19

Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, A Third Reconstruction

Week Nine | Thursday, October 26

Arendt, Reflections On Violence

Must Eichmann Hang? [In-class Handout]

Week Ten | Thursday, November 2

Angela Davis, selections from Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapters 1, 2, 6

Nick Estes, Fighting For Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context

Week Eleven | Thursday, November 9

Carol Adams, An Animal Manifesto

Carol Adams, Beastliness and a Politics of Solidarity

Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Week Twelve | Thursday, November 16

Final Paper Workshop

Week Thirteen | Thursday, November 23

Thanksgiving Holiday

Week Fourteen | Thursday, November 30

Judith Butler, Notes Toward A Performative Theory of Assembly, chapters 1-3 [purchase the book]

Week Fifteen | Thursday, December 7

Judith Butler, Notes Toward A Performative Theory of Assembly, chapters 4-6