Perspectives on Peace and Conflict

For millions of people across the world, violent conflict remains a persistent and tragic reality. In this course, we interrogate how issues of peace and conflict both imprint themselves on and are interpreted through Australian political life. We will look at the “scripts” that shape how Australians understand war, consider the conditioning role that “perspective” plays in those scripts, and extend the concepts we cover to address contemporary “confrontations” in global politics. The course will draw on a range of different texts and materials, from academic journal articles to novels and museum exhibitions. It will also tackle a series of historical and contemporary issues, from the colonisation of this land, to the role played by the AIF in World War One, to AUKUS. We will, along the way, be challenged to confront, on the one hand, the relationship between the Australian state and war, and, on the other, the part we as citizens play in reproducing and/or contesting that relationship. The overarching question, then, that this class encourages us to address is: How does Peace & Conflict Studies help us to think about violent conflict today, and what does it look like when viewed from Canberra?