Course info

Violent Extremism and Radicalization: This course will focus on the role religion (including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism) plays in different types and levels of conflicts, and its actual and potential positive transformative role. The course does not start with a simplistic assumption that religion has been the cause of all conflicts. Instead, the course studies critically the role of religion (along with other factors, such as nationalism, ethnicity, race, class, gender, among others) in contributing to conflict causes, influencing its persisting negative and destructive dynamics, and in peacefully resolving and transforming conflicts. Using the case of violent extremism committed in the name of Islam, the course will be studied from the vantage point of the field of peace and conflict studies, using frameworks and models intended to deeply analyze several case studies from different parts of the world. The course materials and activities will culminate in an exploration of methods and processes that would advance the positive peaceful role of religion and religious institutions in various types and levels of conflicts, and which are suitable for the realities of the 21st century.