Overview
Within the field of international relations (IR), war and peace serve as core analytical categories for examining insecurity and conflict among peoples, nations, and states from an interdisciplinary perspective. This course is designed for graduate students in the Master of Arts – Interdisciplinary Studies (MA-IS) program who share a deep interest in the future of humanity and our collective destiny as a single species, the human race. By highlighting the critical juncture at which humanity now stands, the course introduces students from across MA-IS focus areas—including Community Studies, Cultural Studies, Educational Studies, Equity Studies, Global Change, and Writing and New Media—to the ways in which IR engages with the twin phenomena of war and peace. To this end, the course explores key theories, debates, and discourses that have these phenomena as both the subject and object of analysis.
Students will engage with a wide range of scholarly and policy works that may or may not validate the hypothesis that IR is grounded in certain knowledge relations—and by implication, power relations—that tell us everything about war and virtually nothing about how to achieve peace. Special attention will be paid to mainstream IR debates that have shaped the empirical landscape, policy agendas, theoretical frameworks, and governmental-legal discourses within the field. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to critically examine the kinds of knowledge relations and policies essential to achieving a lasting, sustainable, and all-inclusive global peace.
Outline
MAIS 752 covers thirteen topics to be discussed over fourteen weeks:
- Week 1: War and Peace in International Relations, Part I
- Week 2: War and Peace in International Relations, Part II
- Week 3: Realism
- Week 4: Liberalism and Democratic Peace
- Week 5: Feminism, Woman, and Peace
- Week 6: International Law, Sovereignty, and Colonialism
- Week 7: Culture
- Week 8: Psychology of War and Peace
- Week 9: Race
- Week 10: Humanitarian Intervention
- Week 11: Education
- Week 12: Global Governance of War and Peace
- Week 13: Writing, Narratives, and Media
- Week 14: AI and Technology
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to
- analyze watershed events in IR using theories and policies that have the categories of war and peace as both the subject and object of analysis.
- evaluate complex and evolving concepts in IR and apply them to contemporary global challenges.
- engage with the ethical, normative, and discursive implications of the debates surrounding the analysis of war and peace.
- identify political, legal-governance, social, cultural, educational, media, technological, gender, and identity conditions essential for cultivating a lasting and inclusive global peace.
- compare and critically assess competing theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of conflict.
Evaluation
To receive credit for MAIS 752, students must participate in weekly discussion and complete and submit all assignments. Students must achieve a minimum grade of C− (60 percent) on the Final Essay and an overall grade of C- (60 percent) for the entire course.
A student's final grade in the course will be based on the marks achieved for the following activities.
| Activity | Weight |
| Weekly Participation in Online Discussion | 15% |
| Critical Engagement with Two Toward Peace YouTube-Channel Videos | 25% |
| Book Review | 30% |
| Final Essay | 30% |
| Total | 100% |
Materials
Other materials
Pourmokhtari, N. (2024). Toward a paradigm shift in international relations studies: (Re)claiming world peace. Palgrave Macmillan. (AU Library)
All other course materials, including weekly readings, will be provided online through the course site.