Violence and Civilization: A Deep History of Social Violence

Why do we do violence to one another? This course will foster a sustained and critical reflection on social violence, history and humanity. We will explore social orders through time, together with their practices and moral economies of permissible and impermissible violence. Different conceptions of violence ("symbolic," "structural," and "routine") will be considered, in conjunction with their intersections with the many, ambivalent meanings of "civilization." No prerequisites required.