Religion, peace and pacifism. Political and historical point of view 2100-ERASMUS-RPPV
The course aims to provide students with knowledge, skills and competencies useful in understanding pacifist thought from a political and historical perspective. This goal will be achieved through the analysis of texts focusing on issues located in what is common to the three concepts of religion, peace and pacifism. These concepts will be used to explore cultural, religious, political communities and various minorities building their identities on ethical systems. This cognition will enable reflection on contemporary ethical and legal dilemmas of the functioning of political communities in times of peace and war. The subject, first of all, is intended to help students understand the reality revealed at the interface of concepts such as religion, politics, security, peace, pacifism, morality, anti-militarism, liberalism, anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, pacificism, philosophical anthropology. Second, it is to provide students with an instrumentarium for describing and explaining issues pertaining to contemporary and historical communities: cultural, religious, political and various minorities building their identities on ethical systems. Third, it is to develop skills and competence in analyzing and describing contemporary issues (security threats) through references to doctrinal texts of pacifists and texts describing pacifists, their actions and ethical principles. Fourth, to show universal problems faced by religious minorities and state authorities in a pluralistic world. To emphasize the timelessness of the issues presented, all topics will include two parallel strands: historical and contemporary. The subject is also intended to foster the ability to think analytically about socio-cultural processes and their relationship to politics and the creation of security and international order.
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
The goal of the course is to achieve the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge:
1. The student has knowledge of the key problems of cultural, religious, political minorities and various minorities building their identity on ethical systems in the area of political and social life.
2. The student is able to function in a multicultural and multi-religious society, thus increasing his/her ability to find himself/herself in contemporary and changing social discussions.
3. The student understands the role of religion/ethical system as one of the most important cultural and community-forming factors determining various identities in the modern world.
Skills:
1. The student is able to analyze historical texts and read them in a contemporary context.
2. The student is able to lead a discussion using knowledge of cultural and religious differences.
3. The student is able to observe and interpret phenomena and processes in the political community, perceive their interrelationships and dependencies.
Competencies:
1. The student recognizes the relationship between religious and worldview identity and political action and the legal order of the state.
2. The student is aware of his/her own identity.
3. The student is able to function in a multicultural world (build relationships in it and manage diversity).
4. The student is able to use cultural differences as added values.
5. The student is tolerant of people with different views on the processes of creating national and international security.
Assessment criteria
Classes in the form of a conversation. The basis for discussion will be the reading of source texts and contemporary materials and their joint analysis during the course.
Criteria for passing the course:
Active attendancé in class (two absences possible).
A credit work - an essay on a topic agreed with the lecturer.
Bibliography
Old and New Testament.
Papal messages for world peace days (Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis).
A. Fiala, Practical Pacifism, Algora Publishing 2004.
A. Fiala, The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence, Taylor & Francis 2018.
B. Bado, Directions of Peter Brock’s Research on Pacifism. The Security Studies Perspective, in: Person, Nation, State: Interdisciplinary Research in Security Studies, eds. C. Smuniewski, A. Massa, A. Zanini, Akademia Sztuki Wojennej 2021, pp. 147–166.
C. Smuniewski, Church and Pacifism, “Politeja”, 2019, No. 61, pp. 341–357.
D.L. Dodge, J. Mott, N. Worcester, The First American Peace Movement, Garland Publishing 1972.
J.S. Hartzler, Mennonites in the World War or Nonresistance Under Test, Mennonite Publishing House 1922.
L. Tolstoy, A Confession, Penguin Books 2009.
L. Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, A Word To The Wise 2013.
L. Trotsky, Pacifism As The Servant of Imperialism, English Edition, No. 5 New Series, transcribed for the Trotsky Internet Archive by J.J. Plant.
M.E. Hirst, The Quakers in peace and war an account of their peace principles and practice, Kessinger Publishing 2007.
M.Q. Sibley, The Political Theories of Modern Religious Pacifism, „The American Political Science Review”, 1943, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 439–454.
P. Brock, A Polish Anabaptist against War: The Question of Conscientious Objection in Marcin Czechowic’s Christian Dialogues of 1575, “The Mennonite Quarterly Review”, 1978, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 279–293.
P. Brock, Dilemmas of a Socinian Pacifist in Seventeenth-Century Poland, “Church History”, 1994, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 190–200.
P. Brock, Freedom from Violence: Sectarian Nonresistance form the Middle Ages to the Great War, University of Toronto Press 1991.
P. Brock, Freedom from War Nonsectarian Pacifism 1814-1914, University of Toronto Press 1991.
P. Brock, H.L. Dyck, The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective, University of Toronto 1996.
P. Brock, N. Young, Pacifism in the Twentieth Century, Syracuse University Press 1999.
P. Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914, Princeton University Press 1972.
P. Brock, Pacifism in the United States, From the Colonial Era to the First World War, Princeton University Press 1968.
P. Brock, Slave and Master in the Congregation of God: a Debate over Serfdom among Antitrinitarians in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1568, “The Polish Review”, 1998, Vol. XLIII, No. 1, pp. 79–100.
P. Brock, The Mahatma and mother India: essays on Ghandi’s non-violence and nationalism, Navajivan Publishing House 1983.
P. Brock, The Political and Social Doctrines of the Unity of Czech Brethren in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries, Mount & CO 1957.
P. Brock, The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1660 to 1914, Session Book Trust 1990.
P. Brock, The riddle of St. Maximilian of Tebessa, Printed Privately: University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2000.
R. Barclay, Apology for the True Christian Divinity : Being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People Called Quakers, Forgotten Books 2019.
S. Kot, Socinianism in Poland; the social and political ideas of the Polish Antitrinitarians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, transl. Earl Morse Wilbur, Starr King Press 1957.
The Constitution of Japan, Promulgated on November 3, 1946. Came into effect on May 3, 1947.
United Nation, Human Rights Office of the High Commisioner, Conscientious Objection to Military Service, New York and Geneva 2012.
W.L. Garrisson, The „infidelity” of abolitionism, Anti-Slavery Tracts, No. 10, 1860.
Selection of source texts for class discussion – a set of materials will be provided by the lecturer.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: