What are (literary) peace & conflict studies?
Peace and Conflict Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the causes, dynamics, and resolutions of conflict, as well as the conditions necessary for sustainable peace. It draws from political science, sociology, history, anthropology, psychology, law, and international relations to understand violence, war, human security, and strategies for conflict transformation. It covers such topics as causes of conflict – structural inequalities, political grievances, ethnic tensions, economic disparities, and resource competition; forms of violence – direct, structural, and cultural (ideologies that justify harm and injustice); conflict resolution & transformation – mediation, reconciliation, transitional justice, and peacebuilding efforts; peace theories and utopias – theories of (just) war, nonviolence, positive vs. negative peace; actors – individuals, societies, governments, peacekeeping forces; and last but not least, post-conflict reconstruction – addressing trauma, rebuilding societies, disarmament, and reintegration of combatants.
Although the great bulk of peace & conflict studies is situated in "serious" disciplines, such as political theory or international relations, also literature is an important element of this interdisciplinary field. Not only is war one of the universal literary topics, since the great epic text of India, the Mediterranean or Scandinavia, it is also a permanent source of trauma narrations. Various intellectual currents and methodological inspirations contribute to the vision of literature's transformative agency in peace and conflict. Among the most popular, one might mention memory and post-memory studies, grown on the fertile ground of post-Holocaust literature. Closer to my interests, I might also mention transcoloniality as a project that, at least in one of its vertents, deals with conflict resoltion and reconciliation, applied to conflict-torn postcolonial Africa. It is one of many contexts in which the observation made by Johan Galtung seems pertinent: "Conflict is much more than what meets the naked eye as ‘trouble’, direct violence. There is also the violence frozen into structures, and the culture that legitimizes violence. To transform a conflict between some parties, more than a new architecture for their relationship is needed. The parties have to be transformed so that the conflict is not reproduced forever" (1996:9).
Although the great bulk of peace & conflict studies is situated in "serious" disciplines, such as political theory or international relations, also literature is an important element of this interdisciplinary field. Not only is war one of the universal literary topics, since the great epic text of India, the Mediterranean or Scandinavia, it is also a permanent source of trauma narrations. Various intellectual currents and methodological inspirations contribute to the vision of literature's transformative agency in peace and conflict. Among the most popular, one might mention memory and post-memory studies, grown on the fertile ground of post-Holocaust literature. Closer to my interests, I might also mention transcoloniality as a project that, at least in one of its vertents, deals with conflict resoltion and reconciliation, applied to conflict-torn postcolonial Africa. It is one of many contexts in which the observation made by Johan Galtung seems pertinent: "Conflict is much more than what meets the naked eye as ‘trouble’, direct violence. There is also the violence frozen into structures, and the culture that legitimizes violence. To transform a conflict between some parties, more than a new architecture for their relationship is needed. The parties have to be transformed so that the conflict is not reproduced forever" (1996:9).
subjectively selected bibliography in peace & conflict studies
Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: Verso.
Darnton, Robert. 2014. Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Galtung, Johan. 1996. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. London: Sage.
Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Translated by Steven Corcoran. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Nora, Pierre. 1996. Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting. Translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador.
Darnton, Robert. 2014. Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Galtung, Johan. 1996. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. London: Sage.
Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Translated by Steven Corcoran. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Nora, Pierre. 1996. Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting. Translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador.
