Anthropology of Violence

This course approaches violence as an inherent and constitutive experience of contemporary societies, in the United States and beyond. The course investigates the concrete experience and the cultural framework of the communities where violence is present (e.g., direct military conflict between states; civil conflict; starvation; state propaganda and limits to freedom of speech and expression; targeting/excluding specific communities from the social, political, and economic life; economic sanctions; unlawful detentions and interrogations techniques; torture). Drawing insights from multiple academic disciplines, the course sheds light on how endless violence reshapes collective mindsets and individual lives: i) absorbing and re-distributing resources across economic systems; ii) recasting the relationship between rulers, citizens and military structures; iii) impacting on human security (including food security, energy security and environmental security). The ultimate goal of the course is to raise a critical and scientifically-informed awareness of the social and cultural significance of violence beyond the purely military and geopolitical dimensions, preparing students to envision a future of peace, understood as the absence of physical, psychological and structural violence.