Peace Studies Program

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Based on an understanding that differences enrich our lives and that conflicts provide opportunities for growth, peace studies proposes ways of being in the world that incorporate the skills of listening and dialogue, mediation and negotiation, ideas of rights balanced with responsibilities, questions of justice, and philosophies of nonviolence. As the 21st century finds us living in a world where violence has become banal, where subliminal, virtual, or actual violence bombards us all in every walk of life, where armed political and economic conflicts divide the world again into fiefdoms of ethnicity or privilege, so, too, exist alternatives by which we can live. Peace thought is the study of alternatives to violent conflict.

Peace studies is the interdisciplinary program where students explore those alternatives through the study of conflict, violence, and nonviolence in the lives of individuals, communities and the shared world. Students consider peace and conflict theories as they apply to historical and contemporary conflicts around the world. Additionally, they practice reflection and critical thinking and render service to communities as engaged citizens in the practice of peace.

Goucher College offers a major and minor in peace studies.

Program Faculty

Professors

Jean Bradford, professor emerita (psychology), Richard Pringle, (psychology)

Assistant Professors

Jennifer Bess, (early modern prose and poetry; education and public health; Native American studies and ethnic- American literature), Seble Dawit, director (human rights and humanitarian law, gender and rights, non-profit organizations, futuring)

Visiting Assistant Professor

Elham Atashi, (conflict resolution, intergroup relations, identity)

Instructors

Frances Donelan, (conflict resolution, mediation, community building, non-violence history and mechanics), Ailish Meisner, (poetry and poetics, social poetics, new narrative practices, critical pedagogy, capacity and community building)

Lecturers

Nancy Magnuson (library science, information retrieval, library research methods), Emily Perl (leadership)

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