NOTICE BOARD

November 7, 2012

CRITICAL STUDIES:  presents guest speaker Professor James L. Gelvin, .he will speak on:
"The Arab Uprisings: What we have learned  after Two Years"

Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - 2:00pm - 3:15pm

CalArts, Langley Hall

This event is open to the Institute.


For Sept. 26, 2012
Prompts for class discussion, bring  your written questions and responses to class
 (No more than 2 pages.)
  1. What is Satyagrah?
  2. What was Gandhi's strategy of non-cooperation?

  3. The strength of nonviolence lies in its ability to dramatically reduce the moral legitimacy of those who persist in using violent strategies against non-violent opposition, discuss.

  4. "Nonviolent action tends to turn the opponent's violence and repression against his own power position, weakening it and at the same time strengthening the nonviolent group.



 For Sept. 19, 2012

Come prepared to discuss all.

Please read: .
1. Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall's, A Force More Powerful, " pp. 457-468

2. In "The Menace of Militarism" Scott Nearing said, he "analyzed... military preparedness and war-making as sources of business profits. My Oil and the Germs of War explained the role of the petroleum and other big business interests in the international struggle for sources of raw material, markets, and investment opportunities." Over 80 years later, the US (led by oilmen) begins its Afghan War, caused partly by our oil dependency.
  1. Does war have a place in civil society? Support your views based on the above readings and citing examples from the Iraq and Afghanistan War.
  2. "War is an attempt of one group to impose its will upon another group by armed violence," Scott Nearing observed. Make your argument using the two wars above.
  3. "War drags human beings from their tasks of building and improving, and pushes them en masse into the category of destroyers and killers." Comment.
  4. Wars transform the societies that wage them. How has the war in Afghanistan changed the US domestically?