We are planning our seminars for Fall 2008. Please come back in September to find out who will be speaking.

This seminar will explore the causes, forms, purposes and effects of violence in history. It will ask how violence has shaped human environments (ecological, ideological, institutional, cultural, social and psychological) and how incidences of violence have varied across time and societies. It will probe the relationship of violence in its myriad forms to cultural, religious, racial, and gendered beliefs; to systems of labor, commerce and technology; to politics, ideology, and the presence or absence of states with the ability to monopolize the means of violence; to the rule of law and the punishment of lawbreakers; to rebellion, war, and torture. It will investigate how societies and individuals both involved in and divorced from the immediate experience of violence responded to it and coped with its effects. It will examine representations and memories of violence in literature, film, and popular culture. It will look into political and social movements that protested against violence. It will seek to advance our understanding of the history of violence in ways that are empirical, interpretive, comparative, and theoretical.