CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Teaching the Sociology of Peace, War, and Military Institutions: A Curriculum Guide (4th Edition)

We invite submissions for the fourth edition of this curriculum guide, to be published by the Teaching Resource Center, American Sociological Association. The 2nd and 3rd editions, published in 1998 and 2003 respectively, were well received by social scientists in a variety of fields. A revision of the previous edition is urgently needed, in light of the events of September 11, 2001 and continued scholarship surrounding the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and other places around the world.

We welcome submissions from sociologists in diverse fields, who do not need to be members of the ASA section on Peace, War, & Social Conflicts.

The fourth edition of the curriculum guide will consist of three sections with the bulk of the material in Section II:

Section I: Essays on best practices for teaching
Section II: Syllabi and other instructional materials
Section III: Bibliographies and lists of websites

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Section I: Best practice essays. We would particularly welcome essays/reprints on:
- The impact on pedagogy of the attacks of September 11, 2001
- War in Afghanistan, Iraq or other locale
- Relationships between violence and war on the one hand, and social injustice and/or environmental damage on the other
- Field research and/or service-learning assignments
- Incorporating discussion of peace, war and social conflict into courses whose primary topic is something else (e.g. introductory sociology, or courses on deviance, the life course, medical sociology, etc. )

Section II: Syllabi, assignments, handouts and other instructional materials.
- Courses that survey peace, war, military institutions, or social conflict.
- Geographic areas where there is serious conflict (e.g. the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia)
- Terrorism
- Forms of structural violence (e.g. conflicts based in social inequality and environmental degradation)
- Analyses of policies (e.g. on law enforcement, the military-industrial complex, weapons, or weapons systems)
- The military as a social institution (e.g. inequalities in the military or the sociology of [insert military here])
- Peace movements and allied movements (e.g. civil rights, feminism, environmentalism)
- Constructive alternatives to violent conflict (e.g. non-violent protest, conflict resolution)

N.B. All syllabi should be accompanied and preceded by a 100-300 word description of your campus and the context in which the course is taught (e.g., type of school, size, level of the course, prerequisites, demographics of students, etc). Below are two examples:

Washington State University has 18,000 students. Completion of diversity courses (designated as "D" courses) is required of all undergraduates. This "Peace Rhetoric" course fulfilled this "D" requirement, and consisted primarily of sophomores and juniors. This served as a model course since it was awarded with and funded by an American Diversity Mini-Grant from WSU's College of Liberal Arts. One overarching course goal was to demonstrate that a nonviolence-oriented course could serve as an excellent vehicle for teaching about diversity, which is often thought of as merely a politically correct term, through the real-world prism of human rights and historical to contemporary literary records of social movements for justice (e.g., anti-slavery; civil rights, etc.). The course also emphasizes skills in visual literacy so students can analyze/critique symbolic, media, and other televisual literary forms.

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The goal of the course, “The Sociology of Aggression, Social Conflict, and War” is to synthesize individual-level explanations of violence with the theories and research on group- and societal-level violence. Western Illinois University has just over 13,000 students and this course is considered an elective. While the course was originally designed for an upper-level undergraduate course with about 30-40 students, it can easily be adapted to either a lower-level or graduate course by adding or subtracting to the readings and assignments.

Section III: Bibliographies and lists of websites. Not mutually-exclusive categories. We give precedence to contributions that are short, i.e. 3 pages or less. Where websites are included, please (a) focus on sites that are long-lived, (b) indicate, if necessary, the organization hosting a site, and/or whether the organization is an advocacy one.

Deadline for Submissions: December 15, 2006

Submission format:
Please send an electronic document as an e-mail attachment in Microsoft Word format, readable for an IBM computer
Materials are expected to be already checked for spelling and grammar
10 to 12 inch Times New Roman font
Margins should be one inch, top and bottom, left and right
Keep in mind that these margins are needed for two-sided copying and binding
Accepted materials may require editorial modification especially with unusually constructed syllabi
Single-space syllabi/course materials and bibliographies, double-space essays
Use double-spacing between paragraphs, and between sections and sub-sections
English-only but, we more than welcome submissions from outside the U.S.A.
Please send specific materials to the following:

Essays/Empirical Studies on Pedagogy of Peace, War, or the Military Institution:

Morten G. Ender, Ph.D.
Sociology Program Director
Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership
Thayer Hall 282E
United States Military Academy
West Point, NY 10996
tel: 845.938.5638
morten.ender@usma.edu
http://www.dean.usma.edu/departments/bsl/default.htm

West Point in the Making of America at: http://americanhistory.si.edu/westpoint/

Peace or War Materials:

Lynne Woehrle
Department of Behavioral Science
Mount Mary College
2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway
Milwaukee, WI 53222
414-258-4810 ext413
woehrlel@mtmary.edu

Military Institutions or War Materials:

Ryan Kelty, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Department of BS&L
United States Military Academy
West Point, NY 10996
ph: 845-938-6457

ryan.kelty@usma.edu