CLU 345 - Nationalism Seminar: Conflict Resolution and National Identity: Ending the Troubles

Semester Hours: 4

This summer seminar has students apply the literature on nationalism to analyze the dynamics of peacebuilding related to the nationalist/sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between the Protestant (Unionist) and Catholic (Irish nationalist) communities. In this cluster students survey the interdisciplinary academic literature on nationalism and nationalist conflict prior to traveling to Northern Ireland. They will then travel to Belfast participating in three academic modules offered by faculty at Queen’s University Belfast All students will participate in the Week 1 Module: Belfast: Culture, Identity, History and Politics. For weeks 2 and 3 they will select either the Irish Studies or Divided Societies based on their particular academic interests in nationalism and national identity. These models will help students understand the situation in Northern Ireland as a “contemporary expressions of nationalism,” for this particular version of PS 345. After completing these modules through the Queen’s University Summer School, students will apply the general theories of nationalism to help them analyze specific elements of national identities in Northern Ireland and efforts at conflict resolution and peacebuilding related to the sectarian conflicts there. Upon returning to the United States students will apply what they learned in N. Ireland back to the seminar and finish their specific research projects linking specific aspects of the historical and contemporary inter-group conflicts to the wider nationalism literature.

Intellectual Perspective: HC