Faith, Conflict, and Human Rights (AR9050Z)

Content

Religious faith continues to influence and shape modern twenty-first societies. While some may regard religion as the cause of conflict, terror, and war, others locate in it the transcendent source of ethics, justice and rights. Yet religion itself is notoriously difficult to define, let alone understand. In this unit, students will explore the significance of religious faith, and its relationship to conflict and human rights.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

No prerequisites or co-requisites are required

Pedagogy

Lectures/seminars and student-led tutorials

Indicative Bibliography

• Ali, Jan. Islam and Muslims in Australia: Settlement, Integration, Sharia, Education and Terrorism. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2020.
• Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins, 1993.
• Cavanaugh, William T. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Gregory, Brad S. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge, MA and London, UK: The Belknap Press, 2012.
• Gross, Rita. A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
• Hudson, Wayne. Australian Religious Thought. Clayton, VIC: Monash University Press, 2016.
• McPhillips, Kathleen, and Naomi Goldenberg (eds). The End of Religion: Feminist Reappraisals of the State. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by C. Diethe, Edited by K. Ansell-Pearson. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Nongbri, Brent. Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven and New York: Yale University Press, 2015.

Assessment