Module Information For Visiting and Erasmus Students
2013/14
Department*
Ecumenics
Notes The modules listed below are offered at Undergraduate level
and are available to Erasmus and Visiting students.
Visiting/Erasmus
Module Info on Module summaries and details available on website
Department http://www.tcd.ie/ise/
Website
Module Code*
Module Name*
EM7345B
Politics of Peace and Conflict
ECTS 10
Weighting*
Semester/term One
taught*
Contact Hours*
Module
Personnel
22
Module Coordinator: Professor Iain Atack
Teaching Staff: Professors Carlo Aldrovandi, Iain Atack, Etain
Tannam and Gillian Wylie
On successful completion of this module students should be
Learning
Outcomes able to:

Describe the basic concepts and theories relevant to
understanding conflict and its resolution.

Compare and assess key theoretical approaches to
resolving conflict and to peace-building.

Assess the role of international organizations and their
member states in conflict resolution and peace-building.
Module
Learning Aims
Module
Content/

Assess the role of civil society in conflict resolution and
peace-building.

Analyse the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful
peace processes, and evaluate the combined overall
impact of national governments, international
organisations, civil society organisations and faithbased groups.



To evaluate the origins of armed conflicts.
To assess the possibilities for conflict resolution.
To identify the conditions for building sustainable peace
in war-torn societies.
Theories of peace; the ethics of peace and war; culture,
conflict and peace; peacebuilding and peacemaking; the role
and effectiveness of peace movements.
The purpose of this module is to provide an introduction to
Description* understanding and explaining the origins of armed conflicts
and possibilities for their resolution, as well as the conditions
for building sustainable peace in war-torn societies. Various
theories and concepts of relevance to understanding and
explaining conflict in various case studies are examined.
Core Readings
Recommended
Iain Atack, The Ethics of Peace and War, Edinburgh University
Reading List
Press. Edinburgh, 2005.
Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall,
Contemporary Conflict Resolution (3rd Edition), Polity Press,
London, 2011.
Peter Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution: War,
Peace and the Global System (3rd Edition), Sage, London,
2011.
Module Pre None
Requisite
Module Co None
Requisite
Assessment
Three thousand word essay on an agreed topic.
Details*
Module Code*
EM7486A
Religion and International Relations
Module Name*
ECTS 10
Weighting*
Semester/term Two
taught*
Contact Hours*
22
Module Prof Carlo Aldrovandi, Dr Jude Lal
Personnel
On successful completion of this module students should be
Learning able to:
Outcomes
 Assess the normative debate about the role of religion
in International Relations, focusing on the following
traditions of IR theory: Realism, Liberalism, Marxism,
Constructivism and the English School.
 Discuss contemporary issues in international affairs
which are associated with the idea of a widespread
religious resurgence (i.e. globalization, religious
Fundamentalism and violence, transnational religious
actors, faith-based peacemaking and diplomacy).
 Address the religious dimensions in contemporary world
conflicts, whilst identifying perspectives and
movements within main religious traditions which
contribute to peacemaking, conflict resolution and
reconciliation.
 Evaluate the salience of religious beliefs, identities and
movements in selected national contexts such as the
United States, Israel, Iran and Sri Lanka.
Module
Learning Aims



To assess the salience of religion (broadly defined here
as the main world religions) in the contemporary
globalized era.
To address the ways in which religion has been
marginalized or excluded from the secular perspectives
of International Relations theory.
To discuss the intellectual basis for how religiously
inspired spheres of thought can be brought back into
the picture.
Module
Content/
Description*
Recommended
Reading List
International Relations theory (Realism, Liberalism, Marxism,
Constructivism) and religion; contemporary issues in
international relations which are associated with the idea of a
widespread religious resurgence; the salience of religious
beliefs, identities and movements in selected national
contexts such as the United States, Israel, Iran and Sri Lanka.
The purpose of this module is to provide an understanding of
the on-going salience of religion (broadly defined here as the
main world religions) in the contemporary globalized era. The
overall aim is to address the ways in which religion has been
marginalized or excluded from the secular perspectives of
International Relations theory (Realism, Liberalism, Marxism,
Constructivism, etc.), whilst providing the intellectual basis for
how religiously inspired spheres of thought can be brought
back into the picture. This module also challenges the
common view that the politicization of religion is always a
threat to international security and inimical to the resolution
of world conflict.
Core Readings
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in
International Relations, Princeton University Press, Princeton,
2008.
Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the
Transformation of International Relations, Palgrave, London,
2005.
Marc Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide: the Inner
Lives of Arab and Jewish Peacemakers, Oxford University
Press, Oxford. 2013.
William T Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular
Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2009.
Module Pre None
Requisite
Module Co None
Requisite
Assessment
Three thousand word essay on an agreed topic.
Details*
Module Code*
EM7467A
Engaging Religious Fundamentalism
Module Name*
Not available during the 2013/14 academic year.
ECTS 10
Weighting*
Semester/term Two
taught*
Contact 22
Hours*
Module Prof Andrew Pierce
Personnel
On successful completion of this module students should be able
Learning to:
Outcomes
 Identify and describe the significant historical factors in
the emergence of religious fundamentalism.

Assess dominant paradigms of fundamentalist study.

Analyse the key social, political and theological elements
in the construction of religious fundamentalism.

Evaluate the possibilities and limitations of interaction –
especially theologically – with so-called religious
fundamentalism.
To examine religious fundamentalism from an explicitly
Module theological perspective.
Learning Aims
To assess Christian expressions of fundamentalist religiosity.
To evaluate methodology in fundamentalist studies.
Module
Content/
Christian expressions of fundamentalist religiosity; defining
fundamentalism; methodology in fundamentalist studies;
dialogue with the fundamentalist other.
Despite receiving widespread scholarly attention across a range
of disciplines, so‐called ‘religious fundamentalism’ attracts
Description* strikingly minimal attention from within Christian theology. This
module, therefore, explores religious fundamentalism from an
explicitly theological perspective, and with a concern (though
not an exclusive concern) for Christian expressions of
fundamentalist religiosity. Amongst the challenges for module‐
participants are: defining fundamentalism; methodology in
fundamentalist studies; and dialogue with the fundamentalist
other.
Recommended
Reading List
Core Readings
S.N. Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution:
The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
Peter Herriot, Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local and
Personal, London and New York: Routledge, 2009
Stephen Prickett, Narrative, Religion and Science:
Fundamentalism versus Irony, 1700-1999, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Module Pre None
Requisite
Module Co None
Requisite
Assessment
Details*
Three thousand word essay on an agreed topic.
Timetable for Erasmus and Visiting Students’ Modules,
Irish School of Ecumenics
2013-14
EM7345B Politics of Peace and Conflict: Michelmas Term, Tuesday 2-4pm.
EM7486A Religion and International Relations: Hilary Term, Thursday, 2-4pm.
EM7467A Engaging Religious Fundamentalism: not available in 2013/14