• Offered for Year: 2025/26

• Module Leader(s): Professor Hartmut Behr

• Owning School: Geography, Politics & Sociology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

Topics to be covered could include:

•       Johan Galtung’s concepts of violence
•       Hannah Arendt’s concept of violence
•       Nationalism as a Form of Political Violence
•       Capitalism as a Form of Political Violence
•       Colonialism/Post-Colonialism and Imperialism as a Form of Political Violence
•       Guidance for the Main Assignment

Students will be taught conceptual guidance to understand and analyse dominant forms of political violence in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The concepts will help to approach empirical manifestations of political violence as they can be found in nationalism, capitalism, and colonialism/post-colonialism/imperialism.

Outline Of Syllabus

Week (1): Introduction and Johan Galtung’s typology of violence
Week (2): Hannah Arendt’s concept of violence
Week (3): Explanation and Guidance on the first assignment
Week (4): Nationalism as form of political violence I – Benedict Anderson’s analysis of nationalism
Week (5): Nationalism as form of political violence II – Nationalist Discourses past and present-day
Week (6): Nationalism as form of political violence III – Homogeneity and territorial integrity
Week (7): Capitalism as form of political violence I – Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of the “One-dimensional Man”
Week (8): Capitalism as form of political violence II – The W. Adorno’s and Max Horkheimer’s analysis of
Week (9): Colonialism as Form of Political Violence
Week (10): Imperialism as a Form of political violence
Week (11): Explanation and Guidance on the second assignment

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The teaching methods (Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities; Guided In-dependent Study, but also structured guided learning) seem best suited to accomplish the Learning Outcomes to 1) to enhance understandings of political violence, 2) to understand the links between political violence and the modern state, and (3) to increase knowledge on empirical cases of political violence. Students will thus be prepared through a mix of teaching and learning methods, together with a range of feedback options (feedback and consultation hours as well as drop-in sessions for additional feedback, guidance, and Q&Ss.

There are 11 lectures that introduce students to the key terms, concepts, and texts in the study of political violence and its application to Western statehood. These lectures are PiP and 2hrs long. In addition to this, there are PiP seminars on each lecture topic that are 1hr long. Both PiP lectures and PiP seminars accumulate to 33hrs/semester.

In addition, there are five 2hrs non-compulsory drop-in sessions online (these show to be helpful from previous years as students may have questions that occur to them after the lectures and/or seminars and that they would like to discuss) as well as annotated readings that guide students through the main readings and main questions to be asked. Students can also learn from relating respective texts intertextually and thereby create relations and meaning between respective texts and discourses to accomplish a synoptic understanding of the module’s thematic. There are usual feedback, guidance, and consultation hours.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The FIRST ASSIGNMENT (800 word research paper) assess students' knowledge of the conceptual framework (Johan Galtung's and Hannah Arendt's concepts of violence) for this module. As such it prepares for the study of empirical examples of political violence (nationalism, capitalism, colonialism/imperialism) to follow. It also prepares for the second assignment (group podcast) as the conceptual framework is here to be applied to the overall module content.

The research question for this assignment shall be: "Explain Johan Galtung’s or Hannah Arendt’s concepts(s) of violence illustrate with one example of your choice".

The SECOND ASSIGNMENT is a group podcast. Students build groups of 3-4 people. Every student is expected to contribute individual parts to a overall ca. 25 min podcast and is assessed individually (i.e., receives an individual mark). The overall podcast is expected to be a well-structured and coherent presentation with students working together and elaborating jointly a response to a research question that is the same for all groups. In addition, every student is expected to submit a PPT of 3-4 pages accompanying their oral presentation.

The research question for this assignment shall be: "Analyse nationalist, capitalist, and colonial/imperialist violence, using literature discussed in the lecture and seminars, through either Johann Galtung’s or Hannah Arendt’s concept(s). Use one empirical example as analytical illustration."

The RATIONALE for both assignments is to best teach and assess the skills and knowledge outcomes as outlined, with a special focus on employability. The oral presentation and succinct writing in the 800 word research paper and the accompanying PPT slide, while the oral presentation relates to the overall module content, correspond to the skills (especially analytical skills, teamwork and succinct writing) students must have and show in any kind of application to HE or the graduate job market.

The Curriculum schedules two full weeks (lecture and seminars) on assignments to clarify and explain for students what they are expected to deliver and how they are assessed (see in the Curriculum two weeks on "Explanation and Guidance on the first/second assignment"). Also, the module guide and the Canvas Page shall have detailed explanations and guidance on the assignments.

Further explanations see below and also in the box below ("Additional Data"):

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA: Each group podcast is expected to be have a coherent structure that students have to elaborate as a group. If one student falls out of the group at any point due to PEC and mitigating circumstances, there is an alternative assessment available of a 2000 word essay. (This shall also be the resit format for individual students). In that case of a student dropping out, to be nevertheless able to assess the coherence of an individual presentation in relation to the group work, a formative assessment is mandatory four weeks prior to the submission of the second assignment (group podcast) in which the group outlines the structure of their intended podcast. Marking the podcast and giving individual marks, the moderator and I can still see and assess the intended coherence of overall podcast.

BUILDING GROUPS: Students should be self-responsible for building groups of 3-4 people and shall email me their group after the Enrichment Week. This seems reasonable as students often want to work together with friends with whom they group, meet, and sit together anyway. In case an individual student does not find a group or is on a student support plan that shows that group work or oral presentations would be detrimental to the student's performance, there is the possibility of an alternative assessment (2000 word paper) or the module leader can find them and allocate to groups.

Reading Lists

• POL2082's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• POL2082's Timetable