This course is offered through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Colorado State University. You must be a member of Osher to enroll in this course.
Antagonistic values ensure that conflict, in some form, is ever present. However, social conflict may be either constructive or destructive. Terrorism is a tactic of violence that emerges under specific social conditions that can be understood, predicted, and analyzed. There are many issues we will discuss. What is terrorism? Under what social conditions is it produced? What sustains it? How can it be reduced, and possibly even terminated? Why has terrorism centered in Pakistan and Afghanistan within the context of conflict dynamics in the Middle East and South Asia? We will also examine contemporary examples of terrorism in the United States.
Readings: Bergen, Peter L., 2011. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al Qaeda. New York: The Free Press. ISBN: 978-0-7432-7893-5. E-Book: 978-1-4391¬6059-6.
Noncredit courses do not produce academic credit nor appear on a Colorado State University academic transcript.
Instructors
David Freeman
David Freeman is professor emeritus at CSU. He has had 43 years of teaching and research experience in the domain of social conflict. Grist for his analytical mills has come from social development experience - especially with regard to water resources organizations and social conflict - in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Western United States. He has been published widely in the refereed literature regarding the analysis of social conflict in the variety of its forms, and he has taught undergraduate and graduate students in the domain of terrorism - domestic and international - for virtually all of his professional life.