Course Description: This course will introduce students to some facts, theories and perspectives for the understanding of human violent behavior. Topics considered will include:

Textbook: A course reader is available at the Campus Bookstore. Additional readings, available either on reserve or by photocopy, may be assigned in the discussion sections. Do not let your readings pile up! They should be done in advance of the associated lecture or discussion section meeting.

Examinations and Grading: Two largely non-cumulative examinations will contribute the majority of points to your final grade. The first will occur on OCTOBER 17 and the second at a date and time to be announced (during finals week). The exams will consist of a combination of multiple choice questions and short answer essays. If students express an interest, an optional review session may be provided outside of lecture/section before the examinations.

The course grade will be based on a total of 380 points. Each examination will be worth a maximum of 150 points (for a total of 300 points from the exams). Discussion sections will be worth a total of 80 points, 30 of which are attributed to attendance. The requirements for the remaining 50 points are at the discretion of the Teaching Assistants. This includes the option of holding unannounced quizzes in section or lecture.

Section attendance is mandatory and worth 30 points of your overall grade (8%). You may have one unexcused absence. An absence will be considered to be unexcused unless a student has made a specific arrangement with his or her teaching assistant before the section meeting. The number of points you get for attendance is based on the percentage of section classes you attend. For example, if you attend 50% of the classes, you get 50% of the allotted attendance points-15 out of 30.

Extra Credit: The violence journal project, an optional extra credit exercise, is open to all students. For the violence journal, each student is to select a defined aspect of violence in society and monitor the media for examples from the "real world." A good journal will include 10 to 15 examples (original clippings or photocopies) and a 3 to 4 page discussion of how the individual examples relate to the theories of violence discussed in lecture and sections. The discussion should be more than a description of the articles, integrating them into the overall analysis. Articles from the Internet or World Wide Web must be from a known and reputable source. Please check any articles you wish to use from the web with your TA. All examples are to be drawn from media sources no older than August 2002

All violence journals are due no later than 22 November 2002.

Violence journals may receive up to 10 points of extra credit. These points will be added to the student's overall course point total. In figuring the final grade for the semester, the extra credit points will be added to the numerator of a student's score without any addition to the overall course point total in the denominator. An inadequately completed violence journal will earn no extra credit.

Grading Summary:

Academic Honesty: Students are expected to adhere to a high level of academic integrity. Anyone found cheating on an exam or other course project will be brought before the campus Academic Honesty Committee. The respect future employers will have for your degree depends upon the academic reputation of Binghamton University as a whole. Don't allow your degree to be compromised!

COURSE OUTLINE: Readings should be completed before the associated class meeting. Readings that are not in your course reader are listed as Reserve Readings and can be found in the library's reserve room.

SECTION I: THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE

T 9/3
Course organization and requirements; The Violent Paradox - Overview of the Course

R 9/5
Bio-Behavioral programs I: Violence, dominance hierarchy & behavior program (Lorenz/Mayr)
Reading - Wrangham: Demonic Males

F 9/6
Discussion Section 1: Anthropology, primate behavior, and human violence

T 9/10
Bio-behavioral Programs II: Aggression as Instinct (Freud) or Learning (Bandura)?
Reading - Bandura

R 9/12
Bio-behavioral programs III: Violence among chimpanzees
Reserve reading: Goodall

F 9/13
Discussion Section 2: TA's choice

SECTION II - FORMS OF VIOLENCE IN SMALL-SCALE SOCIETIES

T 9/17
Small-scale society case study I: The !Kung San of the Kalahari
Reserve Reading: Lee

R 9/19
Small-scale society case study II, Part 1: Turkana herders of NW Kenya
No Assigned Reading

F 9/20
Discussion Section 3: TA's choice

T 9/24
Small-scale society case study II, Part 2: Turkana
No Assigned Reading

R 9/26
Small-scale society case study III: Tarascan Indian peasant community (Mexico)
Reading: Friedrich

F 9/27
Discussion Section 4: TA's choice

T 10/1
Violence & small societies: similarities, differences & some reasons

Film Dead Birds

R 10/3
Encapsulated communities as 'sub-cultures of violence' (Wolfgang & Feracutti)
Reading: Nisbet & Cohen

F 10/4
Discussion Section 5: TA's choice

SECTION III - FORMS OF VIOLENCE IN LARGE-SCALE SOCIETIES

T 10/8
Historical roots of American violence
Reading: Brown

Film - Violence: An American Tradition

R 10/10
Nineteenth-century Europe: collective violence & war
No Assigned Reading

F 10/11
Discussion Section 6 Violence in history.

SECTION IV - FORMS OF VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES

T 10/15
Violence in Industrial/ Post-Industrial Societies including USA

R 10/17
EXAMINATION I
Covers lectures through 10/10 & associated readings

T 10/22
U.S. patterns: times & places; regional; urban/small town/rural; city blocks; streets; etc.
Reading: Campbell (Streets); Nisbett & Cohen

R 10/24
Homicide: A macro survey of the U.S.
Reading - none assigned

F 10/25
Discussion Section 7: Macro- and micro-scale analyses

T 10/29
Homicide dynamics: A micro-analysis of murderous encounters
Reading: Athens
Reading: Lundsgaarde

[30 October - Course Drop Deadline!]

R 10/31
Violence in the local community: Gangs and the streets
Reading: Jankowski

F 11/1
Discussion Section 8: Understanding the interpretive approach

T 11/5
Gangs and the Streets (cont.)
No Assigned Reading

R 11/7
Violence in the home: Wife-beating and child abuse
Reading: Campbell (Rage) ; Walker

Reserve Reading - FBI Uniform Crime Report: Section V - "Incidents of Family Violence:
An Analysis of 1998 NIBRS Data." (pp. 277-289)
Also available at www.fbi.gov/ucr/98cius.htm (click on Section V to down-load the article)

F 11/8
Discussion Section 9: TA's choice

T 11/12
Killing the spirit: Rape and gender violence
Reading: Groth; Scully

Online Reading: Frans de Waal
"Survival of the Rapist." The New York Times Book Review, April 2, 2000
Available at: www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002waalt.html

R 11/14
Rape (cont.)
Reading: Scully; Groth
Movie: Young Woman Missing (Mexico)

F 11/15
Discussion Section 10: TA's choice

SECTION V: VIOLENCE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF STATE

T 11/19
State Violence as social control & political policy: Torture, murder, and genocide
Reading: Sofsky

R 11/21
State-Sponsored Violence (cont.)
Reading: Horowitz; Lebow; Sofsky
Reserve Reading - FBI Uniform Crime Report: Hate Crime Statistics, 1998 (pages 1-2, 5-18)
Also available at www.fbi.gov/ucr.htm (under the heading "Hate Crime
Statistics," click on 1998 to download the article)

F 11/22
Discussion Section 11: Movie: The Camps (Nazi Germany)
"Ethnic cleansing" & international response
[Violence Journals Due Today!]

[THANKSGIVING VACATION. NO CLASSES 11/26, 11/28: NO SECTIONS 11/29.]

T 12/3
Obedience: Finding enforcers for political violence.

Reading: Lebow; Zulaika & Douglass

SECTION VI: VIOLENCE AS AN EXPRESSION OF IDENTITY IN FUN & GAMES

R 12/5
Violence in sports: players & spectators
Reading - Finn

F 12/6
Discussion Section 12: TA's choice

T 12/10
Violence as a game: consensual erotic violence for pleasure

R 12/12
The violent hero: violence as a strategy for salvation; 'good' violence, 'just' wars.
No Assigned Reading

F 12/13
Discussion Section 13: Final meeting-review for Exam II

EXAM II
Time and Location TBA
Covers mainly materials considered during the second
part of the course, that is, after the first examination.

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