Over the course of Hilary Term (January to March) and Trinity Term 2017 (April to June), the Department of Politics and International Relations is convening a new seminar series on Ideas and Political Violence.
This series has been recorded and is now available in its entirety, along with an introduction from convenors Elizabeth Frazer and Jonathan Leader Maynard, explaining why they chose this topic, which parts of the series they found particularly interesting, and where they hope it will go in future.
The relationship between ideas and political violence is a key interdisciplinary interest of modern academia, and this seminar series seeks to capitalise on the expanding wave of new scholarship, bringing this into the DPIR’s research community and adding momentum to it by providing a forum for discussion between academic staff, graduate students, and visiting speakers on cutting-edge research work.
Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University) discusses violence through the lense of Manichean ideology.
Griffin makes use of this ideology, which is premised on a dualism between good and evil, to explain revolutionary responses throughout history and the current period. Specifically, he considers how a Manichean mindset could precipitate reactions to modernity and societal disorder through fundamentalism, genocidal violence, terrorism and the politics of Donald Trump.