Overview
Sociology of War and Organized Violence focuses on the study of war as a social process involving social institutions, social structures, and the socially learned behaviour of individual social actors. By adopting and adapting concepts, theoretical perspectives, and research methods already successfully employed in other branches of sociological research—such as crime, deviance, stratification, demography, and ethnic and race relations—the sociology of war offers new opportunities to study those aspects of warfare and organized violence that have previously been neglected and overlooked in historical, biological, anthropological, military, and geopolitical studies.
Outline
Sociology of War and Organized Violence is organized around several broad criteria and comprises ten units:
- Unit 1 Studying War
- Unit 2 Theories of War
- Unit 3 Sociology of War
- Unit 4 Pre-Modern War
- Unit 5 Modern War
- Unit 6 Women in War
- Unit 7 The Media and War
- Unit 8 Civilians in War
- Unit 9 Humanitarian Military Interventions
- Unit 10 Rehumanizing the Enemy
Evaluation
Your final grade in Sociology 539 will be based on the grades you achieve on three written assignments and a final examination. The weighting of each assignment and the exam are indicated in the chart below.
| Activity | Weight |
| Review Assignment | 20% |
| Research Assignment, Part 1: Research Proposal | 10% |
| Research Assignment, Part 2: Research Project | 40% |
| Final Exam | 30% |
| Total | 100% |
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To receive credit for the course, you must obtain a grade of 60 percent or better on the final exam and an overall course grade of at least 60 percent. Should you obtain less than the required grade on the final exam, you may write a supplemental final exam. A passing grade of 60 percent is also required for the supplemental exam.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Streaming Video, Restrepo, National Geographic
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
The Sociology of War and Violence, by Siniša Malešević, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
War: The Lethal Custom, by Gwynne Dyer, Vintage Canada, 2016 (2nd revised edition).
War, by Sebastian Junger, Harper, 2010.
Other material
All other course materials, including assigned reading and viewing and a unit-by-unit study guide, are available online.