Courses

Since Gandhi’s experiments in mass satyagraha over a century ago, nonviolence has become a staple of protest politics across the globe.  From the Occupy movements to the Arab Spring to Movement for Black Lives, it might even be entering a new phase of revitalization.  At the same time, what exactly nonviolence is and what it can accomplish in politics is very much under debate.   This course aims to understand the politics of nonviolence by examining the political ideas and political careers of its most well-known twentieth-century advocates, M.K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  

Though still venerated as founding figures of nonviolent protest, Gandhi and King have come to be remembered in ways that can misconstrue how they understood and practiced nonviolent politics.  To many, Gandhi is a saintly idealist, who wanted to imbue politics with the spirit of ahimsa, truth, and conscience.   Likewise, King is taken to be a spokesman for interracial brotherhood and Christian love.  While partly true, these images also downplay the political side of their nonviolence – the techniques of organizing and strategies of protest that made their movements successful. 

We will examine the evolution of Gandhi’s and King’s political thinking in relation to the movements they led – the Indian independence movement and the civil rights movement in the US.  We will consider how the theory and practice of nonviolence evolved and changed as it moved from one context to another.  We will be especially focused on understanding the dynamics of nonviolent protest.