Conflict, Culture and Toleration

The module examines the problems posed by human co-existence, specifically with regard to divergent understandings of how we should live and how we should see or describe ourselves. Typically this module begins by examining the notion of cultural conflict and highlighting the cultural aspects of historical and contemporary disputes. This can lead into a discussion of the history of toleration as a response to cultural conflict, highlighting historical sources of toleration and co-existence in a range of different areas and regions. Building on this notion of traditions of toleration, we offer the opportunity to examine and problematize the shift in conceptions of toleration, away from the notion of toleration as inaction in the face of vehement objection towards the notion of toleration as acceptance or affirmation.

From this theoretical base we lead into the applied element of the module, in which some topical case studies are examined. In the past, these have included:

• groups, identities and states, with regard to labelling of places, such as Derry/Londonderry and Falklands/Las Malvinas;
• health, ‘socialised’ healthcare and narcotics in the US;
• public displays of sexuality, through the examples of the prosecution of Oscar Wilde and the practice of bacha bazi in Afghanistan;
• bodily autonomy, through examination of the place of male and female genital cutting in Western public discourse
• blasphemy, explored through the public debate on the Danish Mohammad cartoons and Jerry Springer the Opera

From these case studies we aim to explore limits of toleration and possible policy instruments by which conflicts may be managed.