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\u25b2Professor Wilhelm Vosse who teaches the foundation course \u201cPeace Studies I\u201d at ICU<\/span><\/p>\n Among the various subjects, “peace studies” is one of the learning\u00a0<\/span>options given to ICU students. As “peace” has a strong connection with other fields of study such as international relations (IR) and development studies, many of you are perhaps considering peace studies as your future major or minor. However, some may be wondering what learning is exactly provided in this subject, and what options of study abroad there are for students taking the courses. To give some clues to those of you who have interests in peace studies or peace-related subjects, I interviewed Professor Wilhelm Vosse who teaches the foundation course “Peace Studies I” at ICU.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2015\u2015What is your study?<\/b><\/p>\n My field is not actually peace studies, but international relations and political science. My primary focus is security studies. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2015\u2015What brought you to teach at ICU?<\/b><\/p>\n My master thesis was about “the environmental movements and <\/span>peace<\/span><\/i> movements in Japan.” The contested concepts and the matter of how to achieve peace were what I studied before coming to ICU. So this was the link I had with peace studies. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2015\u2015What are the appealing points of the field of peace studies?<\/b><\/p>\n Especially at a liberal arts college like ICU, peace studies is really cross-disciplinary, and it needs inputs from a broad range of other subjects not just my disciplines which are political science and IR, but also other fields such as laws, biology, psychology… and even MCC. Almost all majors taught at ICU contribute to a better understanding of peace studies, which is what I am trying to teach in this foundation course (“Peace Studies I”). And I think this combination of different angles is the fascinating aspect of peace studies.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2015\u2015How is peace studies different from other fields of study?<\/b><\/p>\n Most of the time, you conduct research from one disciplinary perspective, but in the case of peace studies, you need to<\/span> include<\/span><\/i> many other disciplines. For instance, if you studied IR, you would mainly look at treaties, but if you looked at this from the peace perspective, you would have to focus on “how and when there has been peace” and “how can peace be achieved” from a variety of perspectives. So you have to be open-minded and try to understand the contributions from many disciplines; otherwise, the study of peace remains pretty shallow.<\/span><\/p>\n In my peace studies course, although students usually come from a specific discipline or major, they have the opportunity to study together with students from various different disciplines. If you major in peace studies, you would not be an expert in one specific field, but you would get to understand problems from a wider range of disciplines which you might not have otherwise studied in your own research. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\nExchange programs and peace studies<\/b><\/h2>\n
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