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New Honors Course for Colloquium and Phronesis Credit Wars and the Transformation of the Security Fabric

Internationally-known security expert and scholar, Dr. Mient Jan Faber, returns as a Visiting Scholar to the Honors College this fall teaching a course entitled Wars and the Transformation of the Security Fabric. A mathematician by training, Dr. Faber is professor of Citizens’ Involvement in War Situations at the Free University in Amsterdam. For many years he worked for the Dutch Interchurch Peace Council (IKV) on civil-society initiatives.

Changes in the security fabric of a country during both ‘old’ and ‘new’ wars are enormous. What was normal today will be abnormal tomorrow. State security is at risk, but also human security. Imaginary communities, like the nation, may disintegrate and fall apart into various ‘actual’ communities, like tribes and sects and refugee communities. In this course we will study the relationship between human security and state security in times of war. Who are the providers of human security in case the nation-state is unable to fulfil its mandate? What role is played by the global, cosmopolitan world? Where to find the crucial actors able to end the war and to deliver human security? Is the world integrating or disintegrating due to a shift from old into new wars? Or both? Are we facing a completely new security fabric compared to the one defined by nation states? We will discuss various wars – old and new- in different continents: Asia, Europe, Africa  and the Middle East, trying to identify the main players responsible for the changing security fabric.

This course can count as an Honors College colloquium, a 4000-level Phronesis capstone course, or an upper-level Political Science credit. If you have additional questions, please contact Jodie Koszegi (jkoszegi@uh.edu).