ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the combined experience teaching about peace in a course that was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities focused on “Enduring Questions.” It scrutinizes many of the linguistic and historical conditions of peace amid the lacunae of the broader strokes rendered by wars that comprise so much of recorded history. The chapter offers lessons learned as non-specialists engaging in questions about peace with skeptical students. These include experiences of course structure and its content comprised of documentary encounters with peace, as well as our own development as faculty and scholars. It suggests that the most challenging observation students raise deals with the modern era of identity politics. The writings of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X enshrine model ideals for sustainable peace, while exposing what is perhaps the single most influential factor that prevents any concept of peace between peoples: racism.
