Revisiting Peace Research in the 21st Century: Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Field with a Mission
REVISITING PEACE RESEARCH IN THE 21ST CENTURY: REFLECTIONS ON AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD WITH A MISSION
Harry Targ
Professor, Department of Political Science
Coordinator, Committee on Peace Studies
Purdue University
Plenary 1: “War, Peace, and Peace Studies”
Radical Philosophy Association, Ninth Biennial Conference
University of Oregon, November 11-14, 2010
Personal Reflections
As I grow older I ground more and more of my teaching and writing in the context of my own professional history. I studied journalism and political science in college in the late 1950s and earned a masters degree in political science in 1962. After short stints in the military and working for the social security administration, I decided to pursue a Ph.D in political science. Lacking a political vision much beyond liberalism and devoid of any practical political work, I thought being a professor would make a nice career.
As most of you remember or have read about, the mid-1960s was a time of ferment. Brave young people, from the South and the North, launched a heroic campaign to end Jim Crow segregation in the South. From the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August, 1964 authorizing President Johnson to escalate war in Southeast Asia, to the daily bombings over Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) in 1965 to 540,000 troops in South Vietnam by 1968, struggles over the war in Vietnam and foreign policy in general enveloped the society. The 60s was a time also when the last vestiges of colonialism were being dismantled. Only Portuguese Africa resisted change as did white minority regimes in the former Rhodesia and South Africa. In the Western Hemisphere, the Cuban revolution represented the hope of humankind for the construction of a better world.
It was an exciting time to be alive, to become politicized, and to initiate a teaching and research career. I was drawn to the study of international relations and United States foreign
Harry Targ
Professor, Department of Political Science
Coordinator, Committee on Peace Studies
Purdue University
Plenary 1: “War, Peace, and Peace Studies”
Radical Philosophy Association, Ninth Biennial Conference
University of Oregon, November 11-14, 2010
Personal Reflections
As I grow older I ground more and more of my teaching and writing in the context of my own professional history. I studied journalism and political science in college in the late 1950s and earned a masters degree in political science in 1962. After short stints in the military and working for the social security administration, I decided to pursue a Ph.D in political science. Lacking a political vision much beyond liberalism and devoid of any practical political work, I thought being a professor would make a nice career.
As most of you remember or have read about, the mid-1960s was a time of ferment. Brave young people, from the South and the North, launched a heroic campaign to end Jim Crow segregation in the South. From the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August, 1964 authorizing President Johnson to escalate war in Southeast Asia, to the daily bombings over Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) in 1965 to 540,000 troops in South Vietnam by 1968, struggles over the war in Vietnam and foreign policy in general enveloped the society. The 60s was a time also when the last vestiges of colonialism were being dismantled. Only Portuguese Africa resisted change as did white minority regimes in the former Rhodesia and South Africa. In the Western Hemisphere, the Cuban revolution represented the hope of humankind for the construction of a better world.
It was an exciting time to be alive, to become politicized, and to initiate a teaching and research career. I was drawn to the study of international relations and United States foreign
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