The Teaching About Terrorism Group held a very positive two day seminar in London in early June. A range of issues were discussed including

• discussions with the UCU about how to defend members who were attacked in the press as had happened to members of the group at Aberystwyth who had been targeted by Melanie Phillips, in allegations rejected by the University.
• Discussion about the Nottingham case and its implications for academic freedom.
• discussion about the wide variety of experiences that members had in teaching and research terrorism.
• The implications of government guidance on good campus relations for teaching about terrorism.

The group to take forward a number of initiatives including policy guidance and research activities, some of which relate to the grant we have been given by C-SAP to survey terrorism teaching and experience.

The group agreed that student experiences relating to the teaching of terrorism would be an invaluable element of our work. and that we would make contact with a number of groups which might have experiences or information to share and to report back on this.

Policy outputs of relevance include the Department for Innovation Universities and Schools document (Promoting good campus relations, fostering shared values and preventing violent extremism in Universities and Higher Education Colleges, ) The group discussed ways of feeding the views of the teaching community on such documents back to policy makers. We noted that the UCU has a rep for Academic Freedom and it was suggested that this and other similar fora would be useful points for consultation.

The meeting tapped into a wide range of academic experiennces of good and not so good practice in handling some of the issues in teaching terrorism. It was felt that the richness of the experience at the meeting was likely to be replicated in the filed and the group resolved to call for the submission of experiences from academics across the UK about the challenges and opportunities of teaching about terrorism.

The group also discussed the issue of gathering data on how terrorism is taught and noted the interesting project launched by the American Political Science Association which provides some comparative data on how terrorism is taught in the US.

The meeting agreed it was important to capture the views and experience of University management on this issue.  Since the events at Nottingham, anecdotal evidence suggests a variety of responses by the Universities.  The research will seek out examples of good and bad practice in order to provide guidance where possible.

Lastly the group agreed to undertake a number of dissemination activities including setting up a page on the C-SAP website, the creation of a blog and a number of events jointly organisated with disciplinary and subject networks including a joint conference (with BISA and CSTPV) at Bradford University (17/18 October) and a panel at C-SAP 2009 Conference, (25-27 November).

Teaching About Terrorism poster

Yesterday the University of Strathclyde held its third annual ‘Research Day‘

The University states that:

The event, in the University’s Barony Hall on Wednesday 17 June, is aimed at highlighting research across the University and to enable researchers to share their ideas with invited guests, including industry representatives.

More than 160 projects by academics and postgraduate students will be displayed on posters at Research Day, which is now in its third year and has become a staple of Strathclyde’s calendar. The main speaker will be Professor Allister Ferguson, Deputy Principal of Strathclyde with responsibility for research, knowledge transfer and commercialisation.

The Teaching About Terrorism SIG and the project funded by C-SAP were discussed in a poster presentation.  Download the poster here: (PPT file)

Date of Meeting: 17/18 Oct 2009.
Place: Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford.

The goal of the meeting is to encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue between academics dealing with the issue of terrorism. We cordially invite submissions from researchers in any field of social sciences to present their research and participate in interdisciplinary discussions.

Topics for panels include, but are not limited to the following:

• Teaching About Terrorism: The arrest of Nottingham University postgraduate student Rizwaan Sabir and a Nottingham administrator Hicham Yezza in relation to the downloading of an ‘Al Qaeda’ manual for Rizwaan’s dissertation research has highlighted the emerging and ongoing difficulties of teaching about ‘terrorism’ and political violence in the current climate. This panel seeks papers which explore cases of controversy or examine the practice of teaching about terrorism. What issues are faced in teaching sensitive issues like terrorism. What constraints are faced on teaching about terrorism and political violence and what should be the response of academics to these constraints? The panel could include reports of particular cases or wider analyses.

• Western State Terrorism: State Terrorism is widely agreed to be the most common and widespread kind of terrorism, yet it is subjected to much less analysis than non-state terror. This panel seeks papers on state terrorism which explore definitions, practices, historical trajectories and questions of how to counter state terror. In particular papers on aspects of Western state terrorism are welcome.

• The value of the historic dimension? Terrorism is not new, nor is the so-called ‘modern’ form a recent development, even if advances in ICT have increased its reach and significance.  This panel seeks to evaluate whether treating terrorism as a modern phenomenon magnifies its significance and prevents rational debate or whether seeing terrorism as a normal part of the politics of violence is to misunderstand the ‘new’ dimension.
• Teaching about terrorism – the non-Atlantic perspective. This panel seeks to identify and understand the approach and substance employed in countries and establishments outside the US and Western Europe.

These topics are interpreted in the broadest sense. We invite papers also from any other areas that engage with Critical Terrorism Studies. There is no charge for admission.

To submit a proposal

Please send an abstract of max. 300 words no later than August, 14, 2009 by e-mail to Valentina Bartolucci v.bartolucci@bradford.ac.uk.

The arrest of Nottingham University postgraduate student Rizwaan Sabir and a Nottingham administrator Hicham Yezza in relation to the downloading of an ‘Al Qaeda’ manual for Rizwaan’s dissertation research has highlighted the emerging and ongoing difficulties of teaching about ‘terrorism’ and political violence in the current climate.

C-Sap is establishing a working group to examine issues surrounding teaching about terrorism. This is an open invitation to the inaugural meeting of the network.  The agenda is open for participants to determine how the network should function, but it is important that the meeting thinks concretely about outcomes and about the function and purpose of future meetings.  Goals might include collaborative work on teaching resources, guidance on difficult issues and discussion about collective projects in this area.

In recent months the question of the relationship between teaching or research materials and the commission of ‘terrorist’ acts has become an important public issue with university researchers arrested under terrorism legislation and a large number of terrorism cases in the UK, US and Australia recently under way in which the charges relate to possession of literature including literature potentially useable in teaching.

The aim of this initiative is to explore how the subject of terrorism which is inherently sensitive and subject to contest can and should be approached.  The subject is sensitive for at least four reasons:
1.    The definition of terrorism or how to apply it are contested as expressed in the phrase one persons terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.
2.    Recent developments in official counter terrorism have identified the ways in which terrorism is handled in education as a potential area for concern in relation to ‘radicalisation’.
3.    The war on terror and official counter terror activities have put pressure on the space for independent and objective study of political violence.
4.    Many of the ‘expert’ sources available through the media, policy and other arenas particularly but not exclusively from outside the academy have a questionable evidential basis.

Accordingly this initiative attempts to work through the issues associated with teaching about terrorism and will consider whether it is possible to provide guidance to teachers in school, FE and HE about reliability and about the contested nature of ‘terrorism’.  A number of other initiatives in the area have already been undertaken outside the UK.  These will be evaluated to see what they can tell us about the issues involved.

The working groups is being convened by David Miller of Strathclyde and Bela Arora of C-SAP and supported by the Public Interest Research Network (www.publicinterest.ac.uk). The inaugural meeting is being held on Friday 12 September at the University of Strathclyde.  The meeting will take place from 2-5pm in Room 5.10 Graham Hills building 50 Richmond St, University of Strathclyde.  A map is here: http://www.strath.ac.uk/maps/grahamhillsbuilding/

The meeting is free and open to all, but space is limited and in order to make catering arrangements please register if you want to attend by sending an email to ….

Reposted from the website of the Public Interest Research Network @ http://www.publicinterest.ac.uk/component/content/article/49-meetings/104-teaching-about-terrorism