Program

In the process of founding the International Peace University as an institute of higher learning, the IPU-project offers topic-specific courses and events within the framework of the International Peace College. The courses are held in the name of cultural exchange and dialogue and are open to all persons, especially to those for whom the themes appear to correspond to personal talents and abilities.

The single courses last between two and six weeks and are broken down into distinct time periods usually on weekends or during vacation periods; they are planned over one to two years. The successful completion of a course of the International Peace College is, as a rule, followed by a relevant examination and recognized with a certificate.

Further information on individual courses can be acquired at any of our offices.

 

Berlin:

Education Towards Tolerance - Non-violence as a Precondition for Social and Inner Peace (Course Co-ordinators: Prof. Dr. Helm Stierlin, University of Heidelberg, IPU-Director for Family and Social Questions; Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, IPU-Patron)

The course is especially addressed to teachers, professors, university and secondary school students, staff members of international non-governmental organizations, government officials and people involved in businesses. It offers new perspectives on education, which is no longer to be understood merely as a form of classroom instruction, but as a permanent learning process. While encouraging the acceptance of social responsibility, the course should make individual citizens able to take an active role in creating a new, more cohesive international society and in achieving and promoting peace build on confidence and co-operative relations.

Peace Journalism - Ethical Criteria for Reporting on War and Crisis as a Contribution to the Resolution of Conflict (Course Co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Johan Galtung, Founder of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, IPU-Trustee)
"Peace Journalism": Course with Johan Galtung, Christoph Maria Fröhder, Gerda Hollunder, Arzu Toker e.a. from 30. August to 2. September 1997 at Truman-House, Potsdam

The course is addressed to journalists, students of journalism or neighboring disciplines, television and camera personnel, publishers, and those interested in the media in general. The course will develop practical concepts for how the press, radio, and television can become instruments of conflict prevention. While promoting constructive, nonviolent conflict management, it will establish ethically responsible norms and methods of crisis reporting. To that end, practice-oriented training in diverse media editorial groups will be implemented.

Inner and Outer Peace - Spirituality, Religion, Culture, and Peace in the 21st Century (Course Co-ordinator: Dr. Linda Groff, Professor of Political Science and Future Studies, California State University, Carson)

The course will take place in collaboration with Antioch College, Ohio, and is also addressed to students from the U.S.A. From an analysis of the outer and inner aspects of religion and the principles of intercultural communication, the course participants will gain an expanded understanding of the sense of the term peace: Peace is no longer to be defined merely by the absence of war, but rather must, on many levels, be integrated into inner and outer dimensions. The course provides the participants with tools to work with cultural and religious diversity, spiritual experiences, organized religion and fundamentalism, thus revealing the meaning of a culture of peace for the evolution of a concept of non-violence.

 

Berlin and Assisi:

Interfaith Dialogue - Towards a New Ethics of Conflict Management and Mutual Understanding in Multi-Religious Societies (Course Co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Michael von Brück, Dean of the Protestant Faculty at the University of Munich, IPU-Trustee)

The course will take place in co-operation with the Community of St. Egidio in Rome, the Franciscan Centre for Interreligious Dialogue in Assisi, the Jesuit Lassalle House Bad Schönbrunn in Zug, the Educational Centre of St. Virgil in Salzburg, and the International Council of Christians and Jews in London. It will be especially addressed to teachers, theologians, social workers, journalists and employees of public institutions, who encounter members of other religions and cultures in their work. Following a presentation of the essential knowledge on the worlds religions, the theory and practice of interreligious dialogue captures the central focus of the course. The course will go beyond a mere comparison of one's own religion with others. The respective religion should be grasped from the inside out, experienced and understood from its predispositions - without renouncing one's own religious identity.

 

Berlin and Budapest:

Evolution of Consciousness - Development of Comprehensive Evolutionary Perspectives towards Global and Multidimensional Conflicts. (Course Co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Ervin Laszlo, President of the Club of Budapest, Co-founder of the Club of Rome, IPU-Director for Science and Future Studies)

The course will take place in collaboration with the Club of Budapest. It will introduce historical events, contemporary trends, and future possibilities in the evolution of consciousness. The course aims at developing perspectives on a new mental awareness that may bring forth innovative values, perceptions, and realizations, and a social agency that corresponds to the increasing globalization, interdependence, economic instability, and ecological vulnerability of today's world. The course entails seminars, apprenticeships and research projects in the areas of individual and collective consciousness.

 

Berlin and Prague:

Communication and New Media (Course Co-ordinator: Dr. Ivan Havel, Charles University of Prague, IPU-Deputy Chairman)

  In preparation

 

Berlin and Vienna:

Vision of Europe - Strategies for Change (Co-ordinating Committee: Dr. Heinrich Neisser, Prof. Dr. Herbert Pietschmann, Dr. Franz Vranitzky, Dr. Simon Wiesenthal, among others)

The course investigates the cultural and traditional roots of the European peoples, and the problems that arise in connection with ethnic conflict. It develops non-violent models of conflict management and helps construct a network, which continuously promotes ethnicity as a vital force in the creation of a new global framework and the worldwide exchange of initiatives, whereby fear and prejudice can be overcome. A public awareness for the diversity of European peoples and their cultural and ethnic wealth is sought by effectively linking the positive elements of culture and ethnicity and by identifying successful cases of multi-ethnic co-existence. The initiative for the course originated out of the IPU-participation in the Assembly of the Cultures of Europe called together by Lord Menuhin which met at the European Parliament in Brussels in November 1997. In co-operation with the Diplomatic Academy and the European Commission another major event will take place in Vienna from July 2-4, 1999.

 

Berlin and Zurich:

Perspectives of Work - Meaning, Function, and Effects of Human Work, and the Revision of the Modern Work Concept (Co-ordinating Committee: Prof. Dr. Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich, Kurt Eicher, Pia Gyger, Hans Jecklin, Marie-Luise Schwarz-Schilling, among others)

The course focuses on a much-needed revision of the modern conception of work. In the future, work will have to mean more than an effort at temporary self-preservation. Today, to be able to work effectively, we have to understand ourselves in a new way: as investors. We must search for new forms of productivity. Realizing a new eco-political and humane concept of work requires that we invest intelligently in long-term projects and in protecting the environment. To prepare for the course, six conferences have been planned to take place in Zurich, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, Berne, and Basel. The opening event will confront ways to provide solutions in the area of education for the problems of unemployment.

 

Berlin and Oakland:

Cultures of Collaboration - Interdisciplinary Studies in the Creative Artistic Process (Course Co-ordinator: Slobodan Dan Paich, Director of the ArtShip Foundation in Oakland, IPU-Director for Arts and Culture)

The course, jointly organized by IPU-project and the ArtShip Foundation, seeks to explore the intricate artistic maps of different cultures. Crossing both real and imagined boundaries, the course facilitates the creation of an open dialogue through innovative cultural co-operation, whereby experiences, techniques, world views and local knowledge are shared and learned from. It enhances the diversity and richness of both individual artists as well as artistic communities as a whole. The course explores ways in which artists can engage both collectively and more effectively in cultural and social life. This involves the exchange of skills, the crossing of disciplines, and the creation of an international network for collaboration and mutual aid to help artists in the development of their careers and to suggest practical strategies for cultural management in intercultural institutions.

 

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