We are delighted to have secured a contract with Routledge to publish:
The Routledge Handbook for Teaching Ancient War and Peace
Designed to complement the recently commissioned Routledge Handbook for Teaching about War and Conflict, it will focus on ancient-world material but with a view to shaping practice in a wide range of classrooms/subject areas (including Classical studies, history, English literature, art history, philosophy, politics, international relations, conflict resolution, refugee studies) and in diverse educational contexts (e.g. in drama schools, mediation contexts, museum spaces and tourist sites, as well as primary-, secondary- and tertiary-level classrooms).
Goals: in dialogue with developments in other fields (e.g. peace education, critical military studies, curriculum decolonisation, gender studies), this handbook aims to advance the teaching of ancient conflict beyond the militarised/militarising methods that currently dominate, incorporating more study of ancient peace and peacebuilding alongside more diverse, bottom-up understandings of ancient armed conflict (in its multiple manifestations) and its wide-ranging, long-lasting impacts.
Its introduction will contextualise the teaching of ancient war and peace against pedagogical theory and practice in other subject areas. It will also address current social, cultural and political factors which are relevant for the development of new pedagogic practice in relation to war/peace, including the need for trauma-informed approaches.
The book will touch on primary-level education, but will focus mostly on secondary and tertiary learning environments. The bulk of its contributions will discuss education delivered in classroom settings, but it will also examine other educational contexts such as museum spaces and tourist sites. It will range widely across antiquity in terms of both space and time, and it will feature case studies from the Global South as well as the Global North, examining pedagogic practice from the UK to Colombia. Importantly, it will centre learners’ voices, with some chapters co-authored by students alongside teachers and researchers.
- Section 1 will outline key pillars of current war and peace teaching from disciplines such as International Relations and Peace Studies, to serve as stimuli for critical reflection on pedagogic practices within ancient world studies.
- Section 2 will reflect on recurring themes in ancient war and peace teaching across different educational contexts, identifying gaps and opportunities for future focus.
- Section 3 will share a range of case studies that reflect on innovative practice in ancient war and peace teaching, including the use of role play and gaming, experiential reconstruction, and critical translation exercises.
- Section 4 will discuss different ways of bringing ancient and modern experiences of war and peace into dialogue in various learning environments, ranging from the US Marine Corps University to conflict resolution classes in Brazil and Colombia.
- Section 5 will offer a selection of suggested ancient sources (textual, visual, material, with a wide geographical and chronological range), listed in table form, designed to support teachers and learners who want to move beyond commonly-used resources and explore ancient war and peace from fresh angles. The table will connect ancient sources to relevant teaching topics and will also suggest complementary material from Classical Reception and contemporary contexts.
Together, the contributions that span this volume will pose urgent questions about how and why we teach ancient war and peace today, offering readers critical analyses of current trends, supportive teaching tools and innovative methodologies to experiment with and embed for the future.