The CFCCS is an educational center dedicated to the comparative analysis of societies in conflict. Working primarily within the context of the conflicts in the former republics of Yugoslavia and Palestine/Israel, the Center provides opportunities for university students, scholars, and adults to critically engage in the study and research of conflict, its transformations, and various roles taken up within conflicts. In so doing, the Center offers theoretical and practical resources for those working to be effective agents of social change. We achieve our goals by offering comparative interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding dynamics within societies in conflict.

Dr. Orli Fridman – Director

Dunja Resanovic – Research Assisstant

Renata Stanojevic – Summer School Coordinator

We are committed to an educational model which bridges theory and practice, education and action, consciousness and change.

Critical Pedagogy

Our educational philosophy is constructed around an interactive approach which aims to examine issues of power relations within group dynamics. A social and political analysis of participants' everyday lives forms the basis of our curriculum. Such an approach is not about the transference of knowledge but rather the collaborative and collective exploration and production of knowledge grounded in the reality of participants' lives. Our programming is based on the notion of creating spaces for people to exchange life experiences, to learn from and teach one another, and to explore themselves as political beings. Within such a programmatic model, political education becomes a tool for developing a critical consciousness in both educators and students.

Comparative Conflict Analysis

Our methodology is grounded in the systematic exploration of the dynamics of societies in conflict. We emphasize the contexts in which conflicts are situated for the purpose of understanding sociopolitical phenomena associated with conflicts. The conflicts in the republics of the former Yugoslavia and/or in Palestine/Israel are at the center of the personal, political, and academic lives of our team and therefore our programs. We aim to de-exceptionalize these conflicts by examining them within a broader comparative framework. We believe that studying another conflict allows participants, who self-identify as members of groups in conflict, to explore and engage with new perspectives from which challenging questions are raised and tentative answers are considered.