As community members cope with stressors that can stretch their limits of tolerance — a war abroad, layoffs and fiscal challenges at home — members of the campus’s book project committee are planning a fall quarter filled with activities, discussion groups and speaking engagements built around the timely theme of conflict resolution.

The selection for this year’s campus community book project, Mark

Juergensmeyer’s Gandhi’s Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution, was announced Tuesday.

As with last year’s inaugural project, spotlighting Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, this year’s book selection seeks to promote a greater sense of community among students and staff, faculty and community members by creating a common experience — that of reading the same book, said Karen Roth, chair of the book project committee.

Juergensmeyer’s 185-page book offers an overview of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of moral action and conflict resolution. He discusses Gandhi’s basic methods and illustrates them with practical examples, showing how people can expand their views to find resolutions to everyday conflicts.

“It’s a straightforward approach that can be used in any conflict,” Roth said.

The author pits Gandhi’s ideas against those of other great social thinkers — including Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Reinhold Niebuhr — in a series of imaginary debates that challenge and clarify Gandhi’s thinking on issues of violence, anger and love. He also provides a Gandhian critique of Gandhi himself.

Juergensmeyer, a UC Santa Barbara professor of sociology, also is the author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (2000), and The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (1993). Gandhi’s Way was previously published as Fighting with Gandhi and Fighting Fair.

A campus community book project display was erected last week at the UC Davis Bookstore, and 900 of the books are on hand. A co-sponsor on the project, the bookstore is selling Gandhi’s Way at the discount rate of $10.95 and anticipates selling at least 3,500-4,000 copies, said trade book buyer Paul Takushi. About 3,200 copies of The Spirit Catches You were sold at the bookstore last year.

Gandhi’s Way was chosen from among nearly 100 recommendations from campus community members.

Recommendations included best-selling books by award-winning authors, dealing with a range of provocative subject matter. Suggestions included books about Iraq and the Muslim culture; Black, White and Jewish, the autobiography of Rebecca Walker, the bisexual daughter of Alice Walker; PEN/ Faulkner award winner T. Coraghessan Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, about immigration in central California; Guns, Germs and Steel, by UCLA professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond, who explains the evolution of cultures based on geography; and Sherman Alexie’s The Long Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, about life on an American Indian reservation and the basis for the movie “Smoke Signals.” Classics like The Invisible Man, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Farewell to Manzanar, also were suggested.

But Gandhi’s Way seemed a particularly important choice at this time, Roth said.

In a letter this week to deans, directors, department chairs and medical center administrators encouraging participation in the project, Provost Virginia Hinshaw and Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Campus Community Relations Rahim Reed said: “The current international conflicts in the Middle East and North Korea, as well as the state budget crisis, presentus with opportunities to engage in dialogue about our various perspectives and solutions. We believe that this book will provide a guide for constructive and respectful dialogue within our community.”  

Gandhi’s Way, they went on to say, “has broad appeal and application to a variety of contexts on our campus and in the surrounding community.”

Roth said the book’s principles could be applied to roommate or renter vs. landlord conflicts, disputes among colleagues, union negotiations, classroom debates,  campus demonstrations and even conflicts with one’s self.

As part of the book project, several programs will be offered in Fall 2003, such as book discussion group meetings, one or more speaking engagements featuring Juergensmeyer and conflict mediation workshops in cooperation with UC Davis Mediation Services.

Faculty members are being encouraged to integrate the book into existing courses and to develop freshman seminars that focus on the book and the issues it raises. And committee members are also exploring the possibility of a visit by Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who regularly speaks on topics including “Lessons Learned from My Grandfather, A Non-Violent Response to Terrorism.”

The Campus Community Book Project is sponsored by the Campus Council on Community and Diversity, the Office of Campus Community Relations and the Office of the Provost.

To inquire about being part of the program or to offer an idea for the project, contact Roth, (530) 752-2071 or kmroth @ucdavis.edu. The book project Web site is located at http://occr.ucdavis.edu/bookproject.html.