Nicholas Grossman was a college junior studying in Sweden on Sept. 11, 2001, when he discovered that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. He rushed to the nearest TV to see what was happening — and to a nearby cell phone to determine if his family back in New York was OK.
Luckily, his family was fine, but the attacks left a lasting impact on the nation that Grossman grew to know. According to Grossman, New York City changed from its strong anti-law enforcement stance to supporting the police. NFL commercials turned into messages supporting the U.S. Air Force. Grossman said that seeing the aftermath of 9/11 inspired him to study terrorism.
“I grew up in New York, so there was maybe a little personal element to it,” Grossman said. “Also, when I was back at college, there was the legacy of 9/11, and there was war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that ended up being a lot of my interest.”
Studying terrorism as a graduate student during the Iraq War was riveting for Grossman since a lot of his coursework revolved around events that were unfolding.
This didn’t come without obstacles since it was possible that terrorism as a topic might not last. As an example, Grossman highlighted scholars who studied the Soviet Union.
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“It felt very relevant in a way that I was warned could become dated,” Grossman said. “People who wanted to be political science professors and really studied the Soviet Union in 1986 were pretty quickly without an expertise and had to evolve into being Russia experts.”
However, the topic of terrorism stayed relevant. Grossman continued to teach courses related to terrorism at the University of Maryland, the University of Iowa and, most recently, at the University of Illinois.
Before having its own course in Fall 2024, Grossman’s Politics of Terrorism class was taught as a special topic for a few years. After filling out a form and following the University’s requirements for getting a course its own number, PS 383: Politics of Terrorism officially became a course.
The course covers topics related to terrorism relevant to the 21st century, notably 9/11, the War on Terror and the Iraq War. The course also discusses terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, analyzes speeches, and conducts academic analyses related to terrorism.
The materials of the course have evolved over the years. While the class originally focused on 9/11, al-Qaeda, Iraq and Afghanistan, it discusses the Islamic State Group and recent group terrorism threats.
Jihadists, a group opposed to democratic governments, have carried out several terrorist attacks in the United States over the past few decades. According to Grossman, a new group is starting to emerge.
“Jihadists are still above the threshold that’s relevant to a course like this from a national security perspective,” Grossman said. “In the 2010s, more Americans were killed in terrorist attacks committed by white nationalists, so I’ve recently talked about them.”
While Politics of Terrorism discusses prominent attacks in recent years, it doesnʼt shy away from current events. Grossman discussed Hamas’ attack on Israel after it happened, putting a halt to regular course material.
“Granted, in that case, I already had Hamas and Hezbollah on the syllabus for later, so I moved that stuff up and then was able to reorganize the course that way,” Grossman said.
Discussing Hamas’ attack on Israel wasn’t the only time that Grossman discussed recent terrorist attacks; he did the same after the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks and after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
One student who liked Grossmanʼs willingness to discuss such topics was Vuk Trifkovic, a junior in LAS who recounted when Grossman discussed the Israel-Hamas war.
“Some of my professors had outright said, ‘We’re not going to be talking about this particular incident,’” Trifkovic said. “But (Grossman) was like ‘We’re scrapping the lecture today and we are talking about this conflict and answering any and all questions.’”
Trifkovic wasn’t the only one who loved taking the class. Dzana Velić, a junior in LAS, loved the course so much that she often talked about it to the people around her.
“I really enjoyed it,” Velić said. “I recommended it to any of my friends taking political science classes. While I was in class, I would constantly come home and talk about it with my roommates and my parents because I just thought it was so interesting.”
Velić would recommend the course to prospective students since students get to learn a lot more about the topic than they might anticipate.
“I think regardless of what you’re trying to get out of it, you’ll learn something out of it,” Velić said. “It gives you a lot of perspective on things you’ll see in the media and headlines. I thought I was pretty well-informed on geopolitical things, and it was interesting to dive into the systematic aspects of, ‘Oh, this is a type of warfare, and this happens with this, and then this leads to this sort of thing.’”
