Writing About War
HIST 369
Spring 2011
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01
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This course offers students the chance to read - and think - about war in various and often opposing ways, from the medical to the philosophical, the literary to the historical. Some of what we'll be reading makes for very tough reading. At times, no doubt, the questions we ask of certain books will seem outrageous, irrelevant, disrespectful. Still, we should be prepared to ask some of those "big" questions, if only to keep us from succumbing totally to outrage and horror: How do people understand and write about war? Do women, men, and children share identical experiences, or has war affected each differently over time? What, if anything, do all wars share in common? What, if anything, do the "prosecutors" of war share with war's "victims"? Is there a difference between "prosecutors" and "victims", combatants and noncombatants? Can you study early modern wars, such as the American Revolution, in the same way that you might study, say, World War I or Vietnam? In ranging widely across time and somewhat widely across space, the course readings should provoke at least as many questions as they do answers. Such a scattershot approach may seem unorthodox at best, perhaps moronic at worst. But there's a point. Too often scholars isolate themselves from one another; they divide themselves into specialties (and subspecialties within subspecialties). And when they do, they become purveyors of a dangerous assumption: that nothing is consistent across time and space. We want, in the next twelve weeks, to wrestle with that assumption and to grapple with how war transforms lives. Above all, we want to deepen our sense of human frailty and to expand our empathic powers, even as we train a discerning eye on the very sources that provoke in us the most distressing emotions. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Interpretation, Writing
This course requires students to spend considerable time evaluating and interpreting primary sources: images, objects, documents. The course also requires students to write critically and imaginatively about primary as well as secondary sources--e.g., articles and books written by modern historians.
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS HIST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Anonymous, A WOMAN IN BERLIN: EIGHT WEEKS IN THE CONQUERED CITY (A DIARY)
James Carroll, AN AMERICAN REQUIEM, GOD, MY FATHER, AND THE WAR THAT CAME BETWEEN US
J.M. Coetzee, DISGRACE
Joshua Dysart, UNKNOWN SOLDIER: HAUNTED HOUSE
Barbara Ehrenreich, BLOOD RITES: ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF THE PASSIONS OF WAR
Dexter Elkins, THE FOREVER WAR
Chris Hedges, WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING
Judith Herman, M.D., TRAUMA AND RECOVERY: THE AFTERMATH OF VIOLENCE - FROM DOMESTIC ABUSE TO POLITICAL TERROR
John Keegan, THE FACE OF BATTLE: A STUDY OF AGINCOURT, WATERLOO, AND THE SOMME
Primo Levi, THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED
Samantha Power, "A PROBLEM FROM HELL": AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE
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Examinations and Assignments:
The requirements are faithful attendance and vocal participation in discussion (25% of the final grade), two 5-7 pp. essays (40%), and a longer final essay (35%). |
| Instructor(s): Swinehart,Kirk Davis Times: ..T.... 01:10PM-04:00PM; Location: PAC136; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 2 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 4 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 3 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 1 | Unranked: 2 |
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