Restricted to first semester UHP freshmen.
Whether nations win or lose, war has always left its mark on the arts. This course will take a comparative look at artistic responses to the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and modern military campaigns. Through our examination of the history and social psychology of war, we will pay constant attention to the infinitely human urge to use art to deal with the inhumane, comedy to combat tragedy, and story-telling to work through feelings of guilt, loss, inadequacy, or doubt. With readings of poetry, drama, and prose from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, and works ranging from cinema and television to video games, we will explore the ways in which humans deal with wars and their aftermath by placing them (safely?) in the artistic realm.
We will study works such as: Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Bierce, "Chickamauga"; Howells, "Editha"; British poetry of WWI; Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front; Camus, The Plague; Fleming, From Russia With Love; O'Brien, The Things They Carried; M*A*S*H* selected episodes; and The Producers (1968).
|
