Syllabus: General Outline
The syllabus here is the GENERAL class syllabus. The version you receive in class will
have the due dates and assignments that pertain to YOUR class semester.
All readings are from Richard Goff,
Walter Moss, Janice Terry, and Jiu-Hwa Upshur, The Twentieth Century:
A Brief Global History, 6th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill. 2002) (ISBN 0-07-234853-4).
"REC" = readings that will help you make sense of the wars, but are not compulsory.
Week 1:
MON Introduction to the Course:
- logistics, texts, films, requirements
- LECTURE: Questions of Theory -- Setting up the Problem
- the question of representation(s)
- How to Read a Film: The question of point of view
- Clips:
- The Blue Max (U.S. film)
- Grand Illusion (French)
- CLASS DISCUSSION: What does it mean to "remember" a war?
How does one represent that war? How does one represent the memory
of that war? What does a hero look like in each clip? Whose war is it?
PART 1: From World War I: The "War to End all Wars" to WW II, "the Good War"
in the European Theater
TU LECTURE: The "Facts" of the War: The End of a Way of Life in Europe
(download
WW I history ppt; maps ppt;
WW II history
ppt; maps ppt)
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Who are the interest groups involved,
and what are their motivations for participation?
How WW I Made WW II possible, and what the political stakes were.
- READ: Goff, Chapters 11, 16, & 17
- REC: Goff, Chapters 3, 7, 8, 10, & 12
- OPTIONAL Bonus on WW I: "Christmas in the Trenches," by John McCutcheon --
MP3 |
Lyrics
- OPTIONAL onus: "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," by Eric Bogle --
music (scroll down to Nov 11, 2005 - 6:41am) or music |
Lyrics
- Bonus: Waltzing Matilda page
WE Heroes: Stemming Nazi Aggression
(download ppt)
- Bridge at Remagen
- The Longest Day
- Where Eagles Dare
- CLASS DISCUSSION: These three films were made when World War II was still
very much alive in the
public memory and the memory of veterans. How do we recognize an American
war hero? Will use clips in class as basis for discussion.
TH Soldiers as Victims (stereotypes of concentration camp internees)
(download ppt)
- Stalag 17
- Hart's War
- CLASS DISCUSSION: These two films both deal with US soldiers held as POWs (prisoners of war)
in Europe. Stalag 17 was made when the memory of WWII was fresh; Hart's War, long after.
Can concentration or POW camps be represented metaphors?
FR Two Sides of One War: Unwilling Heroes
(download ppt)
- Das Boot (German film)
- U-571
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Submarine crews are in a different kind of war.
What differences are there in stereotypes of various services?
WEEK 2:
PART 2: War in the East: Pearl Harbor and Beyond, The "Yellow Peril"
MO When the Sleeping Giant Rises
(download ppt; maps ppt)
- From Here to Eternity
- Pearl Harbor
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Both these films recreate the bombing at Pearl Harbor, the start of
US participation in WWII. What differences in point of view are there in
the attack sequences? What questions do From Here to Eternity and
Pearl Harbor pose about the home front? Is there a critique of the military in each?
- **FILM PRÉCIS 1 DUE
TU POWs and the Other (download ppt)
- King Rat (British film, based on a novel by James Clavell)
- Bridge on the River Kwai
- CLASS DISCUSSION: The treatment of POWs in the Pacific Theater was used to justify
the bombing of Hiroshima. Do these Allies' films show the same war?
PART 3. Rethinking WW II: Re-Presenting Victims, Not Heroes
WE Normal People (download ppt)
- Seventh Cross (Hollywood movie made from a leftist German novel of the war era)
- Schindler's List
- CLASS DISCUSSION: How does each film dramatize victims and victimizers?
What does each film do to talk about how "normal people" participate in the war?
TH FILM SHOWING: EMPIRE OF THE SUN
- Scene Commentary (review for exam):
How does the point of view of the camera and music influence us?
What POV does the camera take? What has been done with or to historical
details in this representation?
FR Children Victims (download ppt)
- Tin Drum (German film from a novel by Günter Grass)
- Au revoir, les enfants (French film)
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Children are swept up in the wars and forced into lives apart.
What do they become? What cases are being made?
WEEK 3:
MO Soldier Victims: Rethinking the War
(download ppt)
- The Ogre
- Saving Private Ryan
- CLASS DISCUSSION: These are two films made in the 1990s, one in Germany for an
international audience, and one for the US and world market for Hollywood blockbusters.
They shows unheroic soldiers and the insanity of war. What in each looks like earlier
films, and what is new?
PART 4. Aftermath, Rewriting the History of WW II: Once Memories Dim
TU Still-Open Wounds from Europe (download ppt)
- Open City (Italian film, the first made in Allied Zones)
- Best Years of Our Lives
- White Christmas
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Each of these films has a message of "normalization" required.
What does each scene show about the on-going clean-up of the war? Remember that
one is made right when the war ended, and one later.
WE "Documenting" the Unthinkable, or What Never Existed
(download ppt)
- Mein Krieg (German documentary)
- The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
- CLASS DISCUSSION: How is public memory reworked in each of these films?
What audience factors play in? When does documentary approach mockumentary?
PART 5. Endgame: After the "Greatest Generation" Passes
TH When the Details are gone: Two "Memorials" to War
(download ppt)
- MIDTERM REVIEW
- Stalingrad (German film)
- Enemy at the Gate (European movie with US star)
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Both films are about Germany's devastating loss at Stalingrad -
with huge casualties on both sides. What does each do to "package" the war for its
respective viewers?
FR MIDTERM EXAM
WEEK 4:
PART 6. The "Cold War": War as Governmental Lunacy, Spy versus Spy
MO The "Facts": From Russia through the "Korean Police Action"
(download history ppt;
maps ppt)
- READ: Goff, Chapters 20, 22, 27 (pages 410-415 & 420-425) & 28
- REC.: Goff, Chapters 26 & 29
TU Governments gone mad: Wars that aren't wars
(download ppt)
- Manchurian Candidate
- M*A*S*H
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Manchurian Candidate was so threatening it was essentially supporessed;
M*A*S*H was about Korea, but made after Vietnam. How did the Cold War
function at home
(remember "duck and cover"), and how did these movies intervene?
WE Spy versus Spy: Manufacturing Threat
(download ppt)
- From Russia with Love ("Bond, James Bond")
- Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick Classic!)
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Both deal with saving the world from "the threat."
What does each film, its super-heroes and super-villains, tell us?
PART 7. Vietnam: The Dirty War
TH Homefront: Vietnam and the Protests
(download ppt)
- Born on the Fourth of July
- Berkeley in the 60s
- CLASS DISCUSSION: How to speak to a divided nation about Vietnam.
- **FILM PRÉCIS 2 DUE
FR FILM SHOWING: THE THIN RED LINE
WEEK 5:
MO The only good war is NO war: Representing Vietnam
(download ppt)
- Full Metal Jacket
- Apocalypse Now
- CLASS DISCUSSION: These two films are about soldiers trapped in
the insanity of an unwinnable war; both are made long after Vietnam.
What do they tell the homefront about the war? Who are the "good soldiers"
in these films -- compare these representations with older stereotypes.
PART 8: Be all that you can be: The New Armed Forces
TU US as the World's Policemen (Mideast and Africa)
(downoad ppt)
- Black Hawk Down
- Thin Red Line
- CLASS DISCUSSION: What is the new army? What differences emerge in representing
soldiers from the time of WW II and Vietnam?
Compare the representations of the battle scenes.
- READ: Goff, Chapters 15 & 24
REC.: Chapter 25
WE "An Army of One"
(downoad ppt on films;
ppt on history;
maps ppt)
- Top Gun
- Wag the Dog
- CLASS DISCUSSION: Who is the new hero? Compare the film to armed forces recruitment today,
and to earlier hero representations.
- READ: Goff, Chapter 31
TH Where the Real Wars Are: Media Realities
(downoad ppt)
- Three Kings
- Jarhead
- CLASS DISCUSSION: In these two films, the Gulf wars are used as excuses
for other deeds to be done. What do you see in the visual grammar of each?
FR Course Wrap-Up and Final Review
FINAL EXAM: at UT-scheduled time and place -- see semester's announcement
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