January 23: Patricio Paiz, "En Memoria de Arturo Tijerina"; Alexander Mackenzie, The History of the Highland Clearances, (excerpt), Wallace Terry, Bloods

All three of your selections for today describe the role of minority groups in their respective nation's war efforts. The first recounts a Mexican-American's sacrifice in a succession of America's wars, the second is a nineteenth century listing of the achievements of Scottish Highland soldiers in Britain's wars, and the third is a personal narrative of an African-American's experiences in combat in Vietnam. Given that war is a time when a nation is supposed to pull together, overcome internal tensions and differences, and unite against a common outside enemy, why do ethnic and racial divisions remain in warfare? What are white attitudes toward minorities, for example, in "En Memoria de Arturo Tijerina" or Harold "Light Bulb" Bryant's story in Bloods? What are Bryant's attitudes toward whites? Does combat change racial attitudes? Or do attitudes that exist "back home" transfer intact and unchanged into the theater of war? How does Mackenzie use the fact of Highland military service as as leverage in his criticism of forced evictions and emigration in the Highlands themselves? Why would rich landowning aristocrats in Scotland care if their poor tenants had served well in the British army? Discuss the clash of race and/or ethnicity in the narratives of war assigned for today.

January 30: Gregg Easterbrook, "The End of War?"

Gregg Easterbrook asks the question "The End of War?" in the essay. His answer seems to be: quite possibly yes. Is the end of war really in sight? Given the long history of warfare, only a small taste of which we've had in the class, is it possible to imagine a world in which there is no war? What is the likelihood of such a state? What would need to happen for peace to be achieved? Why haven't we found a way to end war so far? Is warfare simply an integral component of human culture, or is there a way that we might think our way out of it permanently? What might the future hold for mankind and war? Discuss the "End of War" its potential or its impossibility (or somewhere in between) referencing Easterbrook's essay (and you may include reference to anything else you or we have read so far in the class).