Required Materials
Homer, The Iliad (Penguin Classics)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Scribners)
Margurite Duras, The War (New Press)
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (Ballentine)
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (Penguin)
Copy handout packet

Course Description
A literary exploration of warfare as depicted in range of writing and imagery. War has been with us for a long time. Humans have made war on each other and warfare has been a fundamental aspect of human culture since the beginnings of civilization. Indeed the propensity to kill, or to sanction the killing of, others whom we have never met or do not know is arguably a basic condition of being human. Wars have come and gone throughout our history and even though warfare has generally brought with it only increased death and destruction, no human society has ever given up on it entirely.

What is the culture of war? How does war shape, and is shaped by, our most basic assumptions about ourselves as individuals or in relation to others in society? How does warfare confer status and/or identity among its participants? This course will cover a broad historical range, from wars of the ancient world to modern-day conflicts in the Middle East. Topics might include the nature of combat, the home front, anti-war sentiment, nations and national identity, war as historical necessity, the image of the dead, gender identities, and others.

Course Goals
Since this course is not simply an upper-division literary course but a seminar course, I will be asking you to develop your ideas about the literature we read through informed and thoughtful discussions during class, and in formal written papers, presentations, and proposals. The final goal of this semester's study is to allow you to begin thinking about the final product of next semester--an extensively thought out, researched, and reworked thesis--what I hope you will consider your best work, the culmination of your scholarly thinking as an English major at Eastern.

Course Requirements
Response papers (43%)
Literary Response One
Literary Response Two

Literary Response Three
Literary Response Four

Summary Responses 13%

Summary Response One
Summary Response Two

Research Proposal 18%
Group Presentation 13%
Participation 13%

Literary Response Papers 43%
There are four Literary Response Papers, one due about every fourth week. Every three weeks you will receive a response question handout with questions. You are to respond to any one day’s questions taken from the upcoming reading assignments. Response questions must be typed, double-spaced and turned in on the day that you have selected. For example, answers to questions from September 19th's reading must be turned in on that day. Papers are due in class on the assigned date. Late papers will be subject to a reduction in grade. If you feel you have a good reason for requiring an extension, please come talk to me about it beforehand. However, after-due date extensions, except in the case of emergencies, will be difficult to obtain.

Summary Response Papers 13%
There are also two summary response papers. You are to respond to any one day’s questions from the list. Response questions must be typed, double-spaced and turned in on the day that you have selected. For example, answers to questions from September 19th's reading must be turned in on that day. Papers are due in class on the assigned date. Late papers will be subject to a reduction in grade. If you feel you have a good reason for requiring an extension, please come talk to me about it beforehand. However, after-due date extensions, except in the case of emergencies, will be difficult to obtain.

Research Proposal 18%
The written proposal includes a 6-8  page discussion and outline of your working thesis and an annotated bibliography of your research. It also includes a 5-minute in-class oral presentation of your thesis project, which includes an outline and a brief summary of the secondary works you have found most helpful or illuminating for you topic.

Group Presentation 13%
At some point early in the semester I will divide the class up into four groups.  Each group will then be given the task of putting together an oral presentation, due at several-week intervals throughout the semester.  Each presentation will be devoted on a specific topic.  (See the Calendar for specific topics)  Each presentation should be at least 10 minutes (and last no more than 15 minutes) and must include at least one handout to be given to the class as a whole.  Beyond the handout, the materials and format of the presentations are only limited by the group's imagination and may include use of a variety of media.

Participation 13%
Regular attendance of classes is absolutely expected for this course. Two or more unexcused absences will lower your participation grade significantly.

Avoid plagiarism (stealing the exact words or ideas of another) like the plague. In this class acts of plagiarism incur a zero and could also result in course failure.

Disclaimer:  I reserve the right to change the syllabus and assigned readings (with plenty of advanced warning)

Calendar

War in the Western World

Week 1
September 5: Introduction; Thucydides, "The Melian Dialogue"; Walt Whitman, "First Songs for a Prelude," Eighteen Sixty-One,"

Combat

 Week 2
September 12: Homer, The Iliad, Books 1-4; Tim O'Brien, "How to Tell a True War Story" "The Things They Carried"

Summary reading: Paul Fussell, "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books"

Week 3
September 19: Homer, The Iliad, Books 5-11; L.T. Meade "For Valour"; Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est, " Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Summary reading: Carl Von Clauswitz, On War

Week 4
September 26:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (Read to page 137, Chapter 7)

The Image of the Dead

Week 5
October 3: Oral Presentation: Censoring the Image of the Dead during the Persian Gulf Wars

Homer, The Iliad, Books 11-17; Ernest Hemingway, "A Natural History of the Dead"

Summary reading: George H. Roeder, "War as a Way of Seeing"

Aftereffects

Week 6
October 10: Oral Presentation: "Coming home" in Film

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Summary reading: William Adair, "'The Sun Also Rises': A Memory of War"

Student Summary Response, Kathleen Mita, "'The Sun Also Rises': A Memory of War"

Week 7
October 17: Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

Homefront

Week 8
October 24: Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; Walt Whitman, "Come Up from the Fields Father"; Siegfried Sassoon, "The Hero," "The Glory of Women"

Week 9
October 31: Homer, The Iliad, Books 17-end; Margurite Duras, The War

Week 10

November 7: The War; Mrs. Miniver

War and Gender

Week 11
November 14:

Mary Chesnutt, A Diary from Dixie (excerpts); George Trevelyan, Cawnpore; Florence Nightengale, I Have Done My Duty (excerpts); Walt Whitman, "The Wound Dresser"; Wilfred Owen, "Apologia Pro Poemate Meo"

Summary reading: Margaret Higonnet, "Not So Quiet in No-Woman's Land"

Week 12
November 21: Thanksgiving

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Week 13 Oral Presentation: Teaching War Literature on the Secondary Level and Below: Problems and Potentials

Conference week, meet with me in Webb Hall 234
November 28:Aristophanes, Lysistrata

War and the Nation

Week 14
December 5: Research discussion

George Orwell, "England Your England," Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier," Saving Private Ryan, Platoon

Summary reading: "Saving Private Ryan and American Triumphalism"

Final Exam Week
Proposal Presentation: Wednesday, December 19th, 7-9
Research Proposal Due

Some Useful Links

A Bibliography on War and Culture

Illustration: Francisco Goya, The Disasters of War "With or Without Reason"