NLIT
3606

War Stories

Schools of Public Engagement: Humanities

Liberal Arts
Undergraduate Course
Degree Students
War Stories
Spring 2023
Taught By: Terri Gordon
Section: A

CRN: 13227

Credits: 3

In his stirring "Beyond Vietnam" speech, delivered at Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, "Somehow this madness must cease." Despite general agreement on the "madness" of war, it is one of the constants of human history. This course examines the genre of the war novel (and the war movie), considering lived experience in the context of culture, history, and politics. We study classical narratives, war and antiwar films, art, poetry, memoirs, and letters from the front. In our reading of modern war stories, we explore constellations of madness and themes of gender and patriarchy, love and war, trauma and suffering, and individual and collective memory. The course takes a comparative perspective, covering American, French, German, and Spanish novels: Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1929), Manuel Rivas' The Carpenter's Pencil: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War (2002), Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas (1938), Marguerite Duras' The War: A Memoir (1944), and memoirs and letters treating the current war in Iraq. We also discuss films, including Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937) and Alain Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, and cubist, expressionist, and surrealist art.

College: Schools of Public Engagement (NS)

Department: Humanities (NHUM)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Lecture (L)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 21

Add/Drop Deadline: February 5, 2023 (Sunday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 16, 2023 (Sunday)

Seats Available: Yes

Status: Closed*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 4:24pm EDT 5/31/2023

Meeting Info:
Days: Thursday
Times: 1:55pm - 3:45pm
Building: Johnson/Kaplan 66 West 12th
Room: 601
Date Range: 1/26/2023 - 5/11/2023