Schedule -- Spring 2013 (undergrad)

ENGL 3373: World War I (Spring 2013)

 

Week 1 – Overview & the War’s Beginnings

Tu 1/15

 

Th 1/17

  • The First World War: A Very Short Introduction, chs. 1-2 (pp. 1-26)
  • Stephen Kern, “Temporality of the July Crisis” (D)
     

Due: Blog post (1 paragraph) – Intellectual introductions. What are the driving interests that led you to choose your major and take this course?

 

Week 2 – The War in History

Optional supplementary readings for this week (Reserve):

  • An Illustrated Companion to the First World War (Bruce)
  • A Companion to World War I (Horne)
     

Tu 1/22

  • The First World War, chs. 3-6 (pp. 27-80)
     

Due: Blog post (1-2 paragraphs) – Based on your reading so far of The First World War: A Very Short Introduction, what aspect of the War or its culture is most surprising or interesting to you, and why? How might you continue to think about it in relation to the literary content we will read?

Th 1/24

  • The First World War, chs. 7-9 & Appendices (pp. 81-122)

 

Week 3 – The War in Experience: Vera Brittain and the Loss of Innocence

Tu 1/29

Testament of Youth ***

  • Ch. IV “Learning Versus Life” Pts. 4-13 (pp. 150-204)
  • Ch. V “Camberwell Versus Death” Pts. 1-4 (pp. 205-24)
     

Due: Blog post (1-2 paragraphs) – What aspect of Vera Brittain’s experience is the most significant to you, and why? What does it say about the War’s effects?

Th 1/31

Testament of Youth

  • Ch. V "Camberwell Versus Death" Pt. 7 (pp. 232-36)
  • Ch. VI “When the Vision Dies…”
    • Pts. 1-3 (pp. 239-49)
    • Pts. 8-13 (pp. 261-89)
  • Ch. VII “Tawny Island”
    • Pts. 11-12 (pp. 339-46)
    • Pts. 14-15 (pp. 355-61)
  • Ch. VIII “Between the Sandhills and the Sea” Pts. 4-5 (pp. 372-80)
  • Ch. IX “This Loneliest Hour” (whole thing) (pp. 427-63)
  • Ch. X “Survivors Not Wanted” Pt. 1 (pp. 467-74)

     

*** List of people referred to in the memoir:

  • Edward -- Vera's beloved younger brother and a soldier in the war. He was a gifted musician and composer.
  • Roland -- A friend of Edward, later Vera's fiancé. He was a gifted poet and intellectual.
  • Victor (aka "Tah") -- A friend of Edward.
  • Betty -- A friend and fellow nurse.
  • Geoffrey -- An injured soldier whom Vera befriends.
  • Nurse Hope Milroy (pseudonym) -- An admired colleague.

 

Week 4 – In Context: The Home Front & Propaganda Posters

Tu 2/5

Meet In Computer Lab -- McFarlin Library iClassA (3035)

Each of you will pick a poster to write about on the blog for today, which you will then use for the exhibit activity in the computer lab.

*** A poster may not be used by more than one person, which means you must first claim a poster in the comments on Flickr.

0. Read Pearl James, “Introduction: Reading World War I Posters” (D).

1. Log in to Flickr (http://flickr.com) with your own account. If you don't have one, you can use one I created for my courses. Username and Password are in the email I sent on Thursday 1/31.

2. Go to the McFarlin Library collection of digitized WWI posters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfspeccoll/sets/72157624742434942/

3. Look through the posters. Pick an unclaimed poster that you'd like to write about and curate for the exhibit activity. If someone has already claimed a poster, you must pick a different one that is unclaimed. Claim a poster by writing your name in the comment field beneath the picture, i.e.: Taken by Pee-wee Herman. Click on the “Post Comment” button to save it.

4. Then, (a) copy the page URL from your browser’s address bar, and (b) paste it at the top of your blog post to complete the assignment prompt:

DUE: (1-2 paragraphs) How do you “read” the poster in light of Pearl James’ introduction? Can you tie it to some aspect of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth?

Be sure to tag your post with the term Poster, as well as any relevant topic terms that you write about (i.e. Gender, Masculinity, Femininity, Nationalism, Solidarity, Food).

(a)

(b)

Lab: Creating exhibits in Omeka

 

Th 2/7  

Meet in McFarlin Library Special Collections (5th Floor)

Reading gender in war posters:

  • Pearl James, “Images of Femininity in American World War I Posters” (D)
  • Meg Albrinck, “Humanitarians and He-Men: Recruitment Posters and the Masculine Ideal” (D)
     

Small group activity with original posters in Special Collections.

 

Week 5 – In Context: Feminism & Politics

Tu 2/12

Th 2/14

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – Browse or search the Modernist Journals Project (http://modjourn.org) and choose one piece pertaining to suffrage or other women’s issues vis-à-vis WWI. It can be an essay, a poem, a story, an advertisement, a photograph or other visual art – anything is fair game. It can be positive, negative, confused – whatever. In 2 paragraphs, analyze your piece in relation to our readings on gender in posters or writing (whichever is more appropriate). Be sure to indicate in your post the item title, magazine title, publication date, and page numbers of the item, and supply a link directly to it. Better yet, embed an image of the piece in your post, if possible, so your readers can see it directly.

 

Week 6 – In Context: Race & Politics

Tu 2/19

  • Jennifer D. Keene, “Images of Racial Pride: African American Propaganda Posters in the First World War” (D)
  • Read all of the June 1918 The Crisis (the “Soldiers Number” vol. 16 no. 2), paying special attention to the cover, the Editoral section (59-61), and Fenton Johnson’s “War Profiles” (65). We will discuss these three items. However, you are asked to take notes on something else you found interesting and be prepared to bring it up in class.
    http://modjourn.org/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=129294798430500
     

Th 2/21

Due: Poster exhibits.

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – Browse or search for content related to WWI in The Crisis at the MJP, using the Advanced Search tool. Pick one item such as an essay, a poem, a story, an advertisement, a photograph – anything is fair game. Post a link to the item and analyze its stance toward the war vis-à-vis race. Be sure to quote from the item to back up your point. If it is a visual piece, then be sure to embed it in your post so your reader may see it.

 

Week 7 – Martial Aesthetics & the Avant-Garde

Tu 2/26

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – What do you make of the stylistic experiments of BLAST and its violent rhetoric? 

Th 2/28

Meet in McFarlin Library Special Collections (5th Floor)

Activity in Special Collections with original copies of BLAST.

 

Week 8 – War Poetry & Dada

Tu 3/5

Th 3/7

  • Marjorie Perloff, “The Great War and the European Avant-Garde” (D)
  • Guillaume Apollinaire, “Thunder’s Palace” and “It’s Raining” (D)
  • 291 no.5-6 (August 1915) (Dada magazine edited by Alfred Stieglitz in New York City)
    http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/291/5-6/index.htm  
     

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – What do you make of the pictorial arrangements of text in Apollinaire or Stieglitz’s dada magazine? How might these pictorial texts somehow reflect upon the war?

 

Week 9 – The Waste Land

Tu 3/12

  • T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land Parts I-II

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – How does Eliot use the technique of quotation to critique the Western tradition and, by extension, WWI?

Th 3/14

  • The Waste Land Parts III-V

 

Week 10

SPRING BREAK (3/18 – 3/22)

 

Week 11: The Sun Also Rises

Tu 3/26

  • Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926), Book I (epigraphs to p. 71)

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – Based on your reading of The Sun Also Rises so far, in what ways has the War affected the characters?

Th 3/28

  • The Sun Also Rises, Book II (pp. 75-173)

 

Week 12: The Sun also Rises (con’t) & To The Lighthouse

Tu 4/2  

  • The Sun Also Rises, Book II (con't) & Book III (pp. 174-251)

Th 4/4  

  • Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse Part I “The Window” (pp. 3-71)
     

Due: Print/photo/artifact exhibits.

 

Week 13: To the Lighthouse

Tu 4/9  

  • To the Lighthouse Part I (con't) & Part II “Time Passes” (pp. 71-143)

Due: Blog post (2 paragraphs) – Based on the first two parts of this novel, “The Winow” and “Time Passes,” how would you characterize its response to the War vis-à-vis narrative technique? In other words, what is Woolf doing with the narrative, and how does it speak to the War and its aftermath?

Th 4/11

  • To the Lighthouse Part III “The Lighthouse” (pp. 145-209)

 

Week 14: Surrealism

Tu 4/16

Due: Blog post (1-2 paragraphs) – Even though “The Metamorphosis” does not refer to WWI directly, how does it compare thematically or conceptually with other materials that do?

Th 4/18

  • Salvador Dalí, “The Persistence of Memory” (1931)
    http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/dali/persistence.jpg.html
  • Selections from transition no. 2 (May 1927) (D)
    • Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, "The Young European" (9-18)
    • James Joyce, "Continuation of a Work in Progress" (94-107) (Finnegans Wake)
    • The plates (108-12) {{see higher quality versions on the Readings Downloads page}}
    • Valery Larbaud, "Europe" (127-30)
    • Sidney Hunt, "w h i t e limp droop UP" & "design V" (134-35)
    • Rainer Maria Rilke, "Against the Age" (138)
    • Jean George Auriol, "The Occident" (153-59)
    • Robert Sage, "La Réalité" (160-63)
    • Elliot Paul, "The New Nihilism" (164-68)
    • Victor Llona, "Foreginers Writing in French" (169-74)
    • "Glossary" (181-85)

Here's a recording of Ronnie Drew, from Irish band The Dubliners, performing a segment of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly," the musical score of which appears in this issue's installment of Joyce's "Work in Progress" (Book I.ii of Finnegans Wake).

 

 

Week 15: Surrealism & Wrap-Up

Tu 4/23

Th 4/25

  • James Joyce, selections from Finnegans Wake (1939) (D)

Due: Final paper.