11:15A-12:05P  WF SY105

The goal of this course is to improve the student's reading and
writing skills through concentration on a rich and significant subject
of study.  We live in a culture where war appears frequently in our
living rooms and bedrooms, via television, and thereby becomes more
like a form of entertainment than a devastating, violent activity that
disrupts our lives.  How war gets represented to us tells us a good
deal about our culture and the way that culture understands the rest
of the world.  In this course we will study a wide range of
representations of war, primarily in literature, but also in art,
film, and public monuments.  We will cover a broad historical range,
from Homer's ILIAD through the first world wars in the Napoleonic era,
and into some of the transformative wars of the twentieth century.  In
our studies, we will be asking ourselves:  What counts as war?  What
do we get to see?  What is left out in these representations?  What
meaning do these representations try to give to a violence often
experienced as meaningless?  Our reading and analysis of these
representations of war will guide us in learning to write and think
better, more clearly, and in more complicated ways about war and
violence.