War, Anti-War, Postwar: Culture and Contestation in the Americas

Catalog description

This course addresses the relationship among language, war and the arts from the mid-twentieth century on. Even as armies engage in combat around the globe, the term "war" legitimates a much broader spectrum of situations, lending them the structure of organized hostility and the moral opposition of right to wrong. From the "Cold War" to the "War on Terror", to Argentina's "Dirty War" and Cuba's "War on Imperialism", literature, cinema, visual arts and community-based projects have responded to real and rhetorical declarations of "war." Drawing from U.S. and Latin American contexts, we will explore a range of responses and challenges.