Great War in Memoir and Memory

Catalog description

World War One was the primordial catastrophe of twentieth-century history. For all who passed through it, the Great War was transformative, presenting a profound rupture in personal experience. It was a war that unleashed an unprecedented outpouring of memoirs and poetic and fictional accounts written by participants. In its wake, it also produced new forms of public commemoration and memorialization – tombs to the unknown soldier, great monuments, soldiers’ cemeteries, solemn days of remembrance, and the like. On the centenary of World War One’s outbreak, this course will explore the war through the intersection of these processes of personal and public memory. The first ten weeks will be devoted to shared readings on these themes. In the remaining weeks, students will pursue independent research projects investigating the literature of the Great War or aspects of public or private commemoration. Please note: This is not a seminar in military or diplomatic history, but rather an exploration of personal experiences of the War, representations of experience, and the cultural and political dimensions of memory.