HONORS 390E: RECONSTRUCTING HISTORICAL MEMORY: THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE AMERICAN CINEMA                                                                                    WINTER 2003

Professor Joe Lunn, Department of Social Sciences (History)
Room: 2119 CX   Telephone: (313) 436-9184; Home: (734) 741-4465
Email: joelunn@umich.edu
Office Hours: M-W: 12:00-12:30 and 2:00-3:00 p.m., or by appointment

TEXTS:
John Keegan, The Second World War, Hutchinson
Studs Terkel, The Good War: An Oral History of the Second World War, Pantheon
Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies, University of California Press

 FILMS: Mrs. Miniver, Why We Fight (Prelude to War), Battle of Midway, Casablanca, The Best Years of Our Lives, From Here to Eternity, Patton, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945 

 Week              Topics                                                     Readings (Chapters)                 Films

1/8

Introduction: The Second World War, Historical Memory and the Cinema

 

 

1/15

Origins of the Second World War

Keegan, 1-2

 

1/22

The Blitzkrieg and Embattled Britain

Keegan, 3-5; Koppes/Black, 1-2

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

1/29

War Comes to America

Keegan, 12-14; Koppes/Black, 3-5

Why We Fight (1942); Battle of Midway (1943)

2/5

A World at War

Keegan, 6, 9,11;

Koppes/Black, 6-8; Turkel, B3/S4

 

2/12

Allies, Enemies, and Wartime Propaganda

Keegan, 16; Koppes/Black,9-10; Terkel (Kael)

Casablanca (1943)

2/19

Victory and Homecoming

Keegan, 20, 23, 30, 31; Koppes/Black, 11

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

2/26

First Paper Due (Discussion)

 

 

3/5

SPRING BREAK (No Class)

 

 

3/12

American Retrospective: December 7, 1941

Terkel, B1/S1

From Here to

Eternity (1953)

3/19

Old Soldiers and New Wars

Terkel, B1/S2, S3

Patton (1970)

3/26

Genocide Revisited: Hollywood's Representation of  the Holocaust

Keegan, 15; Terkel, B4/S1

Schindler's List (1993)

4/2

Paying Homage to a Vanishing Generation

Terkel, B1/S6, B2/S4

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

4/9

"Withheld from Release:" Censored Images of Oblivion

Keegan, 22, 32;

Terkel, B2/S2, B4/S4

Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945 (1970)

4/16

Second Paper Due (Discussion) Conclusion: War and Remembrance

Keegan, 33; Terkel, B4/S5, S6