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February
14, 2025
Office: 07 Smith Hall
Office Hours: Monday & Tuesday, 8:30-9:30am & by appointment
Phone: 997-6754 (office)
Email: ruppel@chapman.edu
Class Meetings: Tuesday/Thursday 1-2:15 pm – 201 Doti Hall
Upcoming Events & Opportunities
Texts
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. [First published 1925] Norton Critical, 2021
Ernest Hemingway, A
Farewell to Arms. [First published 1929] Scribner, 2014
Elie Wiesel, Night. [First published (in Yiddish) 1956] Hill
& Wang, 2006
Ruth Klüger.
Still
Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. [First published (in German) 1992] Feminist Press, 2003
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse
Five. [First published 1959] Dell,
1991.
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried. [First published 1990] Mariner Books,
2009.
Dương Thu Hương, Novel
without a Name. [First published
1991] Penguin, 1996.
Course Description and
Objectives:
War
and conflict have been the central inspiration of literature since human beings
began writing. The Epic of Gilgamesh,
from Mesopotamia, composed over four thousand years ago, depicts King
Gilgamesh’s battles with various demi-gods.
In the Hebrew Bible, known to Jews as The Tanakh and to Christians as the Old Testament, Jehovah is shown leading the Jews to victory in
battle (or to defeat if they have been disobedient). The great Indian epic, the
Mahabharata (completed and compiled by the fourth century), is centrally
concerned with war. The Iliad and Odyssey, with the Hebrew and Christian Bibles the most influential
literary productions of the West, depict the Trojan War in some detail, along
with its origins and consequences.
This
course will focus on the war literature of the twentieth- and, if we have time,
the twenty-first centuries. Before the
twentieth century, authors most often treated war solemnly. In literature, war
brought glory. Here is part of the most famous tribute to war in English, from
Shakespeare’s Henry V, spoken by King
Henry before the Battle of Agincourt:
From
this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
(And
here is Kenneth Branagh’s stirring
rendition.)
But
the great wars of the twentieth century, anticipated by our own Civil War,
introduced increasingly accurate and deadly techniques and weapons, and the
inspiring words long associated with battle: glory, courage, honor – all
accompanied by and confirmed by God’s sanction – began to ring hollow. World War II, with its Holocaust association
and its destruction of whole cities, culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
fundamentally changed our vision of war.
“Now I am become
Death,” Robert Oppenheimer said after the first successful test of the
atomic bomb, quoting from the Bhagavad
Gita,“the destroyer of worlds.”
So
this introduction to war literature will be skewed, and we will see war treated
less as a path to glory than as a tragic waste, a foolish and useless source of
pain and death, or even as a terrible, black comedy. In the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries,
God continues to lead some people to war, but for others, God can only be
invoked in the name of peace, and for still others, the wars of the last
century prove that God is dead.
We
will read a small selection of poetry, stories, novels, and memoirs provoked by
the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and, if there’s time, our
current wars in Ukraine and Israel and Palestine. These readings are difficult;
at times you will want to turn away. Our challenge will be to maintain an
analytical, academic tone at the same time that we respond emotionally to these
works of great sadness, pain, and beauty.
Our
Course Learning Outcomes:
1.
You
will practice a good deal of critical reading, including poetry, leading you to
learn to identify and analyze the formal, rhetorical, and stylistic features of
different genres.
2.
You
will improve your understanding of the development of war literature through
the 20th century in its historical context.
3.
As
in most English courses, you will work on and improve your writing this
semester. We will have writing workshops
before the first essay is due, and you will be allowed to revise one of your
essays.
General Education:
This course fulfills the Values and
Ethics Inquiry general education requirement: “Students articulate how
values and ethics inform human understanding, structures, and behavior.” The study of war and its representations in
literature is a study in values and ethics.
When is violence at any level justified? What are the ethical and moral
issues raised by war? How do our
readings this semester affect my own moral system? How should I myself act in a world prone to
fight wars to settle national disagreements?
This course also fulfills the Artistic
Inquiry general education requirement: “Students compose critical or
creative works that embody or analyze conceptually an artistic form.” Your responses to the discussion board,
papers, and final exam will give you the opportunity to analyze works of
literature as art forms.
Weekly Syllabus*
Week 1 –February 4-6: Classical, Biblical, and Medieval Accounts
of War
Week 2 – February 11-13: World War I
Poetry & Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway.
Week 3 – February 18-20: Woolf.
Week 4 – February 25-27: Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Week 5 – March 4-6: Hemingway. The
Holocaust & WWII: Elie Wiesel, Night.
Week 6 – March 11-13: Elie Wiesel
Week 7 – March 18-20: Rodgers Center visit Tuesday. Ruth Klüger, Still
Alive. (Paper 1 due, March
20)
Spring Break!
Week 8 –
April 1-3: Ruth Klüger.
Week 9 – April 8-10: Klüger. Midterm.
Week 10 – April 15-17: Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Week 11 – April 22-24: Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien, The
Things They Carried;
Week 12 – April 29-May 1: O’Brien
Week 13 – May 6-May 8: Dương Thu
Hương, Novel Without a Name
Week 14 – May 13-15: Wrap-up and preparation for final (Paper 2 due, May 13)
Week 15 – Final: Thursday, May 22nd, 8-10:30am.
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*We may agree to change the syllabus, but I will give you
plenty of notice, and I'll keep the syllabus updated on the Web.
Grades:
Assignments & Participation*: 15%
Minutes: 10%
Essay 1: 15% (5-6 pages, ~1750-2100 words)
Essay 2: 20% (6-7 pages, ~2100-2450 words)
Midterm: 15%
Final: 25%
*This is primarily
but not exclusively your grade on the Canvas Discussion Board posts; it will
also take your class participation into account. Here are my criteria for evaluating your
posts:
1. The
posting should respond as specifically as possible to the prompt (or you should
indicate why you’re modifying the prompt).
2. The posting should reveal close engagement with the work under discussion.
3. The posting should contribute to the discussion, so later postings should
not simply repeat earlier postings, and they should reflect some engagement
with earlier postings.
4. Postings should be substantive.
I will post grades in Canvas, but I keep the official grades
in my gradebook and average your grades based on a four-point scale (A= 4.0, A-
= 3.7, B+ = 3.3, etc.). In the past, there have sometimes been differences
between students' Canvas cumulative grades and their actual grades. I think
I've fixed this, but I calculate your final grades; the Canvas final grades are
not official grades. If you have any questions about your grades, don’t
hesitate to ask me.
A: 4.0
A-: 3.7
B+: 3.3
B: 3.0
B-: 2.7
C+: 2.3
C: 2.0
C-: 1.7
D+: 1.3
D: 1.0
D-: .7
F: 0
I will be happy to discuss your grades, and I am always happy to see you for any reason.
Chapman University
Academic Integrity Policy:
Chapman University is a community of
scholars that emphasizes the mutual responsibility of all members to seek
knowledge honestly and in good faith. Students are responsible for doing
their own work, and academic dishonesty of any kind will be subject to sanction
by the instructor and referral to the university's Academic Integrity
Committee, which may impose additional sanctions up to and including
dismissal. (See the Undergraduate Catalog for the full policy.)
ChatGPT
and other Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots:
1. Typing a prompt into an LLM
chatbot, copying the response, and then submitting that response for an
assignment is an obvious form of academic misconduct. Don’t do
it.
2. Chatbots are sometimes
inaccurate. In the summer of 2023, when I asked ChatGPT for a
biography of Richard Ruppel, a Chapman English professor, I found that I was
born in Fairview (false), had been an expert on the Holocaust (mostly false),
had graduated from Yale and Harvard (false), and was now dead (demonstrably, I
hope, false). People in the field describe these errors as
“hallucinations,” but these hallucinations are presented with supreme
self-confidence. Hallucinations are not uncommon.
3. If I suspect that you
have pasted in a response produced by an LLM, I will check the
various services that can detect this. If those services confirm my
suspicion, I will call you in for a conference, and we will go over your essay
line by line while I ask pointed questions.
4. Chatbots can be inaccurate,
but they do offer clear, useful information which users should
check. These are still early times, but through this semester (and
through your academic career) we will all discover ways to help you use them to
enhance your learning.
The
following discussion of the use of LLMs in academic settings was developed by
Dr. Nora Rivera, a professor in Chapman’s English department:
Acceptable Uses of LLMs |
Not Acceptable Uses of LLMs |
·
To
improve your work ·
To
brainstorm ·
To
explore potential counterarguments ·
To
fine-tune research questions ·
To
draft an outline to organize your thoughts ·
To
check grammar and style ·
To
check format ·
To
translate words and phrases |
·
To
replace your work ·
To
cheat on the writing & research process ·
To
obtain answers to assessments ·
To
generate a full draft of your work ·
To
generate large chunks of text with little or no input from you as an author |
· Students must cite
AI technologies when appropriate (e.g., when using images generated by AI
technologies, when referencing an answer provided by AI technologies, et
cetera)
· Copying works
entirely generated by AI technologies and submitting them as original content
is considered an academic
integrity violation
· Always revise your
work before submitting it. You are responsible for any inaccurate, biased,
offensive, or otherwise unethical content you submit regardless of whether it
originally comes from you or an AI model.
In-Class use of
laptops, tablets, and phones:
You may use a
laptop to take class notes only when you are one of the week’s
note-takers. Otherwise, laptops and tablets must remain closed, and
you may not consult your phone during class. If you have a
reason to consult one of these devices during class, you must receive my
permission to do so beforehand. If I see you consulting your phone
during class, I will mark you absent.
Chapman Equity and Diversity Policy:
Chapman University is committed to ensuring equality and valuing
diversity. Students and professors are reminded
to show respect at all times as outlined in Chapman’s Harassment
and Discrimination Policy. Any
violations of this policy should be discussed with the professor, the Dean of
Students and/or otherwise reported in accordance with this policy.
Chapman's Students
with Disabilities Policy:
In compliance with
ADA guidelines, students who have any condition, either permanent or temporary,
that might affect their ability to perform in this class are encouraged to
inform the instructor at the beginning of the term. The University, through the
Disability Services Office, will work with the
appropriate faculty member who is asked to provide the accommodations for a
student in determining what accommodations are suitable based on the
documentation and the individual student needs. The granting of any
accommodation will not be retroactive and cannot jeopardize the academic
standards or integrity of the course.
It is very important to me that ALL students feel
welcome and encouraged to learn in my classes.
If you have any concerns about participating in class, writing
posts or papers, or taking our exams, do not hesitate to speak with me. I want you to feel challenged in this class,
but if you feel overwhelmed, let me know.
Achilles &
Patroclus. The archetype of transcendent friendships among soldiers.
Poetics
· Dactylic meter:
Tennyson’s “The
Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854).
Video
reading.
World War One
· The Poetry
Foundation’s fine collection of WWI
poetry, with a brief introduction.
· Images of WWI, from the Britannica Website.
· Interesting New
Yorker article on Rupert
Brooke.
· Pro-war
poetry. Julian Grenfell, “Into Battle.” Jessie Pope: “The World War I Poet Kids are
Taught to Dislike” (BBC), “War Girls,” “No!” “Who’s for the Game?”
Mrs. Dalloway
· David Bradshaw’s (no
relation to William) fine analysis of the way the novel responds to WWI (in the
Canvas Module section).
· Elaine Showalter’s
description of Mrs. Dalloway. A terrific British Library production.
· One source for
Clarissa Dalloway, Kitty
Maxse.
· Woolf
Works. A ballet based on three works by Virginia
Woolf.
Farewell to Arms
· Passage from Huck Finn demonstrating Hemingway’s
stylistic source.
· “Westron wynde”
referred to on page 171. Set to music.
· A video reference
to the novel in The Silver Linings
Playbook.
· Trailer to the 1932 film,
full
film with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. Trailer for the 1957
adaptation, 1957 full
film. With Rock Hudson and Jennifer
Jones.
The Holocaust
· The
Rogers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman.
· Elie Wiesel bio from “The
Academy of Achievement.” (In ITunes.)
· Brief, edited interview with
Elie Wiesel in 2014. Video
obituary, NYTimes. 1994 Interview with Charlie
Rose.
· United States Holocaust Museum. The Ilse
Salomon Collection.
· Trailer for a series, A
Small Life, about Miep Gies, who helped hide the family of Anne Frank.
· The Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance.
· Poetry. “First They
Came for the Jews”; “Holocaust
Poem”; “The
Little Boy with Hands Up”; “The Burning
of the Books,” “Daddy.”
· Jewish Women’s
Archive biography
of Ruth Klüger.
· 2001 review
of Still Alive in the NY Times – critical of Klüger’s feminism.
· Ruth Klüger discusses
the reception of Still Alive. She
reads from Still Alive at
UCI. She speaks at UCSB and reads
from her book. She speaks at Oregon
State University on “The
Shoah in Literature.”
· The New York
Times obituary
for Ruth Kluger.
· Khan Academy introduction
to the Holocaust.
· United State Holocaust Museum (in Washington
DC). An authoritative source.
· Auschwitz
Camp Complex maps.
World War II
· Poems: “High Flight,” John
Magee; “i
sing of olaf, glad and big,” e.e. cummings; “Death of
the Ball Turret Gunner,” Randall Jarrell.
· Kurt Vonnegut. Interview on his life and
career (1983). Extremely brief biography. Vonnegut on “the shape
of stories.”
Vietnam
· Straightforward account
from one platoon commander about fighting in Vietnam.
· “The US defeat in Vietnam was
a political choice.” A defense of
the war by a historian from the Hoover Institution, Victor Davis Hanson. This
video is hosted by PregerU, a right wing foundation devoted to climate-change
denial and other right wing issues.
· Trailer for the PBS Ken
Burns special, Vietnam. A PBS
story on the series.
· Glossary
of military terms from Vietnam.
· Poems: Yusef Komunyakaa, “Tu Do
Street.” Leroy Quintana, “Natural
History.” Robert Borden, “Meat
Dreams: A Poem of the Vietnam War.”
· Trailer to Apocalypse Now.
Tim O’Brien
· Tim O’Brien, on why he writes about
Vietnam. Interviewed about The Things They Carried. Reading “How to Tell a True War Story.” On “The
Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong,” which, according to this Web page, may have
been based on a true story.
Thu Hương
Dương
· Biography of Thu
Hương Dương; thorough NYTimes
article from 2005; a multi-part video of an event involving Dương
Thu Hương. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7.
· The
story of Au Co and Lac Long Quan, a founding myth of Vietnam referred to on
p. 247.
· A good review
of Novel Without a Name.
For Thursday, February 6: Read Thomas Hardy’s “Channel Firing,” “Drummer
Hodge,”
(reading), “A Wife in London,” “The Man He
Killed”;
David Ferry, “The
Soldier”;
Rupert Brooke, “The
Soldier”;
A. E. Housman, “Epitaph on an
Army of Mercenaries”;
Hugh MacDiarmid, “Another
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries”;
Carl
Sandburg, “Grass”;
e.e. cummings, “my
sweet old etcetera,”
(read) “i
sing of olaf glad and big,”
(read) & (read); and Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Redeemer,” “Christ
and the Soldier,”
“They,” “The
Hero,”
“The
General,”
“Glory
of Women,”
“Everyone
Sang”).
Be prepared to read aloud and discuss one of the poems. Begin reading Virginia
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, which we’ll begin discussing Thursday, February
12.
For Tuesday, February
11:
Read Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem of
Doomed Youth,”
(read), “Dulce Et
Decorum Est”
(read), “Exposure,” Insensibility,” “The Send-Off,” “Futility,” “Strange Meeting,” “The Sentry,” “Spring
Offensive.”
By 10am, February 11, on the Canvas Discussion page, briefly describe the ways
the poetry we have read both confirmed and contradicted your sense of what
constitutes "war literature." Continue reading Mrs. Dalloway.
For Thursday, February
13: Continue reading Mrs. Dalloway.
I’ll give an introductory lecture.
For Tuesday, February
18: Finish reading Mrs. Dalloway. By 10am the 18th, respond to the
Discussion question on Mrs. Dalloway in Canvas.