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April
23, 2024
Office: 07 Smith Hall
Office Hours: TBD & by appointment
Phone: 997-6754 (office)
Email: ruppel@chapman.edu
Class Meetings: Tuesday/Thursday 1-2:15 pm – Smith Hall, 103
Upcoming Events & Opportunities
Marley
and Bradley are in a Research Methods class for Psychology, and they are
conducting a study about the connection between college majors and sexual attitudes.
They would appreciate it if you would take their study. Here’s the link: https://chapmanu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5pvcsG0sw93xqsK
Thursday,
March 14, at 11:40 AM - 1:05 PM KENNEDY HALL ROOM 147. “Israel, International Law, & the
International Court of Justice.” With
DR. LIAM O’MARA, Jewish Historian, & PROF. NICOLE RANGEL, international
lawyer and Chapman professor.
Tuesday,
March 12, at 7pm in the Folino Theater in Marion Knott Studios. Conversations
with Nobel Laureate Nadia
Murad. Our Peace & Justice Studies Department and Dodge College will
present three short documentary films created by Chapman undergraduates. The films are about Nadia herself, about
media stereotypes of Middle Eastern women, and about a new international code
of conduct for international workers working with survivors of sexual assault.
Shared Humanity: Conversations between Jews and Palestinians for a Better
Tomorrow
Monday & Tuesday, February 26 & 27, 4-5pm. In the Fish Interfaith Center.
Texts
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. [First published 1925] Harcourt, 2005
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 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.
Weekly Syllabus*
Week 1 – January 30-February 1: Classical, Biblical, and Medieval
Accounts of War
Week 2 – February 6-8: World War I
Poetry & Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway.
Week 3 – February 13-15: Woolf.
Week 4 – February 20-22: Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Week 5 – February 27-29: Hemingway. The
Holocaust & WWII: Elie Wiesel, Night.
Rodgers Center visit Thursday.
Week 6 – March 5-7: Elie Wiesel
Week 7 – March 12-14: Elie Wiesel and Ruth Klüger, Still Alive. (Paper 1 due, March 14)
Spring Break!
Week 8 –
March 26-28: Ruth Klüger.
Week 9 – April 2-4: Klüger. Midterm.
Week 10 – April 9-11: Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Week 11 – April 16-18: Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien, The
Things They Carried;
Week 12 – April 23-25: O’Brien
Week 13 – April 30-May 2: Dương Thu
Hương, Novel Without a Name
Week 14 – May 7-9: Wrap-up and preparation for final (Paper 2 due, May 9)
Week 15 – Final: Tuesday, May 14, 10:45-1:15.
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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)
Essay 2: 20% (6-7 pages)
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 not post grades in Canvas. I have had too
much trouble converting our standard four-point scale to the 100 point scale
Canvas requires. I average your grades
based on a four-point scale:
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.
· 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
1: 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
8.
For
Tuesday, February 6: 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 6, 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 8: Continue reading Mrs. Dalloway. I’ll
give an introductory lecture.
For
Tuesday, February 13: Finish Mrs.
Dalloway and by 10am February 13, respond to the question in Canvas
about how Woolf presents the consequences of World War I.
For
Thursday, February 15:
Wrap up Mrs. Dalloway.
Begin A Farewell to Arms.
For
Tuesday, February 20: Read the first half of A Farewell to Arms. (Through page 140 of our edition, the first
24 chapters.)
For
Thursday, February 22: Finish A Farewell to Arms and respond
to the discussion question in Canvas by 10am the 22nd.
For
Tuesday, February 27: Continued discussion of A Farewell to Arms. Begin reading Elie Wiesel’s Night.
For
Thursday, February 29: Rodgers Center visit (4th floor,
Leatherby Library). Continues reading Night.
For
Tuesday, March 5: Finish Night. Bring one
comment and one question about the memoir to class.
For
Thursday, March 7: Continued discussion of Night.
For
Tuesday, March 12: Begin Still Alive.
For
Thursday, March 14: Continued discussion of Still Alive,
first essays due by midnight.
For
Tuesday, March 26: Finish Still Alive, and respond to the
prompt in Canvas asking you to compare one feature of Still Alive and Night.
For
Thursday, March 27: Continued discussion of Still Alive. Preparation for the midterm April 4.
For
Tuesday, April 2: Finish discussion of Still Alive. Begin Slaughterhouse Five. Respond to the Canvas discussion question
asking that you create a prompt for the midterm.
For
Thursday, April 4: Midterm.
Bring a blue or green book.
For
Tuesday, April 9: Read the first 4 chapters (through page 109)
of Slaughterhouse Five.
For
Thursday, April 11: Finish Slaughterhouse Five.
For
Tuesday, April 16: Respond to the Discussion question by reading
and briefly summarizing an article on Slaughterhouse
Five. We’ll begin Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried Thursday, April
18.
For
Thursday, April 18: Read through page 110 of The Things They Carried.
For
Tuesday, April 23: Finish The
Things They Carried.
For
Thursday, April 25: Respond to the discussion question about
linking one story from The Things They Carried to an earlier work we’ve
read this semester. And choose one story
you’d like to discuss.
For
Tuesday, April 30: Read through page 143 of our last work,
Dương Thu Hương’s Novel
Without a Name. Remember that you
will need to clear your second paper topic with me sometime that week. Bring a
tablet, laptop, or phone to class to fill out your course evaluation.
For
Thursday, May 2: Finish Novel
Without a Name.
For
Tuesday, May 7: By 10am Tuesday, May 7, respond to the
OPTIONAL Discussion Board question, which asks you to formulate a final exam
essay prompt.