Readings and Discussion Schedule

NOTE:   The discussion questions for each week will be posted one week prior to the class for which they are required.  

Note:  The materials for the course are set but there may be some minor  revisions from time to time.  There are a few readings for which the link is not yet available, but that will be corrected early in the term.

**Ensure that you have read the note on Visual Sources below:

**IMPORTANT NOTE ON VISUAL SOURCES**

Tuesday January 7:        Introduction 

• Movie:  Explosion

• 1914-1918 Casualty Figures - for course reference

• Ayers, "A Statistical Summary..."(1919) -for course reference

Tuesday January 14:      Causation and Interpretation

• Fay, The Origins of The World War (1930)

• Barnes, The Revisionist Position (1926)

• Angell, The Great Illusion (1910)

• Mayer, Domestic Causes of the War (1967)

• Why Canada Entered The War (1918)

• Beckett, chapters 1 - 3 inc.

• Discussion questions

Tuesday January 21:        Homefront and Total War

• Arthur Marwick, Social Customs

• Letter, My Dear Poilus, August 2, 1914

• Ontario's Reaction to the War

• Sermon, The Call of the War (1915)

• Jay Winter, On Total War

• Introduction, The Canada War Book (1918)

• Why We Should Save Food and Fuel (1918)

• Buying and Selling theWar

• Rupert Brooke, An Unusual Young Man (1916)

• Editorial, "No More Canadians for Overseas Service..." (1916)

• The Humour of War

• Arthur Marwick, ...the German homefront....

• Images of the Homefront

• Sedition Act (1918)

• Defense of the Realm Act (1914)

• Beckett, pp. 204-214, 242-264, 272-279

• Discussion questions

Tuesday January 28:    Homefront and Total War

• Jay Winter, The Lusitania and Total War

• Arthur Marwick, ...participation...

• Soldiers:  The Drive to Recruit

• Children and the War

• A Message To The Boys and Girls of Canada (1918)

• Advertisements,  The Commercial Side of War

• H.G.Wells, ...loneliness and death....

• Buitenhuis on H.G. Wells

• Vera Brittain, ...the agony letter...

• Huppauf, ...effects of war...

• Movie:    Stalemate

• Beckett, pp. 309-324, 336-353

• Discussion questions

Tuesday February 4:      Women and War

• Ida Clarke, "Food Conservation" (1918)

• Gail Braybon, Women's Contribution to the War Effort

• Arthur Marwick, ...women's war work....

• Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (excerpts)

• Women's poetry of World War One

• The Canadian 123rd Recruiting Leaflet

•  "What Did You do In The War, Mommy?"

• Beckett, pp. 324-336

• Discussion questions

Tuesday February 11:    Women and War

• H.G. Wells, ...women and the war....

• Win the War Suggestions and Recipes

• Editorial, "Social Reactions of the War"(1918)

• Women:  Myth, Symbol, and Reality

• Postcards, Love and War

• War Letters From Women

• Poem, "A Little Mother" (1916)

• Poem, "The Mother" (1917)

• Ida Clarke, Relief Work (1918) (optional)

• Movie:    Total War

• Beckett, pp. 265-271

• Discussion questions

Tuesday February 18:        The Soldiers' Experience

• Notes for Infantry Officers (1917)

• Paul Fussell, ...the trenches...

• Paul Fussell ...the trench scene...

• Foot, "Rum a Combat Motivator"

• Seigfried Sassoon, ...a raiding party...

• Henri Barbusse, Under Fire (1917) (optional)

• Robert Graves, Goodbye To All That

• Images: The Soldiers' Reality 

• Fritz Kreisler, Four Weeks in the Trenches (1915) (optional)

• Movie:  Slaughter

• Beckett, pp. 215-230

• Discussion questions

Tuesday March 4:        The Soldiers' Experience

• A conversation with Paul Fussell (1996)

• Paul Fussell, The Heroic Connotations of War

• Vera Brittain, ...circumstances of Roland's death...

• Recruitment:  The Soldier Imagined

• John Keegan, ...on too few doctors....

• "A" Company's Report, November 1, 1918

• Letter, Laurie Rowlands (1918)

• Letters from the Front

• Beckett, chapter 6

• All Quiet on the Western Front

• Discussion questions

Tuesday March 11:     The Literary and Artistic War

• Rupert Brooke, The War Sonnets

• Wilfred Owen, Poems

• Poem, "Requiem For The Dead" (1915)

• Poem, "Vigil" (1915)

• Poems From the Trenches

• miscellaneous authors, Poems

• Paul Fussell on the literature of the Great War

• Arthur Marwick, ...war and the arts...

• Women's Poetry of the Great War

• Beckett, pp. 441-457

• Discussion questions

Tuesday March 18:    The Literary and Artistic War

    ***We will be meeting in Building 356, Room 109***

• Rivers, The Repression of War Experience

• Seigfried Sassoon, Statement Against War (1917)

• Seigfried Sassoon, Poems

• John Keegan, ...the English Officer...

• The Literary National Image

• Movie:    Regeneration

• Discussion questions

Tuessday March 25:    Propaganda, National Image, and Imagining War

• The Bryce Report (1915)

• What Germany Stands For (1918)

• Vera Brittain, ...on the atrocities of war...

• J'Accuse, By A German (1915)

• Poincare, War Message, August 1914(optional)

• Clemenceau, Call To Arms, August 1914(optional)

• Creel, Selling the War (1920)

• Letter, Luening to Wagner, August 27, 1914

• Canadian youth view the War, Young Canada (1918)

• Propaganda:  Images of Nationalism

• Beckett, pp. 279-291

• Discussion questions

Tuesday April 1:    The End and its Impact

• Jay Winter, World War One Today

• Paul Fussell, The Initial Shock

• Report of the War Guilt Commission, 1919

• 1914-1918 Casualty Figures

• optional: Ayers, "A Statistical Summary..."(1919)

• McCrae, In Flanders Fields

• WWI Cemeteries (look at 3 images of your choice)

• Letters of a Driver at the Front (June 17, 1915) (from May 25)

• Beckett, pp. 428-441, chapter 11(optional)

• Discussion questions

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