F22 War Literature syllabus.docx
Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso
While wars seem “never ending, still beginning,” we seldom pay attention to what wisdom, if any, can be gleaned from how they are portrayed by poets and writers. While the genre of war literature, which ranges from eyewitness accounts of combat to the depictions of civilians caught in the crossfire, has had many practitioners over the centuries, our readings will include works by David Diop (France), Bertolt Brecht (East Germany), Polina Barskova (Russia), Anna Świrszczyńska (Poland), Tarfia Faizullah (Bangladesh/USA), Yusef Komunyaaka (USA), Don Mee Choi (Korea/USA), Miljenko Jergović (Yugoslavia/Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine). In addition to focusing on close-reading and comparative analysis of novels, short stories, hybrid works, and poetry, we will also examine various social, political, and cultural contexts to see if and how they might have impacted the authors under discussion. All readings are in English. No prerequisites.