War In Literature Film

This course considers the manner in which art responds to war, and the ways in which war and violence are appropriated in both aesthetic and critical discourse. We will examine the centrality of war to human and civilisational experience, and also consider the conditions of inevitability that bind human experience to a deep-seated violent impulse. Issues raised by this course include, but are not confined to:

the structural constitution of war

the differences and similarities between war and violence

the inherent ambivalence of war

semantics, rhetorics and discourse of war

artistic expression of war experience as ambiguating gesture

Just War or just war?

visual vs textual representations