Module POC3020 for 2018/9
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POC3020: The Politics of War
This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.
Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
The module is taught through weekly 2 hour seminars and includes several film screenings with discussion.
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics::
Introduction: Why study war?
War, embodiment and experience
War, culture and representation
Collective memory, ritual and politics
Militarism and big business
Industrialised warfare, masculinity and the body in the First World War
Remembrance Day and memorials after the First World War in Britain
FILM SCREENING: Saving Private Ryan
Second World War in American Film
FILM SCREENING: The Thin Red Line
Contested memories of the Second World War in Germany: Dresden
Bearing Witness and Visual Culture after the Holocaust
War and resistance in the Nuclear Age
The Vietnam War remembered
Guest lecture Dr David Jackson, former Royal Marine
British nationalism and the Falklands War
9/11, Ground Zero and the cultural history of the War on Terror
FILM SCREEING: Paradise Now
Helmetcams and media coverage of the war in Afghanistan
FILM SCREENING: The Hurt Locker
Precarious Bodies in War
Postmodern mourning and twenty first century sacrifice
Soldier testimony and anti-war resistance
Wounded veterans, rehabilitation and contemporary injury politics
Critical Reflection and Guidance for Assessment
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
---|---|---|
44 | 256 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
---|---|---|
Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 44 | 22 weekly seminars (2 hours each) |
Independent Guided Study | 256 | Independent study: reading and preparing for seminars (around 5 hours per seminar); researching, planning and producing assessments (approximately 96 hours) and approximately 50 hours revising for, and undertaking, the oral examination. |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Bourke, J. (1996) Dismembering the Male: Men’s bodies, Britain and the Great War, London: Reaktion Books.
Sylvester, C. (2012) War As Experience, London: Routledge.
Zehfuss, M. (2007) Wounds of Memory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the memory of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
King, A. (2010) ‘The Afghan War and ‘postmodern’ memory: commemoration and the dead of Helmand’ in The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 61(1), pp.1-25.
McSorely, K. (2012) ed. War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience, London: Routledge,
Gerber, D. A. (ed.) Disabled Veterans in History, revised edition, Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Zehfuss, M. (2009) ‘Hierarchies of Grief and the Possibility of War: Remembering UK Fatalities in Iraq’ in Millennium, vol. 38(2), pp. 1-22.
Sjoberg, L. and Via, S. (2010).eds. Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (Santa Barbara, Denver and Oxford: Praeger).
Higate, P. R. (2003) ed. Military Masculinities: Identity and the State. (Westport, CT and London: Praeger).
Goldstein, J. S. (2001) War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Enloe, C.( 2000) Manoeuvres: The International Politics of Militarising Women’s Lives.( Berkeley, University of California Press).
Enloe, C. (2007) Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. (Lanham and Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).
Basham. V. (Forthcoming 2013). War, Identity and the Liberal State: Everyday Experiences of the Geopolitical in the British Armed Forces (London: Routledge).