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June 11, 2008 1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of History HIST/PWAD/WMST 263 War and Gender in Movies: European Warfare Twentieth Century Feature Films Spring 2010 SHORT DECRIPTION The course examines the interrelations between changes in warfare, the military system, and the gender order in Europe from medieval to modern time, and its perception and reflection in international movies. Instructor: Karen Hagemann TUESDAY: MRC, room 205 Film sessions: 4:00-6:30 pm or Lecture sessions: 4:00-5:15 pm THURSDAY: Locations: TBA Recitation sessions: 4:00-4:50 pm or 5:00-5:50 pm The recitations sections will be taught by the TA and the instructor Office Hours instructor: Office: HM 566 Email: [email protected] Office Hours TA: Office: HM Email: Number of participants: 60June 11, 2008 2 AIMS OF THE COURSE The course examines the interrelations between changes in warfare, the military system, and the gender order in Europe from medieval to modern time, and its perception and reflection in international movies. The development from Medieval to Modern Warfare witnessed major changes not only in the military system and the conduct of warfare, but also in the ‘gender order’. The course will begin with the mercenary system of the Medieval and Early Modern armies, which were organized like ‘moving cities’ with ‘iron walls’, which included in the baggage a great number of women and children as ‘camp followers’. The everyday life reproduction in these armies was organized in the same way as in civil society The course will analyze the change of this military system before and during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and its consequences for civil society. It will also look at the standing army system of the eighteenth century and the way it conducted warfare and informed gender relations. Soldiers and their families were now bound to one territorial state and settled down during periods of peace in garrison cities, where a billeting system became the norm and forced soldiers to live in the households of ordinary citizens. An important example of the warfare of this period is the Seven Years Wars (1756-1763). The course will furthermore investigate the major changes of military organization and warfare that took place all over Europe during the period of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815), the first period when wars were conducted in Europe as ‘national wars’ with mass armies based on different forms of conscription. These wars, which reached far beyond European shores and were linked to the continuing British-French conflicts for influence in the colonies, shaped European history in a more fundamental and lasting way than did any other armed conflict between the Thirty Years War and the First World War. During this period, the civilian population had to contribute to financing of wars at a level that had never been seen before, and had to provide clothing, equipment, and food for the armies. These changes were only possible because of changes in the gender order, in particular in concepts of masculinity. All men were now constructed as ‘protectors’ of home and country who had to take up arms when the fatherland was in danger. During the nineteenth century, more and more European countries followed the French and Prussian examples and introduced a system of general conscription in one form or the other. The consequences for the gender system of military and war, but also civil society, were far reaching. Army leaders successfully excluded women from the military in the period following the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars by dramatically reducing the number of female camp followers in wartime. In peacetime they tried more rigidly than before to control the marriage of soldiers, and through various means constricted the economic and social rights of soldiers' wives and children. Therefore, the nineteenth century for the first time saw ‘all-male-armies’ with soldiers – either professionals or conscripts - living together in barracks during peacetime. The introduction of general conscription also had far reaching consequences for the gender structure of the political order, because the duty to protect home and country and political rights, inter alias the right to vote, were closely related, and women consequently found themselves relegated to the status of second class citizens. The twentieth century, marked by the far-reaching devastation of the First (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945) appears in the course as the century of industrialized and ‘total’ warfare. Here again the changes in the relationships between military and civil society, between home and front, and between men and women will play an important role. During the First, but in particular during the Second World War, the ‘home front’ had to be mobilized by all major war powers in an unprecedented way. All parts of society were expected to work in oneJune 11, 2008 3 way or the other to support the war, whether on the battlefield, on the factory floor, or within the home. At the same time, civilians – mainly women and children – became more and more the targets of twentieth century warfare. This development culminated during World War II in the bombing of cities and in the Holocaust, which would have not been possible without the context of war. Finally, the course will be concerned with the consequences of these global conflicts for the gender relations in Western post-1945 societies. Three main questions will frame the course: 1. How major changes in the military system and warfare affected civil society, in particular the gender order, i.e. the norms and concepts of femininity and masculinity, the legal gender system, the economic and social relations of men and women and the cultural practices of everyday lives of men and women. 2. How generational, social, racial, and ethnic differences colored the experiences of men and women in various European regions during specific historical moments. The course will not only make students aware of national differences, but also of the


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UNC-Chapel Hill HIST 263 - HIST 263 Syllabus

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