Day One: We Dive Right In
For class: read “A Satire of Circumstance,” the first chapter from Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory.
Discussion:
- What do you know about WWI already?
- clipping from p3, “Thomas Hardy, Clairvoyant,” to extract his dominant idea.
- Irony plain and simple: Colbert Report, “Truthiness.”
- clipping from pp7-8, “War as Ironic Action.”
- contrast to Hamlet 4.4, Fortinbras’ war.
- clipping from p18, “Never Such Innocence Again.”
- clipping from p21, “The certainties were intact.”
- Recruitment Poster, “Daddy, What Did YOU Do In the Great War?”
- Ironic re-working of the poster from early 2010s, “I Buggered Off Abroad.”
- clipping from p26, the sporting spirit as national identity.
For next class: go to the Imperial War Museum or the National Army Museum. Find a poster you want to write about for the upcoming essay. For details on what to do during your museum visit, look at the HW for class 1.2.
