Class 1.1

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:

  1. What do you know about WWI already?
  2. clipping from p3, “Thomas Hardy, Clairvoyant,” to extract his dominant idea.
  3. Irony plain and simple: Colbert Report, “Truthiness.”
  4. clipping from pp7-8, “War as Ironic Action.”
  5. contrast to Hamlet 4.4, Fortinbras’ war.
  6. clipping from p18, “Never Such Innocence Again.”
  7. clipping from p21, “The certainties were intact.”
  8. Recruitment Poster, “Daddy, What Did YOU Do In the Great War?”
  9. Ironic re-working of the poster from early 2010s, “I Buggered Off Abroad.”
  10. 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.

Imperial War Museum

National Army Museum