Course description
This course explores how film engages with narrative history to address war, empire and revolution in the modern world. Using diverse national and political perspectives students will consider how a variety of actors, including historians, writers and film makers have sought to chronicle and remember the legacy of global empires and the conflict they provoked. By using traditional and non-traditional sources students will be encouraged to think critically about how narratives of the past have been created and consider the ethical and political implications of these narratives. The course will provide a wide historical overview of the rise and fall of empires and of wars and revolution in both the East and West. Students will also explore a series of micro-histories, first-hand accounts of events by writers and ordinary people who lived through and experienced seminal events. The lectures and sources we will use include broad works of historical synthesis and compelling individual narratives that collectively help explain how critical events in world history have been remembered and how memory informs and oftentimes distorts our understanding of the past.
The class will include be a combination of lectures, films and student-led class discussions. The assigned readings should be done according to the schedule below. All readings will be made available digitally as PDFs or placed on reserve in the library. Many films will be made available through a class portal. Students will work in teams or with partners to lead at least one class discussion during the semester. At the end of the semester student teams will make class presentations by using resources and a bibliography that we will engage with as the semester progresses.

Course evaluation
Eight short essays = 80%
Final project/participation in discussions = 20%

Syllabus

Week 1
Introduction/orientation to the class and its format.
Lecture: World War I and its memory/legacy and impact on Europe, Africa and Asia.
Film: Black and White in Colour (orig. titled: La Victoire en chantant, France/Ivory Coast, 1976)
For next week read assigned pages of Empires in World History, Robert Rosenstone, The Historical Film, Looking at the Past in a Postliterate World and ‘The use of Native Troops’ in Empires, Soldiers and Citizens.

Week 2
Discussion: Robert Rosenstone, The Historical Film, Looking at the Past in a Postliterate World and ‘The use of Native Troops’ in Empires, Soldiers and Citizens and Black and White in Colour.
Lecture: The Russian Revolution and its global impact, Eisenstein’s film and memory, war and revolution.
Film: Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925).
For next week read ‘Revolution in Russia’ in Empires, Soldiers and Citizens and Empires at War: 1911-1923 chapter 5 ‘The Russian Empire,’ Joshua Sanborn
(DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702511.003.0006)

Week 3
Discussion and short essay 1 due: ‘Revolution in Russia’ in Empires, Soldiers and Citizens and the role of propaganda and history in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
Lecture: The inter-war years, myth and the memory: the emergence of a Japanese Empire and the rise of European fascism.
‘The Japanese Empire’ Frederick R. Dickinson, (DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702511.003.0011)

Week 4
Discussion and short essay 2 due: ‘The Japanese Empire’ Frederick R. Dickinson.
Lecture: The World at War: Asia and the West, Nanking: forgetting/remembering atrocity?
Film: Grave of Fireflies ( Japanese with English subtitles, Yoshiko Shinohara, Japan, 1988).
For next week read the article ‘75 Years Later the Battle of Iwo Jim Still Haunts this Veteran’, Bill Newcott, National Geographic, February 20, 2020.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/75-years-later-battle-iwo-jima-haunts-veteran

Week 5
Discussion and short essay 3 due on remembering Iwo Jima: Empires in World History and the article ‘75 Years Later the Battle of Iwo Jim Still Haunts this Veteran’, Bill Newcott, National Geographic, February 20, 2020
Lecture: America and the Pacific War.
Film: The Flags of our Fathers (Clint Eastwood, USA, 2006)
For next week read assigned pages of Empires in World History

Week 6
Discussion and short essay 4 due: The Flags of Our Fathers and Empires at War.
Lecture: Empires of the East and West and the contested histories the Pacific War.
Film: Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese with English subtitles, Clint Eastwood, 2006)
For next week read: ‘Letters from Iwo Jima Japanese Perspectives’, Ikui Eikoh, The Asia Pacific Journal, (translated from Japanese) May 2, 2007:
https://apjjf.org/-Ikui-Eikoh/2417/article.html
and Jason Miks, ‘Japan Reads Into Letters from Iwo Jima’, Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 2006: https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1222/p11s02-almo.html

Week 7
Discussion and short essay 5 due: Letters from Iwo Jima, articles by Ikui Eikoh and Jason Miks.
Lecture: The Cold War in the Pacific: China, the West and remembering the Korean ‘police action’.
For next week read: ‘The Korean War, a ‘Forgotten Conflict that Shaped the Modern World’ Liam Stack, New York Times, January 1, 2018.
Film in class Cathal Black’s Korea.

Week 8
Discussion: ‘The Korean War, a ‘Forgotten Conflict that Shaped the Modern World’ Liam Stack.
Lecture: A Cold War in hot climates: Cuba and Latin America.
Film: The Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis.
For next week read: Digital archive from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis

Week 9
Discussion and short essay 6 due: Primary sources from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
For next week read: The Vietnam War, as Seen by the Victors; ‘How the North Vietnamese Remember the Conflict 40 Years After the fall of Saigon’, Elisabeth Rowan, The Atlantic, April 16, 2005.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-vietnam-war-as-seen-by-the-north-vietnamese/390627/

Week 10
France, Indochina and the origins of America’s War in Vietnam
Film: Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now
Discussion and short essay 7 due: Perspectives on the American War in Vietnam.
For next week read: Readings: ‘Terrorism on the Screen: Lessons from the Battle of Algiers, Perspectives on History, Ron Briley, 1 Oct 2010.
www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2010/terrorism-on-screen-lessons-from-the-battle-of-algiers

Week 11
France, Algeria and the end of empire.
Film The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy, 1960).
Discussion and short essay 8 due: The Battle of Algiers and Ron Briley article.
For next week read:
Film to view (out of class): The Hurt Locker, (Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 2008).
Read: New York Times review: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/movies/26hurt.html
Tara McKelvey, The American Prospect, ‘The Hurt Locker is Propaganda’:
https://prospect.org/article/i-the-hurt-locker-i-propaganda/

Week 12
Lecture/discussion: The End of Empire? The Iraq War & American narratives in popular culture.
Student presentations.

Note: In fairness to all, work submitted late will be penalized appropriately. The recording of class lectures and discussions is strictly prohibited.

Films:
Grand Illusion (Jean Monet, France, 1937).
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy, 1960).
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925).
Korea (Cathal Black, Ireland, 1996).
The Hurt Locker, (Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 2008).
Grave of Fireflies (Yoshiko Shinohara , Japan, 1988).
Black and White in Colour (orig. titled: La Victoire en chantant, France/Ivory Coast, 1976)
The Flags of our Fathers (Clint Eastwood, USA, 2006).
Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese with English subtitles, USA, Clint Eastwood, 2006).
All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger, Germany, 2022)

Readings for the course
Select chapters/readings, (made available to students as PDFs):
The Historical Film, History and Memory in Media, Marcia Landy ed. (2001).
Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference, by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, (2011).
Empires at War: 1911-1923, Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela (eds.), (2014).
Empires, Soldiers, and Citizens: A World War I Sourcebook, Marilyn Shevin Coetzee and Frans Coetzee eds. (2013).
History on Film/Film on History, Robert Rosenstone, (2017).

Last updated: February 14, 2024