War and Society - JTM538

• Title: War and Society
• Czech title: Válka a společnost
• Guaranteed by: Department of North American Studies (23-KAS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2024 to 2024
• Semester: winter
• E-Credits: 6
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: 15 / unknown (20)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: Bruce Berglund
• Teacher(s): Bruce Berglund

Annotation

This is not a military history course. Rather, we will study the social, cultural, economic, and moral—as well as political and diplomatic—contexts of selected military conflicts involving the United States. The aim of the course is to understand how
America’s wars have affected American society and culture. The course will address the American experience of World War II, the Cold War, and Vietnam. But our focus will be on the last 23 years, keeping in mind that the U.S. experienced an "act of war" on
September 11, 2001, and has been a society at war ever since then.

Among the issues we will consider during the semester are: the relationship between America’s warriors and the larger society, civil-military relations in American politics, the mobilization of economic resources for the U.S. military, the ways in which American society justifies and commemorates war, and the depiction of war in media and culture.

Last update: Šmidrkal Václav, PhDr., Ph.D. (28.02.2025)

Teaching methods

Seminar/lecture

Last update: Konrád Ota, prof. PhDr., Ph.D. (02.04.2025)

Requirements to the exam

Participation (20%): Students are required to attend classes regularly, read assigned texts, and participate in class discussions. Class sessions will include both presentations from the instructor and discussion among students.

Midterm Paper (30%): America and Its War Movies: Americans’ collective perspective of warfare is shaped more by movies than by any other media source. Americans know
more of World War II, for instance, from Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List than from the work of any historian. For this paper, all students will watch Saving Private Ryan, widely regarded as the best American war movie ever. In addition, you will choose one film from three of the following groups:

World War II: Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Patton (1970)
Vietnam: The Deer Hunter (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987)
1980s Cold War: Red Dawn (1984), Top Gun (1986), Rambo III (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990)
1990s to the present: Three Kings (1999), Black Hawk Down (2000), The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

For the paper, you will examine the common themes in the four films you watch. How do these films depict American warriors and their motivations? And what is the picture
these films offer of America’s place in the world? In your analysis, use the films you have watched as primary sources. In addition, you should consult scholarly and critical
writings about war films and these films in particular. The paper will be 1300–1500 words.

Final Paper (50%): In preparation for your final essay, you will read the writings of historian Andrew Bacevich. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and a veteran of
the Vietnam War, who retired from the Army as a full colonel, Bacevich has written for conservative political journals. But in his books, Bacevich takes an approach to U.S.
military operations and the place of the armed forces in American society that one would not expect from a conservative retired officer.

To close the semester, you will look back the films you’ve watched, the short texts you have read, and the discussions we have had. You will evaluate the material we have
studied in the light of Bacevich’s arguments. Are his criticisms valid? If so, is there any possibility of changing American culture? The paper will be 1700–2000 words.

Last update: Konrád Ota, prof. PhDr., Ph.D. (02.04.2025)

Syllabus

1 October: Course Introduction: The Warrior in American Society

8 October: Legacies of the Civil War

Read: Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” and “Second Inaugural Address”; and William T. Sherman, chap. XIX, “Capture of Atlanta,” and chap. XXI, “The March to the Sea,” in the Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman.

15 October: World War I and America’s Mission
Read: Andrew Bacevich, “Wilsonians Under Arms” in The New American Militarism

22 October: World War II and the American Economy

29 October: Race, Gender, and the “Good War”

5 November: Celebrating Victory: World War II in American Memory

12 November: The Early Cold War and the Militarized Society
Midterm Paper Due

19 November: America Defeated: The Legacy of Vietnam
Read Bacevich, “The Military Profession at Bay,” from The New American Militarism

20 November: The Late Cold War and the Militarized Society

3 December: The World’s Policeman: America in the 1990s

10 December: America after 9/11: Return of the Righteous Cause

Read: Evan Wright, “The Killer Elite,” Rolling Stone (2003)

17 December: Fighting the “Forever War”
Bacevich, “Naming Our Nameless War,” from Twilight of the American Century; and
Final Paper Due

Last update: Šmidrkal Václav, PhDr., Ph.D. (28.02.2025)