Organized Slaughter: Representations of War in Vietnam and Iraq

Instructor: Professor Steve Gehrke
               Department of English

"The death of an individual is a tragedy," Joseph Stalin said. "The death of millions is a statistic." By studying both journalistic reports as well as first-hand accounts of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, this course will attempt to understand both the statistics and the tragedy. We will examine the way that poets, novelists, and filmmakers differ from journalists in their attempt to convey the realities of the two most controversial and unpopular wars in American history. How do the individual accounts reinforce or reshape our understanding of the conflicts gained through journalistic accounts? Can we pick up on any political agenda in the journalistic accounts? What political statements are these artists attempting to make in their work? And, in the end, can warfare be accurately represented at all?