32410

WiSe 12/13: Behind the Lines: Kurt Vonnegut's Wars

Bryan van Sweringen

Hinweise für Studierende

Please note: The seminar will not meet on Monday, 22nd October and will be caught up during the semester.

Kommentar

This interdisciplinary Hauptseminar (History, Political Science, American Literature) will examine the American writer Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007) within the context of the war he participated in as a soldier and Prisoner-of-War, as well as the wars he later addressed as a writer. A fourth-generation German-American from Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, serving as an Infantry Scout in the 106th Infantry Division. He was taken prisoner following the destruction of the 106th during the "Battle of the Bulge" and transported to Dresden, where he was an eyewitness to the destruction of the city on February 13/14, 1945. In addition to his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade (1969), directed readings will tentatively include excerpts from other Vonnegut works to include: Mother Night (1961), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Wampeters Foma & Granfalloons (1974), Fates Worse than Death (1991), A Man Without a Country (2005), Armagedon in Retrospect (2008), as well as the essays found The Vonnegut Statement (1973). Rather than approaching Vonnegut's work exclusively as American Literature this seminar will draw upon both History and Political Science to examine Vonnegut's wars. Comparison with the works of other American Veterans of the World War II European Theater of Operations will provide a comparison for examining Vonnegut's novel approach to the phenomenon of war. The seminar will also incorporate feature films including: "Battleground" (1949, Dir.: William Wellman), "Stalag 17" (1952, Dir.: Billy Wilder), "Catch 22" (1970, Dir.: Mike Nichols), "Slaughterhouse-Five" (1972, Dir.: George Roy Hill) and "Mother Night" (1996, Dir.: Keith Gordon). If funding is available, two Seminarfahrten ("Staff Rides") to St. Vith, Belgium in December 2012 and Dresden, Germany in February 2013 will also be incorporated, prepared and executed according to guidance prepared by the U.S. Army Center for Military History. Finally, the historical, political and literary dimensions of of Vonnegut's perspective on war will be evaluated against his assertion: "Fiction is harmless. Fiction is so much hot air." Schließen