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HIS 121-219: War and Society, 1914-1945 Arts & Sciences, Department of History

Summer 6-Week Session, 2012 (DRAFT)

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Summer Six-week Session, 2012 05/08/2012 – 5/3/2012 Instructor: John P. Davis [email protected] Office: Patterson Office Tower, Room 1703 OFFICE HOURS: E-mail is the preferred method of correspondence. I will make every effort to respond to your e-mail within twenty-four hours [seventy-two on weekends]. If you would like to set up a meeting with me please do so through my e-mail address.

LOGGING ON: To log on to the course you may use one of two methods.

1) You can visit http://elearning.uky.edu and log in using your Link Blue username and password.

2) You can log in to http://myuk.uky.edu and click on the Blackboard link located at the top of the page.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS: Use this link to check if your computer has the proper hardware, software and internet connection, check these sites: http://wiki.uky.edu/blackboard/Wiki%20Pages/Bb9%20Hardware%20and%20Software%20Requirements.aspx

http://wiki.uky.edu/blackboard/Wiki%20Pages/FAQs.aspx

Note: Some users experience difficulties using Internet Explorer, therefore, Firefox is recommended for use on Blackboard. You may download Mozilla Firefox without charge at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

You may need to install plug-ins on your computer in order to participate in the course (although UK computers have the necessary equipment). You will need Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat reader, and Quick Time movie player. To check whether your computer has the necessary plug-ins click this link:

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mailto:[email protected]

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http://myuk.uky.edu/

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The applications may be downloaded without charge at: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ http://get.adobe.com/reader/ http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

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Students and faculty can download Microsoft Office Suite (including Word and PowerPoint) from this site: https://download.uky.edu/

Technical Difficulties: If you experience problems accessing course materials, the Customer Service Center may be able to help you. You may reach them at 859-218-HELP (4357), by e-mail at [email protected], or their website http://www.uky.edu/UKIT. Please inform the course instructor whenever you encounter technical difficulties.

The Reaching and Academic Support Center (TASC) website, http://www.uky.edu?TASC?, offers additional information and resources that can promote a successful distance learning experience.

They may be reached at 859-257-8272.

Distance Learning Library Services: As a distance learning student you have access to the Distance Learning Library services at http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/DLLS. This service can provide you with access to UK’s circulating collections and can deliver to you Manuscripts or books from UK’s library or other libraries. The DL Librarian, Carla Cantagallo, may be reached at 859-257-0500 (ext.2171) or 800-828-0439 (option #6), or by e-mail at [email protected]. For the DL Interlibrary Loan service, go to http://www.uky.edu.edu/Libraries/libpage.php?1web_id=253&llib_id=16

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course considers the social ramifications of “Total War,” as it appeared on a global scale between 1914 and 1945. In a

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historical context, war in the first half of the twentieth century (quite unfortunately for the millions who experienced it) affords us the opportunity to discuss history from a transnational perspective, and consider its social impact. Some of the important issues that we will consider are:

• Nationalism and citizenship: who belongs in a warring nation or empire? Who is excluded? What are the effects of war on enfranchisement, slave labor, and genocide?

• What is the impact of total war on gender relations? (women/work/citizenship, sex/marriage/divorce, childhood/motherhood/fatherhood?)

• What are some of the dividing lines between combatants and non-combatants?

• The role of technology, ethics, demonization of the enemy, dehumanization of minorities, ethnic cleansing and the collapse of multiethnic states, and other factors that have made war more deadly.

• The role of propaganda and the diminution/effacement of civil liberties and economic interventionism in war.

• The global reach of total war, the geopolitical claims of rival empires and total war as the hammer of empires.

• Warfare and public memory: coming to terms with the enormities of total war.

• Who is to blame? What rights/obligations do combatants have to refuse to follow orders? How responsible are leaders who do not personally kill the enemy?

COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES: This course is designed to challenge you to:

• Demonstrate disciplinary literacy (vocabulary, concepts, methodology) in written work and class discussions (e.g. the distinction between primary and secondary sources)

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• Compose written texts that present relevant and informed points of view appropriate for the audience, purpose, and occasion

• Define and execute effective strategies for organizing written texts • Analyze visuals (in this case, films and propaganda posters) as a form of

communication • Conduct sustained analyses of historical sources that make use of logical

argument and present coherent theses • Present your ideas in a clear and coherent manner within the context of

assigned papers and group presentations (some online discussions may be held)

• Demonstrate an understanding of the following, as they pertain to the subject matter of the course: a) Social, cultural, and institutional change over time; b) Cross-national and comparative issues; c) Power and resistance

COURSE POLICIES AND REQUIREMENTS:

• All course materials are online and it is your responsibility to access them in a timely manner. You are expected to spend about 4 hours per day interacting with the course material. To keep you on track I have provided a Course Schedule that you should follow (located below). The Course Schedule is divided by weeks, and each week has a corresponding folder in the COURSE MATERIAL section of Blackboard. Each weekly folder has all the assignments dues for that week.

• Please be civil toward others in any online communications: Like any class worth taking, this one will raise subjects on which students will likely disagree, and sometimes disagree pretty strongly. We all need to be thoughtful enough to ensure that our communications are guided by civility and respect for our colleagues. This means we must always refrain from verbal attacks of a personal nature, and avoid statements that could be perceived as denigrating others on the basis of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, or age.

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• See Student Resources for a list of Resources for students provided by the UK Central Advising Service and Transfer Center.

• For any unresolved academic issues, consult the UK Student Rights and Responsibilities.

• All assignments/exams must be submitted electronically through Blackboard.

Late- makeup assignments/exams will be accepted only in the event of documented excused absences as defined by University Senate Rules V, 2.4.2. If you miss an assignment/exam, contact the instructor via e-mail as soon as possible. All late assignments will be penalized a full letter grade per day. Documented disabilities: In order to receive accommodations in this course, you must provide me with a Letter of Accommodation from the Disability Resource Center (Room 2, Alumni Gym, 257-2754, email address [email protected]) for coordination of campus disability services available to students with disabilities. Academic dishonesty: Academic dishonesty is a serious offense. Neither plagiarism nor any other form of cheating will be tolerated in this course. I will see to it that plagiarists and cheaters are disciplined in accordance with University regulations. For University policies regarding plagiarism and cheating, please consult:

http://www.uky.edu/USC/New/SenateRulesMain.htm

To facilitate your understanding of plagiarism, please consult the following:

http://www.uky.edu/Ombud/Plagiarism.pdf

http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_understand_plagiarism_1/0,6622,427064,00.html

COURSE COMPONENTS:

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There are four main requirements of this course. The first requirement is participation in discussion of assignments. Regular participation is expected, and it counts for a major part of your final grade.

The second course requirement is the timely completion of all assigned written work. You will submit three short essays on topics pertaining to class readings. The writing assignments are located in the Course Material section of Blackboard, within the folder of their assigned week, as well as in the Assignments section of Blackboard. I reserve the right to slightly modify these assignments, but any changes will be explicitly detailed in separate announcements well before the due date. The Due dates are listed below in the course schedule. The third course requirement is a take-home mid-term examination, based on all readings and lectures to that point. The date of the mid-term is listed below in the Course Schedule. The mid-term is open note/book and must be submitted electronically in Blackboard. The instructions and information related to submission of the mid-term are located in the Course-Material section of Blackboard, within the folder of their assigned week, as well as the Exams section of Blackboard. The fourth course requirement is a group assignment – a PowerPoint presentation relating the graphic memoir Maus to the Holocaust experience more generally using images from course-approved image banks. Due dates are listed below in the Course Schedule. I will distribute detailed instructions later in the semester. This course has 13 lectures to supplement the assigned readings. They will be viewed through Adobe flash player. The lectures are in the COURSE MATERIAL section of Blackboard, and within the folder of their assigned week. It is your responsibility to view these lectures on or before their scheduled date in the Course Schedule below. As these lectures are designed to facilitate your understanding of the assigned

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readings, it is imperative that you view them in a timely manner. The take-home mid-term examination will be based heavily on the lectures that you are assigned to read up to that time. You will also be expected to draw heavily on the lectures that are assigned after the mid-term examinations when completing the group assignments. Viewing and taking copious notes on the lectures is an extremely important component to success in this course. The lectures are approximately 50 minutes in length, and I would suggest that you occasionally pause the lecture at various transitional moments to take a break and consider the material you have just viewed. There are outlines that you may use as guides to each of the 13 lectures, and they are located in the COURSE MATERIAL section of Blackboard. I might suggest that you print out the outline, view it before watching the lecture, and keep it handy during viewing, but the outline is designed strictly intended to serve as a road map for watching and following the lecture, NOT to take the place of careful note-taking. GRADING: The components of the course grade are as follows: Class Participation (reading responses and discussions): 20% Remarque/Jünger writing assignment: 15% Dower writing assignment: 15% Browning writing assignment: 20% Group project based on Maus: 15% Take-home mid-term examination: 15%

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Final grades will be based on the total percentage earned, and will be assigned as follows: A: 90%-100% B: 80%-89% C: 70%-79% D: 60%-69% E: Less than 60%

I will post all assignments, participation, and exam grades in the Blackboard grade book no later than one week after the due date.

You can view your grades by going to TOOLS, and then MY GRADE, on Blackboard.

REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS:

You should purchase or rent all of the books listed below with the exception of Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel (which will be available online in the course shell) at the University, Kennedy Bookstore, and Wildcat Textbooks, and you can also purchase them through other major bookstores or through Amazon.

John Dower, War Without Mercy Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Parts I and II: My Father Bleeds History/And Here My Troubles Began) Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (available in the course shell) RECOMMENDED COURSE MATERIAL (textbook): Robin W. Winks and R. J. Q. Adams, Europe: Crisis and Conflict, 1890-1945 The lectures should be sufficient to keep you apprised of the events, but you might wish to use this textbook, which has been specially chosen to supplement the lectures.

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Getting Started: Log in to your Blackboard (Bb) Account 1. Access the course syllabus. The syllabus can be viewed by clicking on the

COURSE INFORMATION button and then clicking on the link for the Syllabus. I would recommend that you print out a copy of the syllabus to reference as you participate in the course, making particular note of the deadlines.

2. You should check to ensure that the e-mail address listed for you is your current e-mail address (it does not have to be a UK address, just the e-mail that you regularly use). If it is not your regular e-mail address, then change it to your current address (except for Hotmail accounts which sometimes are not compatible with Bb) and click submit. This is the address that I will use to communicate with you. Go to TOOLS to change your e-mail address.

3. This is a 3 credit hour course taught exclusively through the web. All course materials are online and it is your responsibility to access material in a timely manner. To help you stay on track, there is a Course Schedule located below in the syllabus. Take some time and acclimate yourself to navigating through the course material. This course has 13 lectures, located in the COURSE MATERIAL section of Bb. Reading response assignments, discussions, group project materials, the mid-term exam, and writing assignments are located in the COURSE MATERIAL section of Bb, in the folder(s) of their assigned week.

4. Please be aware that some files that you will be downloading are fairly large and may take a while to download, especially if you are accessing the course material using a slow broadband computer connection.

COURSE SCHEDULE Week 1 Tue/May 8 View: Introduction to the Course (in Course Information

section of Bb) Lecture. The “Causes” of World War I Wed/May 9 Remarque Reading response 1 due by 9 pm*, Chapters 1-5 Lecture: The Great War as World War

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* I chose the 9 pm due time to help those of you who work during the day, but I would appreciate it if some or many of you complete the assignments earlier

Thur/May 10 Remarque Reading Response 2 due by 9 pm, Chapters 6-8 Lecture: Paul Bäumer’s War (1) Fri/May 11 Remarque Reading Response 3 due by 9 pm, Chapters 9-12

Week 2 Mon/May 14 Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel reading response due by 9 pm Lecture: Paul Bäumer’s War (2) Tue/ May 15 View the art of writing a good paper (brief video discussion) View simulated discussion: Remarque and Jünger (all) Wed/May 16 Remarque/Jünger Writing Assignment due by 9 pm Thur/May 17 Dower Reading Response 1 due by 9 pm: War Without

Mercy, preface and chs. 1-2 Lecture: The Run-Up to War

Fri/ May 18 Dower Reading Response 2 due by 9 pm: War Without Mercy, ch. 3 View Simulated Discussion; Dower (1), preface through ch. 3

Week 3 Mon/May 21 Dower Reading Response 3 due by 9 pm: War Without

Mercy, chs. 4 and 5 Lecture: World War II in Asia and the Pacific (1)

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Tue/May 22 Dower Reading Response 4 due by 9 pm: War Without Mercy, ch. 8 and pp. 234-50,292-301

Wed/May 23 Lecture: World War II in Asia and the Pacific (2) Thur/May 24 View simulated discussion: Dower (2), all assigned passages Fri/ May 25 Dower writing assignment due by 9 pm Week 4 Mon/May 28 Lecture: World War II in Europe (1)

View: How to prepare for the take-home mid-term (brief video discussion) & Mid-term Questions & Instructions

Tue/May 29 Lecture: World War II in Europe (2) Wed/May 30 Lecture: Hitler’s Empire and the Greater East Asia Co-

Prosperity Sphere Thur/May 31 Lecture: World War as Race War Fri/June 1 Take-Home Mid-term Examination due by 9 pm Week 5 Mon/June 4 Browning reading response 1 due by 9 pm: Ordinary Men,

preface and chs. 1-3, ch. 5 View: Instructions for the Group Assignment (video) & Group Project Requirements

Tue/June 5 Browning reading response 2 due by 9 pm: Ordinary Men,

chs. 7-9 View simulated discussion: Browning (1)

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Wed/June 6 Browning reading response 3 due by 9 pm: Ordinary Men, chs. 11-14

Lecture: The Holocaust (1) Thur/June 7 Browning reading response 4 due by 9 pm: Ordinary Men,

chs. 16-18 View simulated discussion: Browning (2), all assigned passages

Fri/June 8 Lecture: The Holocaust (2) Week 6 Mon/June 11 Browning Writing Assignment due by 9 pm Tues/June 12 Spiegelman reading response 1 due by 9 pm: Maus, book I,

chs. 1-6 Wed/June 13 Spiegelman reading response 2 due by 9 pm: Maus, book II,

chs. 1-5 View simulated discussion: Spiegelman, Maus, (all) Thur/June 14 Prepare Group Assignment on Maus Fri/June 15 Prepare Group Assignment on Maus Week 7 Mon/June 18 Group Assignment on Maus due by 9 pm Tues/June 19 Peer Evaluation and Extra Credit for Group Assignment on

Maus due by 9 pm

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