2007-08 AM "A visual, tactile, olfactory blot. An indelible vulgarity": The Vietnam War in Film and Fiction

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Winter Term 2007/08

Lecturer: Christina Meyer

Office Hours: Tue 3:30-4:30pm; A06 2-212

Fon: 0441-798-4570

E-Mail: christina.meyer@uni-oldenburg.de



Comment

This course will provide a survey of Vietnam War literature. Likely authors include: Bao Ninh, Tim O'Brien, Bobbie Ann Mason, Robert Olen Butler, Stephen Wright, William Ehrhart. Extensive class discussions of primary texts will be the norm (supported by secondary readings). We will also be dealing with constructions of filmic narratives, with particular emphasis on Jacob's Ladder and Apocalypse Now.

The course is organized around, but not limited to, a number of key books and figures, and secondary studies on Vietnam War literature. We will adopt an interpretive method that combines literary, cultural, and psychological approaches. In addition to literary readings, the syllabus will thus include a variety of historical materials and a range of theoretical viewpoints.

Starting on: 23.10. 2007

Prerequisites for certificate: regular attendance, active participation, in-class oral presentation, periodic short written homework, term paper.

Please purchase Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods, and Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War (Riverhead). Additional material will be made available in a reader and/or in the library (reserve shelf).


Syllabus

Part I: Intro – Approaches to the War in Vietnam

Oct 23, 2007 

           Organization, Why Are We in Vietnam? (Re)-Opening a “Wound” Called Vietnam

Oct 30, 2007 

           History: The Indochina Wars
           Presentation: “Vietnam from 1954-1975”


Part II: Filmic Narratives

Nov. 6, 2007 

           Filming the War in Vietnam
           Presentation: “Vietnam in the Movies: (Right Wing) Revisionism, and ‘Realistic’ 
           Versions of the Vietnam War in American Movies?”

Nov. 13, 2007 

           Apocalypse Now and American Imperialism (FILM SCREENING; excerpts)
           Text: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (excerpts)
           Written Assignment I: Essay (topic will be distributed in class)

Nov. 20, 2007 

           FILM SCREENING: Jacob’s Ladder
           ATTENTION: session starts at 12h sharp
           Written Assignment II: Summary of Jacob’s Ladder


Part III: Representations of the War in Vietnam (Prose Texts)

Nov. 27, 2007 

           The (Psychological) Scars of the War
           Presentation: “Psychological Trauma”

Dec. 4, 2007 

           Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
           Presentation: Tim O’Brien: Soldier/ Writer

Dec. 11, 2007 

           Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods, cont’d

Dec. 18, 2007 

           Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods, cont’d


CHRISTMAS BREAK


Jan. 8, 2008 

           The Vietnam Trauma in The Sorrow of War
           Presentation: “Story and Plot in Bao Ninh’s Novel”

Jan. 15, 2008 

           Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War, cont’d

Jan. 22, 2008 

           Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War, cont’d

Jan. 29, 2008 

           The Sorrow of War, and In the Lake of the Woods: Postmodern Novels?
           Texts (group work): 1) Lucas Carpenter; 2) Steven Liparulo; 3) Michael Bibby; 4) 
           Jerome Klinkowitz (see below)

Febr. 5, 2008 

           (Not) Closing the Wound(s)
           Round-up



Reading Requirements

  • Bao Ninh. The Sorrow of War. Trans. Phan Thanh Hao. Ed. Frank Palmos. New York: Riverhead Books, 1993.
  • Bibby, Michael, ed. The Vietnam War and Postmodernity. Amherst, MA: UMass P, 2000. (excerpts)
  • Carpenter, Lucas. “’It Don’t Mean Nothing’: Vietnam War Fiction and Postmodernism.” College Literature 30.2 (2003): 30-50.
  • Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness. Reprint. London et al.: Penguin, 1995.
  • Liparulo, Steven P. “’Incense and Ashes’: The Postmodern Work of Refutation in Three Vietnam War Novels.” War, Literature & the Arts 15.1&2 (2002): 71-94.
  • Klinkowitz, Jerome. “Writing Under Fire: Postmodern Fiction and the Vietnam War.” Postmodern Fiction: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide. Ed. Larry McCafferty. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1986. 79-92.
  • O’Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. 1994. New York et al.: Penguin, 1995.


Texts are available at “Wersig” (copy shop, Ammerländer Heerstr. 108). Reading suggestions and additional texts (for oral presentations) will be made available in the course reader on the reserve shelf in the library. Further texts will be distributed in class, and/or will be made available in the library.


Reading Suggestions

  • Anderson, David L., ed. Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre. Lawrence, Kansas: UP of Kansas, 1998.
  • Beidler, Philip D. American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1982. (esp. chapter 2: “American Literature: Prophecy and Context”)
  • Caruth, Cathy, ed. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995.
  • Christopher, Renny. The Viet Nam War/The American War: Images and Representations in Euro-American and Vietnamese Exile Narratives. Amherst: UMass P, 1995.
  • Gilman, Owen W., and Lorrie Smith, eds. America Rediscovered: Critical Essays on Literature and Film of the Vietnam War. New York: Garland, 1990.
  • Hixson, Walter L., ed. The United States and the Vietnam War. 6 vols. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 2000.
  • Hölbling, Walter. Fiktionen vom Krieg im neueren amerikanischen Roman. Tübinger Beiträge zur Anglistik 10. Tübingen: G. Narr, 1987.
  • Jeffords, Susan. The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989.
  • Limon, John. Writing After War: American War Fiction from Realism to Postmodernism. New York & Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.
  • Myers, Thomas. “Dispatches from Ghost Country: The Vietnam Veteran in Recent American Fiction.” Genre 21.4 (Winter 1988): 409-428.
  • Nguyen Can Huy and Laurel Kendall, eds. Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind, and Spirit. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: U of California P, 2003.
  • Rowe, John Carlos, and Rick Berg, eds. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia UP, 1991. (esp.: “Eyewitness: Documentary Styles in the American Representations of Vietnam,” pp. 148-174)
  • Shay, Jonathan, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York et al.: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
  • Tal, Kalí. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge, England & New York: Cambridge UP, 1996.
  • Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes. Boston: Beacon, 1972.
  • Wimmer, Adi. “Die Transzendierung bloßer Referentialität als Akt der Leserbeteiligung: Zum Aspekt der Lückenhaftigkeit in der US-amerikanischen Vietnamkriegsliteratur.“ Zeitschrift f. Anglistik und Amerikanistik 34.4 (1986): 325-342.
  • Wright, Stephen. Meditations in Green. London: Abacus, 1983.

Links

Term Paper (Suggestions)

  • Constructing “Masculinity” in Vietnam War Narratives
  • Vietnam War Novels as Trauma Narratives?
  • Staging Memory/ Staging Identity in Vietnam War Narratives
  • Racist Aggression in Vietnam War Narratives
  • The “John Wayne Syndrome” in Vietnam War Narratives
  • (Leit)motifs in Vietnam War Fiction
  • Re-Writing Vietnam/ Re-Writing America
  • Postmodernism and Vietnam War Literature
  • The Image(s) of Vietnamese in Vietnam War Fiction
  • The Novelization of the Vietnam War: “Probing the Limits of Representation”
  • Narrative Strategies in Vietnam War Novels
  • Embarking on a “Heart-of-Darkness”-Trip
  • Filmic Responses to the Vietnam War
  • The Role of Music in the Vietnam War and in Vietnam War Literature
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