HIS 3931: War And Gender in Modern America

Tuesday: 8th and 9th Period (3:00-4:55 PM), Keene-Flint 13

Thursday: 9th Period (4:05-4:55 PM), Keene-Flint 13

 

Professor: Stephen R. Ortiz

Email: sortiz@ufl.edu

Office Hours: Keene-Flint 227

                        M,W, R: 2:45 pm to 3:45 pm And By Appointment

 

Course Description:

 

            This course explores the relationship between war and gender in modern America from an interdisciplinary perspective. We will examine war’s cultural, social, and political impact on the United States by viewing both the ways in which wars manipulate and undermine historical constructions of gender and the ways in which specific cultural expressions of gender influence the wars the United States has waged. We will do this by considering a number of issues: the gendering of war and peace; the experiences of the servicemen and servicewomen who fought in America’s wars; life on “the homefront;” the influence of war and gender on American civic society; and the interrelationships among war, race, and gender. We will not be able to discuss all of these issues for every war in modern American history. For that you reason, you will write a research paper (approx. 10 pages) that explores an issue in more depth. “Women and Peace Movements,” “African American Men and Military Service,” “Women Participants in the Vietnam War,” and “Masculinity and the Cold War” are all examples of possible paper topics. Each student will present their findings to the class in a short presentation. You will also choose two books from the common readings to review. The reviews should be no longer than 6 pages. There will be an exam that covers lecture and reading material. Your participation during discussions of common readings and paper presentations will also be evaluated. The grade in the course will be determined by the following percentages:

 

                                    Book Reviews (15% each) 30%                              

                                    Research Paper and Presentation 30%                  

Exam 20%

                                    Class Participation 20%

 

Required Books: All required books can be found at Gator Textbooks (374-4500).

 

Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System

and Vice Versa.

Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting For American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked

            the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.

Rachel Goossen, Women Against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender on

            the Homefront.

Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign

            Policy.

 

           

Rules, Regulations, and Critical Information:

 

  1. Attendance is not mandatory. If you do not want to be in class, and plan to make it known to everybody by conspicuously reading The Alligator, disrupting your colleagues, or catching some beauty rest, do everyone a favor and just don’t come to class. If you insist on coming and do the above-mentioned things, you will be asked to leave and it will lower your participation grade. It should be pointed out, though, that rarely attending class will also negatively affect your participation grade. It is very difficult to do well in this course without attending class regularly.

 

  1. Late arrival to class is not a crime but, please do not let it become a persistent problem. If you are having trouble getting to class on time because of the location of your preceding class, just come talk to me.

 

  1. For the sake of your instructor’s delicate sanity, PLEASE turn your cell phones off when you come into the classroom.

 

  1. Academic dishonesty of any sort—cheating, plagiarism, etc.—will be punished by a failing grade in the course. In writing papers, be certain to give proper credit whenever you use words, phrases, ideas, arguments, and conclusions drawn from someone else’s work.  Failure to give credit by quoting and/or footnoting is

PLAGIARISM and is unacceptable. Please review the University’s honesty policy at http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.htm . If you have any questions about what constitutes academic dishonesty, speak with me. Do not jeopardize your standing at the University of Florida by failing to abide by these rules.

 

  1. Check your Gatorlink email account regularly for course updates. If you have your Gatorlink account forwarded to a Hotmail or AOL account, be warned that those two servers routinely edit out mail from UF.

 

  1. Please do not hesitate to contact the instructor during the semester if

you have any individual concerns or issues that need to be discussed.

Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the

Dean of Students Office (http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/ ).  The Dean of

Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then

provide this documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.

 

  1. If you are a history major or minor, and wish to receive important

announcements on courses, scholarships and awards at your email address,

please sign on to the History Department listserv. Compose a message to:

majordomo@clas.ufl.edu .  In the text of the message type the following:

subscribe hist-ba@history.ufl.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COURSE CALENDAR

 

 

Week #1

Aug. 24            Course Introduction.

Aug. 26            Lecture:  Broad Overview and Theoretical Issues, Goldstein, War and Gender, Chaps 1.

 

Week #2

Aug. 31                        Discussion: Goldstein, War and Gender, Chaps. 2 and 3.

Sept. 2             Discussion: Goldstein, War and Gender, Chaps 5

 

Week #3

Sept. 7              Goldstein Paper Due. Show And Tell: War, Gender, and Movies. Bring in your favorite war film.

Sept. 9              Lecture: The Crisis of the 1890s

 

Week #4

Sept. 14            Discussion: Hoganson, Fighting For American Manhood, chaps. 1-4.

Sept. 16            Lecture: The Sp-Am War, the War in the Philippines: Race, Gender, and Empire 1898-1914.

Week #5

Sept. 21            Hoganson Paper Due and Discussion: Hoganson, Fighting For American Manhood, chaps. 6-8.

Sept. 23            Lecture: Gender and the Great War

 

Week #6

Sept. 28            Discussion: K. Walter Hickel, "War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal 

Aid to Servicemen's Dependents in the South, 1917-1921," Journal of American History 87:4 (March 2001): 1362-91. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/87.4/hickel.html

ALSO

Women in World War I webpage: http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/femvets4.html

Woodrow Wilson Senate Address on Women’s Suffrage, Sept. 30, 1918

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~aslagell/SpCm416/Woodrow_Wilson_suff.html

Sept. 30            Lecture: World War II

           

Week #7

Oct.  5             Discussion: Goossen, Chapters, Intro-3.

Oct. 7               Lecture: World War II, Home Front

 

Week #8

Oct. 12             Goossen Paper Due and Discussion: Goossen, Chapters 4-Conclusion

Oct. 14             Lecture: The GI Bill, the Veteran Problem, and the New Domesticity

 

Week #9

Oct. 19             Discussion: Margot Canaday, "Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill," The Journal of American History December 2003 http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/90.3/canaday.html

                        AND

David A. Gerber, “Heroes and Misfits: The Troubled Social Reintegration of Disabled Veterans in "The Best Years of Our Lives." American Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4. (Dec., 1994), pp. 545-574. Available on JSTOR (jstor.org).

The Best Years of Our Lives film clip

Oct. 21             Paper Topic Due and Presentation sign-up

 

Week #10

Oct. 26             Discussion: Dean, Imperial Brotherhood, Chaps. 1 and 2. AND         

Frank Costigliola "Unceasing Pressure for Penetration": Gender, Pathology, and Emotion in George Kennan's Formation of the Cold War.

The Journal of American History, Vol. 83, No. 4. (Mar., 1997), pp. 1309-1339. Available on JSTOR (jstor.org).

Oct. 28             Lecture: The Cold War

 

Week #11

 

Nov. 2              Special Election Day Discussion:

“War, Gender, and 20th-Century Presidential Politics”

Read Dean, Imperial Brotherhood, Chaps. 3 and 7.

Nov. 4              Lecture: Vietnam. Paper Bibliography Due

 

Week #12

 

Nov. 9              Dean Book Review Due and Discussion: Dean, Imperial Brotherhood, Chaps. 8, Afterword. Also Short Exam Review.

Nov. 11-2         NO CLASS: Veterans’ Day and Homecoming

Week #13

 

Nov. 16                        Exam

Nov. 18                        Ortiz Presentation

 

Week #14

 

Nov. 23                        Paper Presentations

Nov. 25-6         NO CLASS: Thanksgiving Break

 

Week #15

 

Nov. 30                        Paper Presentations

Dec. 2              Paper Presentations

                       

Week #16

 

Dec. 7              Paper Presentations

Dec. 9              No CLASS: Reading Period

 

Research Papers due Wednesday, December 15, 5:00 pm.