HST689: Voices of the Great War: Violence and Experiences in Great Britain and Germany, 1914-1919
15 credits (semester 2)
Module Leader: Professor Benjamin Ziemann
| Module Summary |
The front-line experiences of soldiers in the Great War have for a long time been the subject of intensive scholarly debate and scrutiny. This module will focuse on one particular aspect of this vast field, the ways in which violence was exercised, experienced and expressed in languages of victimisation, sacrifice and male bonding. The module will take a comparative approach, comparing British and German soldiers at the Western front. The seminars will explore practices of violence as well as contemporary debates about the impact of trench warfare on the troops and wider society. Special attention will be paid to the analysis of primary sources (letters, diaries, images) which shed light on these issues, and a methodological consideration of their advantages and pitfalls.
| Teaching |
The module will be taught in five, two-hour classes. Each will focus on a particular theme (for example: Atrocities in 1914: facts and perceptions; Cultures of violence? Languages of victimisation and sacrifice; Male identities and the experience of violence; Limits of mobilisation: disobedient soldiers; A brutalising experience? Veterans and violence in the aftermath of the war) and be located around its discussion in the historical literature, considered in comparative perspective. Classes will enable students to share knowledge, debate controversial issues and listen and respond to the views of others in a structured environment. Students will, in addition, have an individual tutorial with their own supervisor in which to discuss the work they will write for assessment for this module.
| Assessment |
Students will prepare a short paper (not more than 3000 words).
| Selected Reading |
- Becker, Annette/Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, 14-18, Understanding the Great War (New York, 2003)
- Bourke, Joanna, Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain & the Great War (Chicago. London, 1996)
- Horne, John/Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914. A History of Denial (New Haven. London, 2001)
- Ziemann, Benjamin, War Experiences in Rural Germany, 1914-1923 (Oxford, 2007)
- Bernd Ulrich and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.),The German Soldiers of the Great War. Letters and Eyewitness Accounts, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010)
| Intended Learning Outcomes |
Students completing this module will have developed:
- The ability to identify major topics and historiographical debates in the history of violence during the Great War in Britain and Germany, and their significance for an understanding of wider issues of the history of violence in twentieth-century European history
- The ability to assess critically key concepts in the history and sociology of violence and their empirical foundations with regard to the history of the Great War.
- The ability to manipulate, weigh and assess primary sources from the First World War, particularly ego-documents such als letters and diaries.
- The ability to formulate and articulate historical arguments both orally, before the members of the seminar, and in written form in assessed work.