MA Angloamerikanische Literatur, Sprache und Kultur 120LP,
MA International Area Studies 120LP (Module ANG.03956.02 und ANG.03959.01);
MA IKEAS 120LP (Modul ANG.03959.01);
LAGym (Modul ANG.03590.01)
With the young men who died in Vietnam died the dream of an “American century.” The fifty-eight thousand American names – engraved on the granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington – bear witness to the end of America’s absolute confidence in its moral exclusivity, its military invincibility, its manifest destiny. What were the roots for America’s intervention in Vietnam? Why did America’s commitments deepen? And how did American culture respond to the “tragedy of epic dimensions” (Stanley Karnow)? This course will first trace the historical events of the Vietnam War (1954-1975) from its complex origins to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in the mid-1970s and then explore its impact on American culture. Special attention will be paid to primary source materials documenting the American and Vietnamese perspectives of the war, photographs, a play (David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones), films (e.g., The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Full Metal Jacket), a novel (Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried), and music (e.g., Country Joe and the Fish’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag”).
Required Texts:
- Marc Frey, Geschichte des Vietnamkriegs (C.H. Beck, 2010)
- Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (Mariner, 2009)
- A reader with primary texts will be made available at the beginning of the course.
