HIS 128 CC:WORLD WAR I/MAK OF MOD WRLD

What were the causes and the consequences of the First World War and how, a century after "the Guns of August" first rang out, does it still affect our political and cultural world today?  Students will explore these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective.  They will use traditional historical analysis and primary sources, but will also look at the war through other lenses: photography and the rise of film; literature and the arts; popular music; architecture and cultural memory; gender and the nation; technology; and public health.  Students will learn to “de-center” the war, recognizing that traditional narratives often privilege the British, French, or American experience and neglect people in places far from Western Europe, including Russia, Serbia, Egypt, Australia, and Turkey, who also fought and died in this global cataclysm.  Finally, students will explore how the war ushered in the era of modernism in culture and politics and will connect the questions it raised about duty, honor, citizenship, and obligation to events and conflicts in our world today.