MEETING #1. TOPIC: BELONGING AND REINTEGRATION IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic by Barbara A. Gannon [history]:
1a) Chapter 7 “Where Separate Grand Army Posts are Unknown” (pp. 85-98)
1b) Chapter 11 “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever” (pp. 145-162)
Guiding Questions: Does wartime suffering create a special bond that helps veterans overcome race and gender divides and reintegrate more fully to civilian life?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) From War to Wisdom by Daniel Collins and Josh Hisle [documentary];
2) The Lonely Soldier by Helen Benedict [personal narrative]:
Guiding Questions: How can veterans help other veterans truly come home? Do women face different challenges from men with regard to full reintegration?
MEETING #2. TOPIC: BELONGING AND DISABILITY IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North (excerpts) by Sarah Handley-Cousins [history]: Chapter 4 “The Disabled Lion of Union” (pp. 71-94)
Guiding Questions: What are some of the struggles the invisibly wounded face? Are these struggles different for men and women veterans? Do they affect the desire to belong?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History [documentary];
2) Blue Stars by Emily Gray Tedrowe [fiction]
Guiding Questions: Do you think a wider understanding and awareness of the sacrifices involved in military service is lacking? If so, what are the implications for veterans?
MEETING #3. TOPIC: BELONGING AND MENTAL HEALTH IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars by Andrew Carroll [letters]: “Joshua Chamberlain returns to the field where he was shot and recalls, in a letter to his sister, the ‘horrible carnage’ that took place that day” (pp. 120-124)
2) Civil War Stories by Ambrose Bierce [fiction]:
2a) “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (pp. 33-40)
2b) “The Coup de Grâce” (pp. 77-82).
Guiding Questions: What are some additional ways, besides writing letters to loved ones back at home, that alleviate stress for soldiers, and veterans and their families?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military’s Mental Health Crisis, by David Kieran [history]:
1a) Ch. 2 “The Psychiatric Cost of Sending Young Men and Women to War” (pp.42-76)
1b) Ch. 4 “The Culture of the Army Wasn’t Ready” (pp.110-147)
2) Be Safe, I Love You by Cara Hoffman [fiction]
Guiding Questions: Do different groups (soldiers, veterans and their families, anti-war politicians, clinicians, and military leaders) continue to approach mental health issues from different perspectives and with different agendas? What are the implications for veterans’ quest for meaningful belonging?
MEETING #4. TOPIC: BELONGING, LOSS, AND SUFFERING IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) Death and the Civil War [American Experience, PBS documentary]
Guiding Questions: According to the documentary, during the American Civil War death was part of national consciousness. Is nowadays the loss of human life at the forefront of the national conversation about war? Can we ever be prepared for the losses and suffering a war brings?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers [fiction]
Guiding Questions: How do soldiers cope with the loss of their own innocence, and with traumatic experiences through which they suffer, at war?
MEETING #5. TOPIC: BELONGING AND RECONCILIATION IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America by James Marten [history]: Ch. 6 “Sad, Unnatural Shows of War: Veterans’ Identity and Distinctiveness” (pp. 245-285)
2) Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation by Caroline Janney [history]: Ch. 6 “Our Friends, The Enemy” (pp. 160-196)
Guiding Questions: Can we humanize the enemy? If not, what are the implications for meaningful belonging,? Does reconciliation with the ‘Other’ pose a challenge to the kind of ‘war spirit’/ patriotism that sustains war service and to veterans’ coping with war hardships?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) Redeployment by Phil Klay [fiction]:
1a) “Redeployment” (pp.1-16)
1b) “Bodies” (pp. 53-71)
1c) “Money as a Weapons System” (pp. 77-117)
Guiding Question: How do veterans reconcile the feeling of discomfort about fighting a ‘wrong’ war with the fact that they get deployed?
MEETING #6. TOPIC: BELONGING AND PUBLIC MEMORY IN THE HUMANITIES
American Civil War:
1) Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David W Blight [history]:
1a) Chapter 3 “Decoration Days” (pp.64-97)
1b) Chapter 5 “Soldiers’ Memory” (pp. 171-210 )
Guiding Questions: What was at stake in highlighting certain aspects of the history of the American Civil War and erasing others? How we do remember the wars in which you have fought? Are black veterans absent from the mainstream narrative? How about women? What about LGBT people? Do the ways in which we remember wars affect veterans’ quest for meaningful belonging after they return home from war?
Iraq and Afghanistan:
1) Sparta by Roxana Robinson [novel]
Guiding Questions: Robinson writes on p. 25: “Lydia came to understand that the national memory did not work the way she’d thought (…) Those concepts —war, and the military itself— were no longer scorned (…) Somehow (…) those ideas had become (…) honorable.” What role do you think national memory of past wars plays in veterans’ decision to join the military and in how veterans rebuild their lives after they return home from war?