WOH 4244  *  COURSE SCHEDULE

 WORLD WAR II (AND THE UNITED STATES)

                      MWF, 11:00-11:50, SO 170

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


WEEK 1:  Origins of WWII (David Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 381-454)

 

F 8/24:  Introduction

 

M 8/27:  The War that Didn’t End All Wars

W 8/29:  The Legacy of the Great War

F 8/31:  Depression, Dictatorship, and War

 

WEEK 2:  Neutrality According to FDR (Kennedy, 460-515)

 

M 9/3:  NO CLASS: LABOR DAY

W 9/5:  Perils of Neutrality

F 9/7:  The Clash: The United States and Japan to 1940  

 

WEEK 3:  The Pacific War (Kennedy, 515-564)

 

M 9/10:  Pearl Harbor According to Everybody but Ben Affleck

W 9/12: Island Hopping

F 9/14:  Fighting on Two Oceans

 

WEEK 4:  Was WWII a “Race War”?  (John Dower, War Without Mercy, 1-146)

 

M 9/17:  Know Your Enemy—Japan

W 9/19:  Know Your Enemy—Japan

F 9/21:  Discussion of War Without Mercy 

 

WEEKS 5 & 6:  Dimensions of a Total War (Kennedy, 565-609, 615-619, 669-745)

 

M 9/24:  What is “total war”?

W 9/26:  Air War

F 9/28:  War of the Airwaves

 

M 10/1: Who, exactly, was G.I. Joe?

W 10/3: From D-Day to V-E Day

F 10/5:  EXAM I

 

WEEKS 7-8:  The Home Front (Kennedy, 746-783; Allan Winkler, Home Front U.S.A., 1-4, 28-85)

 

M 10/8:  Virtue Under Fire:  WWII and American Sexuality

W 10/10:  Rosie the Riveter’s America I

F 10/12:  Rosie the Riveter’s America II

 

M 10/15:  Wartime Labor

W 10/17:  “Double V”:  African Americans and the War

F 10/19:  “Relocation,” “Interment,” or “Concentration Camp”?

 

WEEK 9:  The United States and the Holocaust (Robert Abzug, America Views the Holocaust, 1-4, 70-84, 99-213)

 

M 10/22:  Kristallnacht to Auschwitz

W 10/24:  Imagining the Unimaginable

F 10/26:  Discussion of The United States and the Holocaust

 

WEEKS 10-12:  Wartime Culture  (Clayton Koppes & Gregory Black, Hollywood Goes to War, entire)

 

M 10/29: “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”

W 10/31:  Propaganda and Censorship

F 11/2:  Dr. Seuss and Donald Duck Go to War

 

M 11/5: Purple Heart

W 11/7:  Purple Heart

Th 11/9:  Casablanca: Special Meeting Time, Thursday, HU 189, 6 p.m.

 

M 11/12:  NO CLASS: VETERAN’S DAY

W 11/14: Discussion of Koppes.

F 11/16:  Exam II

 

WEEKS 13-14:  The Bomb (Kennedy, 665-668, 838-851)

 

M 11/19: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

W 11/21:  TBA

F 11/23:  NO CLASS: THANKSGIVING

 

WEEKS 14-15:  At War’s End (Kennedy, 852-858; Dower, 293-317)

 

M 11/26: Hiroshima and Nagasaki 

W 11/28:  The A-Bomb Decision: Problems and Controversies

F 11/29:  The World the War Made  (Papers Due)

 

 

M 12/3:  WWII and the Origins of the Cold War

W 12/5:  The Good War?

 

WEEK 16:  FINAL EXAM  (W 12/12, 10:30-1:00)

 

 

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