Aims and Assessment

Aims

By the end of this module students will:

• Understand the multiple ways in which gender is imbricated with war mobilisation, combat motivation, and postwar reconstruction

• Critically assess how gender norms have evolved over time in the United States and how pivotal a role war has played in shaping these constructs

• Carefully analyse a range of both secondary and primary source materials

• Appreciate the ways in which class, race, gender, and sexuality intersect to complicate different individuals’ and groups’ wartime expectations and experiences

• Make robust arguments, orally and on paper, using evidence to sustain an analytic interpretation

Assessment

• seminar participation (20%). Please note that no self-assessment document is required. The mark is based on my observation of your contributions to seminars and, more broadly, your engagement with the module over the course of the term. Your participation will be graded after the module has ended.

• 1 x 3,000 word essay (50%)
  

Notes on the essay (3000 words)

In week 10, you'll submit an essay answering a question of your choosing that interrogates a specific aspect of gender and/or sexuality and war in the US. Please ensure that your essay has an analytic focus rather than being purely descriptive. In other words, your goal is to explain why (not just how) ideas about gender and sexuality are so consequential in wartime.

Sample question: "Why, and how successfully, during the two world wars did the US government and military devote so much attention to disciplining mothers?"

Essay topics should be agreed with me in writing by Friday of week 7. (Email me your proposed topic/title earlier in week 7, or sooner if you wish.) Here are the requirements for the essay:

• Your essay can focus on the content of one week's seminar material, or it can draw together material from across more than one week of the syllabus. But please make sure your essay doesn't repeat the same material as your first assignment.
• Your essay should include discussion of at least two different wars that we've studied this term (the Civil War; the Spanish-American War; and the two world wars). However, you can devote more space in the essay to one particular conflict if you wish.
• Your essay should synthesise both primary and secondary sources, and it should include some primary source materials that you've located independently, not just those assigned as required reading/viewing
• The essay must be properly footnoted and include a full bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted. (The notes and bibliography are not included in the 3000 word limit for this essay)
• The essay should be presented in 12 point type and double-spaced
• If you include illustrations, please include a caption and credit line.

Deadlines for these assignments are set centrally by the History Department.