Topic – War and Peace in Art and Film

Teaching War and Peace

One of the things I am most proud of is the course I developed while at the University of Adelaide on "Responses to War" which was what I called "an intellectural history of war" which looked at the impact which the experience of war had on novelists, poets, artists, musicians, and filmmakers, as well as political and economic theorists. I taught it in various versions (chronological and/or thematic) for 10 years with some success. Here is some material to do with the course:

• the Course Reading Guide in its iconic one semester format from 1990, in both HTML and facs. PDF.
• a list of some of the "responses" which were discussed in my lectures and in the Seminars, such as art, film, music, literature, religion, political thought, along with some of the specific groups of poeple who "responded" in interesting and moving ways – casualtiues and hospital staff, war correspondents, and of course some rank and file soldiers
• some thoughts on analysing film from an historian’s point of view
• a longer list of "War and Music"
• Images of Liberty and Power: The Art of War and Peace
• Guide to War Films

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of WW1

• To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1 which, among other things, destroyed the liberal poltiical and economic order which had been built up in the second half of the 19th century, we have put online some volumes of the Journal des économistes from this period. One should note the multi-part series on the origins of the war written by the editor Yves Guyot between August 1914 and April 1915 [PDF 16MB]. This was expanded and published as a book which is also available in French [PDF 23MB] and English [PDF 8MB].
• Journal dés économistes. Revue mensuelle de la science économique et de la statistique. Fondateur: Gilbert Guillaumin. Rédacteur en chef: Yves Guyot. (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan. Maisons Félix Alcan et Guillaumin réunis, 108, Boulevard Saint-Germain):
  • 6e série. Tome XLIII. Juillet à sept. 1914 [PDF 30MB] [ToC]
  • 6e série. Tome XLIV. Oct. à déc. 1914 [PDF 23MB] [ToC]
  • 6e série. Tome XLV, Janvier à mars 1915 [PDF 27MB] [ToC]
  • 6e série. Tome XLVI. Avril à juin 1915 [PDF 41MB] [ToC]
• A collection of books on war by Bloch, Hirst, Guyot, Wilfred Owen, Hasek, Friedrich, et al. And a second list here [HTML].
• A speech on ANZAC Day 25 April 2014, “How we Remember War” [PDF].

War and Art

• My article on “War and Peace in the Arts,” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005), vol. 6, pp. 2454-2460 (2005) in HTML and PDF.
• a lecture on "War and Peace in the Art of Pablo Picasso: "Guernica" (1937)" [HTML]
• Some "illustrated essays" and study guides on individual artists which I used in my course “Responses to War: An Intellectual and Cultural History” and for various talks and lectures I have given on war, art, and propaganda. See the older page which lists these – "Images of Liberty and Power: The Art of War and Peace" [HTML]:
  1. ANZAC: The Anzac Book. Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by The Men of Anzac (London, 1916). [HTML]
  2. ANZAC: "David Hart’s “ABC of ANZAC History”" (January 3, 2022) [HTML]
  3. Bayeux: The Bayeux Tapestry (C. 1070) [Carolyn Schriber Version] [HTML]
  4. Butler: Lady Elizabeth Butler – celebrating the “little wars” of the Victorian era [HTML]
  5. Callot: Jacques Callot (1592-1635) and The Miseries of the Thirty Years War – [HTML]
  6. Callot: The Military Hospital: Jacques Callot and the "Miseries of War" (1633) – [HTML]
  7. Daumier: Honore Daumier (1808-1879): Satirist of French and Prussian Militarism [HTML]
  8. Dix: Otto Dix (1891-1969): Life and Death in the Trenches [HTML]
  9. Dix: Art of the First World War: Otto Dix’s Der Krieg (1924) [HTML]
  10. Friedrich: Ernst Friedrich, Krieg dem Kriege! Guerre à la Guerre! War against War! Oorlog aan den Oorlog! (1924) [HTML]
  11. Goya: Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) and the Disasters of War [HTML]
  12. Hašek: Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War, With Original Illustrations by Josef Lada (1923) – [HTML]
  13. Homer: Winslow Homer (1836-1910) and the American Civil War [HTML]
  14. Picasso: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): From the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam [HTML]
  15. Saint-Gaudens: Augustus Saint-Gaudens "Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw" (1884-1901) [HTML]
  16. Searle: War and Violence in the Work of Ronald Searle (1920-2011) [HTML]
• Other essays:
  1. Peace and Liberty: The Dove of Peace across the Centuries [HTML]
  2. Animal Imagery of War & Peace [HTML]
  3. What Daddy did in the War [HTML]
  4. Patriotic Songs which invoke God ("God is on our side") [HTML]
  5. "Hail to the Chief" [HTML]
  6. John Bull as the British Atlas (1816) [HTML]
  7. Abel Gance, "J’accuse" [I accuse] (1938) and Remembrance Day 11.11.11 [HTML]
  8. Ridiculing the Anti-Imperialist League’s Opposition to the Conquest of the Philippines (1901) [HTML]