Women and War: Suggested Readings

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Help!  I am pulling together a syllabus for a class
next semester in "Women and War" (or some such title,
looking at women's roles in and ideas about war.  The
course is for the second semester of a two-semester
freshman requirement at Adrian College, and falls
under the course title "Topics in Literature."
 
Does anyone have good ideas for novels, poetry or
essays that deal with this broad topic and that
would be accessible to freshmen?  The course wants to
be mainly a lit course (as opposed to history or
soc), but we interpret that term loosely.
 
Thanks.
--Cindy Bily   cbily  @  adrian.edu

 
I'd recommend Marge Piercy's _Gone to Soldiers_ -- it's a long novel,
following about 10 men and women through WWII.  It's especially good, I
think, on issues of gender, class, and ethnicity.
 
Sherry Linkon

 
it's a "tough read," but Virginia Woolf's _Three Guineas_ is wonderful!!
 
 Felicia Bender
 c391738  @  mizzou1.missouri.edu

 
There is an anthology called _Women on War_ (you may already be thinking of
this), edited by Daniela Gioseffi (Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1988).
 
Kathryn E. DOBSON
Email:Kathryn_E_DOBSON  @  umail.umd.edu (kd55)
Phone:301-405-3844

 
You might want to try CHORUS OF STONES: PRIVATE LIFE OF WAR by
Susan Griffin for issues on women and war.
 
Debra West-Maciaszek
westmad  @  clemson.clemson.edu

 
I recently skimmed the following, which may have some essays which will
interest you:
 
Cooper, Helen, et al., eds.  _Arms and the Woman_.  Chapel Hill: UNC
Press, 1989.
 
AM Stockdell
engamsx  @  gsusgi2.gsu.edu
Georgia State Univ.

 
I have used the play Trojan Women, by the Canadian playwrite
Gwendolyn MacEwan and followed that up with Virginia Woolf's
Three Guineas, for a historical perspective' it worked quite
well.
Best of luck!
 
Katherine Side
klside  @  vm1.yorku.ca

 
How about one of the novels by Martha Gellhorn?  She was a war
correspondent and novelist through several wars/battles, from
WWI to Vietname.  (She was also, briefly, married to Ernest
Hemingway; they covered some of the same stories.)
 
Robin Ikegami
ikegami  @  xavier.xu.edu

 
There is a play--in a lit class you can get away with this, I
think---called Piece of My Heart.  It is simply the best thing I have seen
to date dealing with women in war.  It takes you through the various ways
in which women were part of the vietnam war--as nurses, as officers, etc.
and also what happened to them after the war.  The play is taken from a
book by the same title which includes the narrative stories of a number of
women who have been participants in military activities.  Hope this is
helpful to you.
 
Cheryl
 
_________________
Cheryl Sattler, Ph.D.
Florida State University
 
FAX (904) 644-0643  PHONE (904) 644-1142
internet: sattler  @  bio.fsu.edu

 
There are some interesting women in THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CAPTAIN N by
Douglas Glover -- American revolutionary period. Very violent, I warn
you. The women are pivotal in this book. Published by Knopf.

 
Women and War -- there's also Jacob Have I Loved.

 
Has anyone mentioned _Lysistrata_, Aristophane's comedy in which the wives of
Athens and Sparta band together and deny their husbands sex until they stop
the war?

 
Sorry the course was cancelled.  People interested in this topic might
consider going to the next conference sponsored by the International
Association of Women Philosophers (if you can find a way to finance a
trip to Vienna).  It's overall theme is war (marking the 50th anniversary
of the end of WWII) and the group is pretty feminist and very international
(though predominantly German or English speaking).   It will take place on
September 20-23, 1995 at the University of Vienna.  For info contact:
IAPH Symposium
Institute for Science and Art
Berggasse 17
A-1090 Vienna, Austria
 
Deadline for submission of papers is past, unfortunately.  All of the
past symposia from this group have been published afterwards, so sometime
in 1996 there should be a collection of articles about women and war
emanating from the conference.
Linda
Linda Lopez McAlister <dllafaa  @  cfrvm.cfr.usf.edu>
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy <dllafaa  @  cfrvm>

 
What about Isabel Allende's *Eva Luna"?
 
Caryn Chaden
DePaul