British Women and the World Wars of the 20th Century

elective courses

The course focuses on life writing, but also makes use of literary and film representations, in order to examine ways in which the world wars of the 20th century brought change in the lives of UK women.

The course examines ways in which the world wars of the 20th century brought change in the lives of British women. It focuses on analysis of life writing, principally forms of autobiography, dealing with British people involved in the two world wars, It will read the texts in the context of sociological and historical studies of the impact of war on gendered roles and gender politics. Fictional and film representations will also be used to highlight later perceptions of, and areas of interest in, these questions.

Class discussions will centre on the social, cultural and political implications of particular narratives.

Material will be discussed from a selection of the following texts:

Life writing

Edith Bagnold, Diary without Dates, 1918

Sheila Brady, Chapel Street. The Bravest Little Street in England, 2017

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, 1933 [film 2014 dir. James Kent]

Mike Brown, Evacuees: Evacuation in Wartime Britain 1939-1945, 2005

Terry Charman, The Day We Went to War, 2010

ed. Simon Garfield, We Are At War, 2005

Nella Last, ed. Suzie Fleming, Richard Broad, Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of a Housewife, 1981

Sinclair McKay, The Secret Listeners, 2012

Gillian Mawson, Britain's Wartime Evacuees: The People, Places and Stories of the Evacuations Told Through the Accounts of Those Who Were There, 2017

Barbara Mortimer, Sisters: Heroic True-life Stories from the Nurses of World War Two, 2013

Virginia Nicholson, Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949, 2011

Elisabeth M. Orsten, From Anschluss to Albion: Memoirs of a Refugee Girl 1938-40, 1998

Sylvia Pankhurst, The Home Front: A Mirror to Life in England During the First World War, 1932

Lorna Sage, Bad Blood, 2000

Fiction and film

Edith Bagnold, The Happy Foreigner, 1920

William Boyd, Restless, 2006

Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong, 1997 [BBC TV drama 2012, dir. Philip Martin]

Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), 1932 [film 2015, dir. Terence Davies]

Angela Huth, Land Girls, 1994 [film, dir. David Leland, 1998]

Joan Littlewood, Theatre Workshop, Oh What A Lovely War, 1967 [film, dir. Richard Attenborough, 1969]

Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others, 1916

Evelyn Waugh, The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), Unconditional Surrender (1961) [film 2001, dir. Bill Anderson]

Historical studies:

Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain, 1939–1945, 1971.

Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I, 1998

Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 2000

Susan R. Grayzell, Women and the First World War, 2002

Carol Harris, Women at War 1939-1945: The Home Front, 2000

Carol Harris, Women at War in Uniform 1939-1945, 2003

Caroline Lang, Keep smiling through. Women in the second world war, CUP, 1989

Arthur Marwick, Total war and social change in the twentieth century, 1988

June Purvis, Women’s History: Britain, 1850-1945: an introduction, 1995

A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-45, 1965

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August, 2004

Knowledge

- students acquire greater awareness of the complexity and plurality of systems of culture;

- students extend their knowledge of the codes of culture;

- students will be aware of different perspectives and different motivations of historical writing and reconstructions;

Skills

- students improve their ability to interpret, analyze and synthesize the linguistic, cultural, social, historical and economic dimensions of selected phenomena;

- students can recognize cultural symbols and use the codes of culture in interpersonal communication;

Social competences

- students consciously participate in their national culture, respect the cultural heritage of Europe, and understand its diversity;

- students assume an attitude of tolerance toward others, understand the specificity of culturally-conditioned behaviour, and respect the opinions of others.

Permanent assessment based on attendance and participation; essay.

Essay: a critical assessment of an agreed life-writing text, 1,000-1,200 words [80% of overall mark].