Full Description
In a century torn by violent civil uprisings, civilian bombings, and genocides, war has been an immediate experience for both soldiers and civilians, for both women and men. But has this reality changed our long-held images of the roles women and men play in war, or the emotions we attach to violence, or what we think war can accomplish? This provocative collection addresses such questions in exploring male and female experiences of war--from World War I, to Vietnam, to wars in Latin America and the Middle East--and how this experience has been articulated in literature, film and drama, history, psychology, and philosophy. Together these essays reveal a myth of war that has been upheld throughout history and that depends on the exclusion of "the feminine" in order to survive. The discussions reconsider various existing gender images: Do women really tend to be either pacifists or Patriotic Mothers? Are men essentially aggressive or are they threatened by their lack of aggression? Essays explore how cultural conceptions of gender as well as discursive and iconographic representation reshape the experience and meaning of war.
The volume shows war as a terrain in which gender is negotiated. As to whether war produces change for women, some contributors contend that the fluidity of war allows for linguistic and social renegotiations; others find no lasting, positive changes. In an interpretive essay Klaus Theweleit suggests that the only good war is the lost war that is embraced as a lost war. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Contents
PrefaceIntroductionContributorsPt. IPresenting the UnpresentableCh. 1Gendered Translations: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah3Ch. 2Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Terror, and Argentina's "Dirty War"20Pt. IIWar MythopoeiaCh. 3The Threshold of Thrill: Life Stories in the Skies over Southeast Asia43Ch. 4Techno-Muscularity and the "Boy Eternal": From the Quagmire to the Gulf67Pt. IIIHome/Front?Ch. 5Notes toward a Feminist Peace Politics109Ch. 6Sisters and Brothers in Arms: Family, Class, and Gendering in World War I Britain128Ch. 7Daughtering in War: Two "Case Studies" from Mexico and Guatemala148Pt. IVEngendering LanguageCh. 8[WO]-man, Retelling the War Myth177Ch. 9Not So Quiet in No-Woman's-Land205Ch. 10Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War227Pt. VThe Politics of RepresentationCh. 11Sexual Fantasies and War Memories: Claude Simon's Narratology249Ch. 12Danger on the Home Front: Motherhood, Sexuality, and Disabled Veterans in American Postwar Films260Pt. VIInterpretive EssayCh. 13The Bomb's Womb and the Genders of War (War Goes on Preventing Women from Becoming the Mothers of Invention)283Postscript317Select Bibliography327Index329
