The importance of World War II for the British imaginary can hardly be overestimated. Reflecting on the significance of publicly celebrating anniversaries of the D-day landings and the evacuation of Dunkirk, John O’Farrell once joked in the Guardian that “As far as the British people are concerned the history of planet earth goes like this. 1) The earth cools. 2) Primitive life forms emerge. 3) Britain wins the second world war. Apart from that, nothing much of any importance has happened, with the possible exceptions of England winning the World Cup and the Beatles going on the Ed Sullivan show.” Conceding that it may have been necessary at the time to “build up the symbolism of little Englanders standing up to the German Wehrmacht,” O’Farrell nevertheless ends on a bitter note: “by allowing the myth to endure and grow we have done ourselves nothing but harm” (Guardian 7 June 2000).
This course offers an opportunity to study the cultural memory of World War II in Britain by exploring a wide range of materials and a wide range of perspectives – from the speeches of Winston Churchill and early writings of Dylan Thomas and Elizabeth Bowen to TV series such as Fawlty Towers, to more recent films and novels by Andrea Levy (Small Island), A.L. Kennedy (Day), and Roland Emmerich (Dunkirk). While the focus will be on cinematic and literary representations, we will also consider how references to the war have continually structured debates about British identity. Drawing especially on theoretical frameworks from Memory, Holocaust, and Postcolonial Studies, we will discuss the construction, perpetuation, and challenging of cultural myths. Themes will include British humour, the British ‘home front’, gender roles, conflicting memories of the bombings of German cities, the role of British colonial troops, the decline of Empire, and Brexit.
Students wishing to participate will need to acquire copies of the two longer texts (details below). Other materials will be made available via moodle.
For technical reasons, this course will start in Week03 (effectively 8th May 2023). There will be a pre-meeting via zoom in Week01 (at the regular time of the seminar). Details will be sent to registered participants shortly before the pre-meeting.
Editions of the novels:
* Levy, Andrea. Small Island. London: Review, 2004.
* Kennedy, A L. Day: A Novel. New York: Vintage, 2008.
- Course owner: Dr. Lukas Lammers