UHC Week 9

The Great War

History 1040

The Response of the Arts

Week #9

26 October

We will do a follow-up discussion dealing with the Mass Violence of the 20th and 21st Centuries from the Podcast and deal with any lingering confusion on DADA.

"In Zurich in 1915, losing interest in the slaughterhouse of the world war, we turned to art. While the thunder of the batteries rumbled in the distance, we pasted, we recited, we versified, we sang with all our soul. We searched for an elementary art that would, we thought, save humanity from the furious folly of these times. We aspired to a new order that might restore the balance between heaven and hell."
Hugo Ball
gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa laulitalomini
gadji beri bin blassa glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim
gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban
o katalominai rhinozerossola hopsamen laulitalomini hoooo
gadjama rhinozerossola hopsamen
bluku terullala blaulala loooo

zimzim urullala zimzim urullala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam
elifantolim brussala bulomen brussala bulomen tromtata
velo da bang band affalo purzamai affalo purzamai lengado tor
gadjama bimbalo glandridi glassala zingtata pimpalo ögrögöööö
viola laxato viola zimbrabim viola uli paluji malooo

28 October

We will pay a visit to "Cabaret Voltaire" in Zurich in 1916. We will meet Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tszara, Hannah Hoch and Virginia Woolf and participate in a performance with them.

Readings for November 2:

The changing role of the state: Britain vs. Germany

Download "Civil Society after the Great War" PowerPoint for class on Courseweb.
Download "Politics of the Home Front" PowerPoint for class on Courseweb.

Read:

"The Challenge to Liberalism: The Politics of the Home Fronts," in Strachan (ed.), First World War, pp. 163-78.
Deborah Cohen, "Civil Society in the Aftermath of the Great War: The Care of Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany," in Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on German and British History, ed. Frank Trentmann (rev. 2^nd ed., New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2003), pp. 352-68 (on e-reserves).

Readings for 4 November:

Working classes by comparison: France, Britain, Germany

Britain:
- Marwick, The Temper of Labour, pp. 203-210 on Courseweb under Course Documents
Germany:
- Chickering, War and Social Class, pp. 108-113 on Courseweb under Course Documents
- Chickering, Cold and Hungry, pp. 140-146 on Courseweb under Course Documents
France:
- Rouzeau and Becker, pp. 60-68 on Courseweb under Course Documents
- Rouzeau and Becker, pp. 130-138 on Courseweb under Course Documents

Recommend reading for 4 November:

Diane Koenker, Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution (Princeton and Guildford: Princeton UP, 1981), pp. 43-93 (on e-reserves). Dealing with "The Russian working Class"