vwac97.htm

http://www.shss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vwac97.html

COURSE HOME PAGE

FOR

"The Vietnam War and American Culture", ENLT 275-01
Fall, 1997

WELCOME to the Home Page for the course, "The Vietnam War and American Culture".

GO HERE to our new VWAC'97 Discussion Forum!

This Home Page is meant to provide us with a constant reference point for the course. It will contain hypertext links to all the on-line course materials, including the syllabus; course schedule; specific homework assignments; and research and writing class ignments and projects. In addition, I'll put links to other materials related to this course on this page.

This page is NOT meant to replace my "Vietnam War Page", where I've stored a lot of links to readings and to other Internet sources that are not specific to this course, but of more general interest to those concerned with the Vietnam War.

You can jump to my "Vietnam War Page here.

This page is more specifically directed towards this course, this semester. Please email me to let me know any comments, suggestions, and criticisms concerning this page.

My office hours

Office: Dickson Hall 325 (DI-325)
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Fridays, 10:50 a.m. til 12:20 p.m.
Office phone: (201) 655-7305 Email: furrg@alpha.montclair.edu -- click, or press ENTER, here, or on the links elsewhere on this page, to send me a message directly.

Syllabus and Schedule of Readings

. Here is a link to the course syllabus.

You might want to read a review of our textbook, Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945-1990 here.

Go to the course schedule here

Go to The Grading System for the Biweekly Assignments

The Manual for Alpha, the VMS operating system you all have accounts on, which we use to communicate with each other and with the Internet, can be found, read, and (if you like) downloaded here. Instructions for downloading and printing it out are on the very first page or two of the manual. Take a look!

Find Any MSU Student's Email Account

Interesting Links Related to This Course

In this section I plan to put links to useful sites on the Internet that are relevant to our course and, especially, to our class discussions, email and on-line assignments, research interests, and group and personal exploration.

HINT:

Whenever you are looking at a text on a "Web Browser", you can always search the page for any key words or ideas you are interested in.

On NetScape, use CONTROL-F.
On LYNX, use the "/" key.
Then enter the word you want to search for, and click on "OK" or press ENTER.

Imperialism

Here are some good readings that will help you understand the concept of imperialism, how it works, and how important it is to understand it if you are to ever understand what's going on in the world!

(11 Sep 96)"Imperialism 101", by Michael Parenti; Chapter One of his book Against Empire
(11 Sep 96)"Imperial Domination", another chapter from the same book by Parenti.
(11 Sep 96)"Hidden Holocaust U.S.A."; the consequences of imperialism in the US today. From Parenti's book Dirty Truths.

(Put up 3 Sep 96)
Here is a series of articles published August 18-20, 1996, in the San Jose Mercury, concerning the connection between the U.S. Government's war against Nicaragua during the 1980s and the "crack" cocaine epidemic in the US.
Go to:

The San Jose Mercury is a California newspaper that often runs feature articles about Asia and Southeast Asia, and on Vietnam specifically.

PLEASE let me know of any interesting links related to the course that you feel should go here, and I will check them out and put them up.

Homework Assignments

I will post homework, writing, and discussion assignments here after I have emailed them to you, so you can always find them. WARNING: they won't be posted immediately -- give me a few days to put them up.

You can make up a 'bookmark' so that your browser goes straight to this part of the page, and you don't have to 'scroll down' to find it. Here's the URL for this, the 'homework' section of the course Home Page:

http://www.shss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vwacf97.html4#hw

Assignments:

For Friday, September 12, 1997, on "Nike in Indonesia."
For Tuesday, Sept. 16, on Young, Chapters 1 and 2
For Friday, Sept. 17, on Noam Chomsky, "The Lessons of the Vietnam War"
For Tuesday, Sept. 23, on Jeffrey Race, selections from War Comes to Long An
For Friday, Sept. 26, on Young, Chapters 3 and 4
For Tuesday, Sept. 30, on Guenther Lewy, "Some Politico-Military Lessons..." and Gabriel Kolko, "Chapter 10: The War and Rural Vietnam"
For Friday, Oct. 3, on Jeffrey Race, "Unlearned Lessons..." (Yale Review) and Noam Chomsky, "Lessons..." (Indochina Newsletter)
For Tuesday, Oct. 7 -- here's the situation. The Xerox machine has been broken since Tuesday 9/30, so I can't give out the readings originally scheduled for this week. Therefore, we're going to leap ahead to do Franklin's book on the MIA issue, originally scheduled for November. When the Xerox is fixed, we'll return to the originally-scheduled order.
So for Tuesday, Oct. 7, read Franklin, M.I.A., or Mythmaking in America. The specific writing assignment is here.
For Friday, October 10: HERE is the quiz on the Franklin book. Please PRINT it out; bring it to class, all filled out, on Friday, Oct. 10. DO NOT E-MAIL IT to me or do it on the Discussion Forum.
For Tuesday, October 14, on the "Hue Massacre" -- myth or reality; how a "fact" gets constructed as a fact.
For Friday, October 17.
For Tuesday, October 21, on "Atrocities".
For Friday, October 24, again on Atrocities.
For Tuesday, October 28, on the two articles on the My Lai massacre.
For Friday, October 31, on the issue of atrocities and the war generally.
For Tuesday, November 4, on Parenti and the economics and politics of Imperialism.
For Friday, November 7 , on the economics of imperialism.
For Tuesday, November 11 , on Heinl, "Collapse of the Armed Forces", and Butler, "America's Armed Forces: In Time of Peace: 1. The Army."
For Friday, November 14 , on similarities between the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and Gen. Butler's analysis of whom U.S. foreign policy benefits and whom it hurts.
To read the full text of the New York Times version of the July 25, 1990 interview between Ambassador April Glaspie and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq -- including the passages that indicate Glaspie was not necessarily pushing for lower oil prices, and the passage that makes it clear the Bush Administration did not intend to discourage Iraq from invading Kuwait, go here.
For Friday, November 21, on the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and 'Dewey Canon III".
For Tuesday, November 25, on Ben Chitty's talk and the issues it raised: anti-imperialism; the experience/alienation of the veteran; the "lessons" of the war and what they are; etc.
PLEASE NOTE: we will be beginning the book The Vietnam War in American Stories, Songs and Poems on Tuesday, November 25. Read the sections noted in the assignment.
For Tuesday, December 2.
For Friday, December 5.
for Tuesday, December 9.

"The Vietnam War and American Culture", ENLT 275-01 Fall, 1997