Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Trinity University

e-mail: hhaines@trinity.edu
(210) 999-8140 (office, voice mail)
(210) 999-8113 (Department of Communication)

Course Calendar: The Viet Nam War in Popular Memory- COMM 3325-1

Course Introduction and Theoretical Grounding

China Gate (1957)

Viet Nam and the Cold War

READ: Herring: "Foreword," "Preface," and "Chapter 1: A Dead-End Alley: The United States, France, and the First Indochina War, 1950-1954 (pp. viii-45) and D&M: "America's Vietnam War Films: Marching Toward Denial" (Linda Dittmar & Gene Michaud, pp. 1-16) & "Losing Vietnam: Covering the War in an Age of Technology" (Rick Berg, pp. 41-68)

JFK and the Coup Against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem

READ: Herring: "Chapter 2: Our Off-Spring: Nation Building in South Vietnam, 1954-1961" (pp. 46-79) and O'Nan: "Masterwork," "The Things They Carried: Spin, How to Tell a True War Story, The Man I Killed, Ambush, Good Form" (Tim O'Brien, 1990) (pp. 503-537)

The Green Berets (1968) 142 minutes

"John Wayne-ing It" and the Crisis of Masculinity

READ: Herring: "Chapter 3: Limited Partnership: Kennedy and Diem, 1961-1963" (pp. 80-119) and O'Nan: "Introduction," "Chronology of the War," "Green," "The Green Berets" (Robin Moore, 1965), "If I Die in a Combat Zone" (Tim O'Brian, 1973), "Going After Cacciato" (Tim O'Brien, 1978), "Early Work," "One Very Hot Day" (David Halberstam, 1967), "If I Die in a Combat Zone" (Tim O'Brien, 1973), (pp. 1-79) and "Songs," "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (Barry Sadler and Robin Moore, 1966), "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixn'-to-Die-Rag" (Country Joe McDonald, 1965) (pp. 279-287)

"Nowhere to Run To, Baby, Nowhere to Hide": LBJ and the Crisis of Legitimation

READ: Herring: "Chapter 4: Enough, but Not Too Much: Johnson's Decisions for War, 1963-1965," and "Chapter 5: On the Tiger's Back: The United States at War, 1965-1967" (pp. 120-201) and D&M: "Historical Memory, Film, and the Vietnam Era" (Micael Klein, pp. 19-40) and "The War About the War: Vietnam Films and American Myth" (Leo Cawley, pp. 69-80)

MUSIC RECORDINGS: Nowhere to Run, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Liar, Liar, The Castaways (tracks 2 and 8 from Good Morning, Vietnam soundtrack); this CD is on library reserve at IMS.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) 117 minutes

The Viet Nam War as Pathology / The Viet Nam Vet as Pathogen

READ: Lembcke: "Preface," "Chapter One: Introduction: The Spitting Image," "Chapter Two: Yellow-Ribbons and Spat-Upon Veterans: Making Soldiers the Means and Ends of War" and "Chapter Three: Dear Spiro Agnew: About Soldiers, Veterans, and the Anti-War Movement" (pp. ix-48)

Cold Draft: How the Selective Service Operated

READ: Herring: "Chapter 6: A Very Near Thing: The Tet Offensive and After, 1968" and "Chapter 7: A War for Peace: Nixon, Kissinger, and Vietnam, 1969-1973" (pp. 202-283) and Lembcke: "Chapter Four: The Nixon-Agnew Counteroffensive: 'Good Veterans' vs. 'Bad Veterans'" and "Chapter Five: Spat-Upon Veterans: The Evidence (or Lack Thereof)" (pp. 49-83)

Hamburger Hill (1987) 95 minutes

84 Charlie MoPic (1989) 95 minutes

The GI Anti-War Movement

READ: Herring: "Chapter 8: The 'Postwar War' and the Legacy of Vietnam" (pp. 284-321) and Lembcke: "From Odysseus to Rambo: Coming-Home Stories" (pp. 84-100)

MUSIC RECORDINGS: "Monster," "Draft Resister" and "From Here to There Eventually" (tracks 4, 5 & 9 from Steppenwolf Live); this CD is on library reserve at IMS.

Rambosis, High Camp and the Fascist Aesthetic

READ: D&M: "Never Having to Say You're Sorry: Rambo's Rewriting of the Vietnam War" (Gaylan Studler & David Desser, pp. 101-112), and "Rambo: Getting to Win This Time" (Gregory A. Waller, pp. 113-128) and Lembcke: "Chapter Seven: From Badness to Madness: The Mental Labeling of Vietnam Veterans" (pp. 101-126

Remember that we will shift from RCC 320 to another on-campus venue for all October film presentations.

First Blood (1982) excerpts

Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985) 95 minutes

Tonight on Magnum, p.i.: Thomas, his buddies and a mysterious visitor from the past journey back to Southeast Asia, liberate the "the George Freakin' Washington of Cambodia," and completely revise the history of American policy in Viet Nam! It's redemption you won't want to miss, tonight on CBS.

READ: D&M: "'They Were Called and They Went': The Political Rehabilitation of the Vietnam Veteran" (Harry W. Haines, pp. 81-97) and "Missing in Action: The Vietnam Construction of the Movie Star" (Tony Williams, pp. 129-144) and O'Nan: "Obscenities" (Michael Casey, 1972), "Sticks and Bones" (David Rabe, 1969), war poems from Demilitarized Zones (Jan Barry & W. D. Ehrhart,eds.), "First Wave of Major Work," "Born on the Fourth of July" (Ron Kovic, 1976), "Fields of Fire" (James Webb, 1978), (pp. 81-149)

Apocalypse Then: The Tet Offensive, 1968

READ: D&M: "The Politics of Ambivalence: Apocalpse Now as Prowar and Antiwar Film" (Frank P. Tomasulo, pp. 145-158) and O'Nan: "Dispatches" (Michael Herr, 1977) and "Going After Cacciato" (Tim O'Brien, 1978), (pp. 200-235)

Apocalypse Now (1979) 153 minutes

Key Photos from the War Zone and the Domestic Front

READ: O'Nan: Review all photos, pp. xi, 11, 51, 113, 257, 279, 297, 389, 439, 457, 503, 539, 613, 675, and 691

Do Ask / Do Tell: A Queer Reading of The Deer Hunter

READ: D&M: "The Deer Hunter: The Superman in Vietnam" (Leonard Quart, pp. 159-168) and O'Nan: "First Wave of Motion Pictures," (pp. 257-277) "The Oral History Boom," "Nam" (Mark Baker, 1981), "Bloods" (Wallace Terry, 1984), "A Piece of My Heart" (Keith Walker, 1985) (pp. 297-350)

The Deer Hunter (1978) 3 hours

Gender Stereotypes and the Limitations of the Combat Genre

Midterm Examination

Coming Home (1978) 2 hours

Demonizing Jane

READ: D&M: "Boys Will Be Men: Oedipal Drama in Coming Home" (Michael Selig, pp. 189-212) and Lembcke: "Chapter Eight: Women, Wetness, and Warrior Dreams," and "Chapter Nine: Myth, Spit, and the Flicks: Coming Home to Hollywood" (pp. 127-182)

Oliver Stone's Vision of Ideological Crisis: JFK

READ: D&M: "The Colonialist Subtext in Platoon" (Clyde Taylor, pp. 171-174), "Reproducing Fathers: Gender and the Vietnam War in U.S. Culture" (Susan Jeffords, pp. 201-215) and "'Strange Hells': Hollywood in Search of America's Lost War" (Kevin Bowen, pp. 226-235) and O'Nan: "Second Wave of Major Work," "The 13th Valley" (John M. Del Vecchio, 1982), "Meditations in Green" (Stephen Wright, 1983), "Paco's Story" (Larry Heinemann, 1986), and "Second Wave of Major Films" (pp. 389-456) and Lembcke: "Chapter Ten: We Are What We Remember" (pp. 183-188)

Platoon (1986) 2 hours

Oliver Stone's Vision of Ideological Crisis: Nixon

READ: O'Nan: "Memoirs," "365 Days" (Ronald J. Glasser, M.D., 1971), "The Killing Zone" (Frederick Downs, 1978), "Chickenhawk," (Robert Mason, 1983) and "The Only War We Had" (Michael Lee Lanning, 1987) (pp. 457-502)

Tour of Duty

Dr. Haines will attend the National Communication Association convention in Atlanta where he will participate in a media forum on the work of Eminem. He'll return to campus by November 6th.

READ: Bao Ninh: pp. 3-76

The Hanoi Hilton (1987) 130 minutes

POW/MIA

The Vietnam War Memorials

READ: O'Nan: "The Wall," "The Invasion of Grenada" (W.D. Ehrhart, 1984), "The Names of the Dead" (Stewart O'Nan, 1996), "Dien Cai Dau" (Yusef Komunyaka,1988), (pp. 675-691)

Hearts and Minds (1975) 115 minutes

continued

READ: O'Nan: "A Rumor of War" (Philip Caputo, 1977, pp. 150-199) And Bao Ninh: pp. 76-142

The Music and Poetry of the Viet Nam War

READ: O'Nan: "Fortunate Son" (Creedence Clearater Revial / John Fogerty, 1969), "The Unknown Soldier" (The Doors / Jim Morrison, 1968), "What's Going On?" (Marvin Gaye, 1971), "War" (Edwin Starr, 1970), "Born in the U.S.A." (Bruce Springsteen, 1984) and "The Big Parade" (10,000 Maniacs / Natalie Merchant, 1989) (pp. 288-296) and "Love Medicine" (Louise Erdich, 1984), "From Carrying the Darkness" (W.D. Ehrhart, Ed., 1985) (pp. 561-592), "Dien Cai Dau" (Yusef Komunyaka, 1988) (pp. 619-631), "Incoming" (Kevin Bowen, 1994) (pp. 653-654)

MUSIC RECORDINGS: Several examples will be put on reserve for you at IMS in the library; look for the special course handout.

A Bright Shining Lie (1999) 2 hours (approx.)

China Beach and the Injured Body

READ: O'Nan: "From Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam" (Bernard Edelman, Ed., 1985), "Everything We Had" (Al Santoli, 1981) (pp. 351-365) "In Country" (Bobbie Ann Mason, 1985), "In the Lake of the Woods" (Tim O'Brien, 1994) and "Mr. Giai's Poem" (John Balaban, 1991) (pp. 632-673)

Understanding Karma

READ: Bao Ninh: pp. 142-233

Distribution of the Take-Home Final Examination DUE ON: DEC 20 9:00 a.m.

Karma (1985) 100 minutes

Burt Lancaster and World War II From Here to Eternity

Burt Lancaster and the Viet Nam War

Go Tell the Spartans

DUE TODAY: The Viet Nam War Portfolio

Go Tell the Spartans (1978) 114 minutes

Aussies at War: The Australian Experience in Viet Nam Vietnam: The Australian Television Miniseries

Vietnam: The Australian Television Miniseries (continued)

Mopping Up / Course Evaluation

Riders of the Storm (1988) 90 minutes

Reading Days