A program at Cal State San Bernardino funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities is featured by the endowment in its “In the Field” video series.
“In The Field: Dialogues on the Experience of War,” posted on the NEH’s YouTube channel, focuses on “From Ancient Greece to the Contemporary Middle East: Dialogues on the Experience of War,” a reading, viewing and discussion program on classical literature and the Greek-Trojan wars in dialogue with letters, articles, literature and documentaries about more recent conflicts. Events have been held at CSUSB, San Bernardino Valley College and the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus.
“We have tried to create a series of campfire-like conversations with veterans where we share compelling storytelling around the experience of war,” said Jennifer Andersen, CSUSB professor of English who designed the curriculum discussions with veterans, recruited, hired and trained the trainers and discussion facilitators, and coordinated events all year at CSUSB, PDC and San Bernardino Valley College.
“Homer’s Iliad and the civic tradition of free, public performances of Greek tragedy ensured an ongoing discussion about war in a culture where no citizen escaped the duty of military service. I think that the NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War program is an effort to stimulate this kind of civic discussion about war in our country where now only a tiny percentage of the population experience it firsthand,” she said.
The NEH interviewed faculty members and students who facilitated discussions with veterans from September 2016 to May 2017.
Two faculty members from the English department at San Bernardino Valley College were discussion facilitators: Edward Jones and Joseph Notarangelo. Also featured were CSUSB students Juan Hernandez, criminal justice; James Maya, Tabitha Zarate, Ryan Miller and Dustin Shepherd, all in the master’s program in English; Terry D. Smith, CSUSB professor of theatre arts; and Rachel Keener from the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services at CSUSB.
A graduate of the M.A. in English program who also facilitated discussions with veterans, Laura Quinn, is not featured in the video.
Some of the highlights of the project include the grant-supported screenings in January 2017 of “Brats: Our Journey Home” at CSUSB and San Bernardino Valley College. The documentary provides insights into the special culture of military families, the resilience and independence inculcated in military children, as well as the pain of separation from parents and spouses during military deployments.
In March, 2017, the CSUSB Theatre Arts Department produced Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” with the support of the grant. The play reflects on the psychological as well as physical damage caused by war on combat soldiers as well as non-combatants and military families.
Recently, the grant supported screenings of the film “Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk” (2016) at CSUSB and San Bernardino Valley College. Based on a 2012 book by Ben Fountain and directed by Ang Lee, the story offers a social critique of the ways that civilians appropriate, celebrate, and exploit members of the military and contribute to taboos of silence around soldiers’ grave and traumatic experience of taking life and witnessing the taking of lives.
Visit the “Dialogues on the Experience of War” website for more information.