Course Details

War and conflict reporting has evolved greatly over the past 100 years, from World War I through the Iraq War. Both shaped by and contributing to the framework with which society views conflict, war journalism plays a vital, if sometime ambiguous, role in the national discourse on the wars we engage in. This seminar will examine this evolution of the media-and specifically the role of war correspondents—in reporting on wars and conflicts. Touching on both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and post-Cold Warring in Beirut, Bosnia, and Iraq among others, we will read first-hand accounts, memoirs, and academic analyses. We hope to come to a clearer understanding of the complexities and forces at work representing conflict and contributing to a “first rough draft of a history that will never be completed about a world we can never understand.”