British Women and the World Wars of the 20th Century 3301-ZKB2416

Knowledge
- students acquire greater awareness of the complexity and plurality of systems of culture;
- students extend their knowledge of the codes of culture;
- students will be aware of different perspectives and different motivations of historical writing and reconstructions;
Skills
- students improve their ability to interpret, analyze and synthesize the linguistic, cultural, social, historical and economic dimensions of selected phenomena;
- students can recognize cultural symbols and use the codes of culture in interpersonal communication;
Social competences
- students consciously participate in their national culture, respect the cultural heritage of Europe, and understand its diversity;
- students assume an attitude of tolerance toward others, understand the specificity of culturally-conditioned behaviour, and respect the opinions of others.

K_W01 understands the importance, place and specificity of English philology in the context of the humanities;
K_W03 has an advanced knowledge of the grammar, syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology, pragmatics of English and its history;
K_W05 knows the complex conditions of the process of second language acquisition; understands and properly applies models of foreign language acquisition typical of English linguistics;
K_W06 knows and understands the nuances of translation theory and the complexity of the translation process;
K_W08 has an in-depth knowledge of the historical development of language, especially English, and the semantic variability and complexity accompanying this process;
K_W09 has an advanced understanding of the complexity and pluralism of cultures, knows the obvious and non-obvious cultural codes that determine intercultural contacts, knows the structural and institutional conditions of culture, especially in the context of the countries of the English language area;
K_W10 knows to an advanced degree the geographical, historical, political, economic, cultural and social realities of the countries of the English language area;
K_U03 is able to present the acquired knowledge logically and clearly in written and oral form;
K_U05 can effectively select and apply knowledge of the discipline for communication, teaching, research purposes;
K_U09 is able to recognize obvious and secondary cultural symbols, use complex cultural codes when interacting with representatives of the cultures of the countries of the English language area, and generally in intercultural interactions;
K_K02 understands the role of lifelong learning and is convinced of the need for personal and professional development; defines the successive stages of this development;
K_K05 appreciates individual initiative, self-reliance, and recognizes the importance of personal contribution to team activities;
K_K06 recognizes the nature of dilemmas, problems, conflicts, and seeks the best solutions to them. 

Permanent assessment based on attendance and participation; essay.
Essay: a critical assessment of an agreed life-writing text, 1,000-1,200 words [80% of overall mark].

Material will be discussed from a selection of the following texts:
Life writing
Edith Bagnold, Diary without Dates, 1918
Sheila Brady, Chapel Street. The Bravest Little Street in England, 2017
Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, 1933 [film 2014 dir. James Kent]
Mike Brown, Evacuees: Evacuation in Wartime Britain 1939-1945, 2005
Terry Charman, The Day We Went to War, 2010
ed. Simon Garfield, We Are At War, 2005
Nella Last, ed. Suzie Fleming, Richard Broad, Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of a Housewife, 1981
Sinclair McKay, The Secret Listeners, 2012
Gillian Mawson, Britain's Wartime Evacuees: The People, Places and Stories of the Evacuations Told Through the Accounts of Those Who Were There, 2017
Barbara Mortimer, Sisters: Heroic True-life Stories from the Nurses of World War Two, 2013
Virginia Nicholson, Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949, 2011
Elisabeth M. Orsten, From Anschluss to Albion: Memoirs of a Refugee Girl 1938-40, 1998
Sylvia Pankhurst, The Home Front: A Mirror to Life in England During the First World War, 1932
Lorna Sage, Bad Blood, 2000
Fiction and film
Edith Bagnold, The Happy Foreigner, 1920
William Boyd, Restless, 2006
Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong, 1997 [BBC TV drama 2012, dir. Philip Martin]
Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), 1932 [film 2015, dir. Terence Davies]
Angela Huth, Land Girls, 1994 [film, dir. David Leland, 1998]
Joan Littlewood, Theatre Workshop, Oh What A Lovely War, 1967 [film, dir. Richard Attenborough, 1969]
Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others, 1916
Evelyn Waugh, The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), Unconditional Surrender (1961) [film 2001, dir. Bill Anderson]
Historical studies:
Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain, 1939–1945, 1971.
Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I, 1998
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 2000
Susan R. Grayzell, Women and the First World War, 2002
Carol Harris, Women at War 1939-1945: The Home Front, 2000
Carol Harris, Women at War in Uniform 1939-1945, 2003
Caroline Lang, Keep smiling through. Women in the second world war, CUP, 1989
Arthur Marwick, Total war and social change in the twentieth century, 1988
June Purvis, Women’s History: Britain, 1850-1945: an introduction, 1995
A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-45, 1965
Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August, 2004

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

• Description of 3301-ZKB2416 in USOSweb