updated reading list

Ian Morris
9/22/17
Reading List Prompt
Forms and Contexts

Updated:
The list should:
(i) include 3-5 secondary or theoretical works (monographs, collections, articles, or journal special issues/edited collections) you will read on your own this fall;
John Dower, War Without Mercy (1987) –this book discusses Propaganda

The Successes and Failures of German War Propaganda in Estonia, 1941-1944 written by Kari Alenius.

Frank Capra (Film Director)-The Nazis Strike- World War 2 1943 (Film) and Battle of Britain 1969 (Film)
Peter Paret-Persuasive Images (1992)
Triumph of the Will (Film)1935, by Leni Riefenstahl

D-Day Proaganda (1984), Caroline Reed

(ii) choose one academic journal of which you will survey the last year’s worth of issues;

One of the academic Journals that I found that will be helpful for my research is Nazi Influence Outside Germany Before and During The Second World War.

(iii) be informed by 1-3 far-reaching keywords or key terms.

1. Newspaper Articles from World War 2
2. Propaganda
3. Nazi Rallies

Primary Texts:
• Triumph of the Will (Film)1935, by Leni Riefenstahl
• Squander Bugs on the home front: National Propaganda and women’s fictions, Nickianne Moody (2009)
• Ethical Judgements about wartime ads depicting combat, written by Richard Tansey, Michael Hyman, Gene Brown (1992).
• The Ascendancy of Radio News in Wartime. Richard Fine, published 2014.
• The Art of Propaganda: Charles Alston’s World War 2 Editorial Cartoons for the office of War information and the Black Press. Harry Amana, published 2004.

(iv) In addition to the three parts of the list you have above, I want you to write a healthy paragraph describing for your classmates and me how you put together this list and what kinds of questions frame your inquiry. This short accompanying essay should be in the range of 250-500 words.

I had a great discussion with Professor Sweeney about World War 2. Before our discussion I was very fixated on figuring out if Human Nature played an impact in World War 2. I was also curious to think about what John Locke and Thomas Hobbes would have thought about human nature after witnessing this war. After I had my discussion with Professor Sweeney I wanted to focus more of my studying on trying to figure out how emotions played a role in World War 2. Specifically I wanted to focus more on how leaders, Nazi rallies, and propaganda may have had an emotional influence on the way that it impacted the German people. Professor Sweeney recommended that I look more into the Nazi rallies and specifically propaganda signs to see how the Nazi’s played into the emotional piece of how Germans viewed the Jews daily after seeing these advertisements on a daily basis. She also discussed with me that leaders such as Hitler and Musselini hated liberal democracy so these two leaders played into the idea that if people emotionally became attached to them as leaders than they could carry out drastic plans as they knew that the people would follow their every move. Professor Sweeney also brought up another great point which was to compare how American Propaganda was different from German Propaganda and if there was any emotional pieces that the United States government or German government did to play into the lives of its people. Some of the questions that I asked her were, “Is there any films that you think I should watch for my research? Were there any other leaders that had a big influence on its people other than Stalin? Do you think that human nature played a part in World War 2?” Overall, after talking with Professor Sweeney I was able to narrow some of my focus down on selecting a few broad topics to choose from and dive more deeply into my research about them.

Update:

After doing more research I want to focus more in on how propaganda influenced one group of society to perceive their enemy as being. I want to specifically research propaganda photos and seek out what the government wanted to make their people feel like when they looked at these propaganda photos of the enemy. Overall, I still have the same interests and ideas that I had before the only difference is that I want to find actual newspapers and documents that show how the media and the government made their people perceive the enemy as being. I think the newspapers also played a significant impact in the way that they influenced their own people to view the enemy.