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College Course File: Representing the Vietnam War.

1989; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

1934-6018

David James, R.M. van den Berg,

Cinema and Media Studies

From its beginning, the U.S. invasion of Vietnam was also an event within the American academy. Department of De fense contracts with research institutions on the one hand, and teach-ins and student protests on the other, shaped the insertion of the war into the domestic scene, as well the national division it eventually pro duced. Now, after a period in the 1970s when teaching materials were not avail able and, like the rest of the country, educators did their best to forget the war ever happened, it is back in the classroom. According to surveys made by the Indo china Institute at George Mason Univer sity, between 1980 and 1986 college courses on the war in Vietnam multiplied tenfold to number 220; in some cases, like Walter Capps' course in 1985 at the Uni versity of California, Santa Barbara, which attracted over 900 students, they themselves became the objects of media attention. Teaching guides already exist, including at least one organized primarily around film, William Alexander's Viet nam: An Appropriate Pedagogy (Jump Cut, 31 [March 1986]: 59-62). We strongly recommend this, particularly since it ciar ifies the connections between interna tional politics and the politics of educa tion.