As part of this multi-year program, faculty members in the History Department at IUPUI are offering a series of courses focused on the themes of justice and the lived experiences of war.
U.S. Military History (Fall 2021)
This first course in the series offered a history of U.S. military operations since the North American colonial era and their impact on all aspects of American society. Its themes were core military institutions, the historic impacts of industrial-scale American small arms manufacture, and the constant impact of new, mass-produced weapons technologies on the conduct of warfare and the development of American society overall in modern times. The origins, evolution, technology, and cultural implications of American global military airpower supremacy in modern times was a prominent theme throughout the class.
Just War (Spring 2022)
The second course, offered in Fall 2022, focused on warfare, justice, and U.S history from the Spanish-American War through the Vietnam War. It is an interdisciplinary course that uses the rich research of historians, belle-lettrists, philosophers, anthropologists, strategists, theologians, and military leaders—as well as primary accounts by service members and veterans—to engage students in an exploration of modern historical experience of war. Both of these courses place a high value on reading and discussion and will be offered in a combination of lecture and seminar formats.
The Experience of War (Spring 2023)
The Experience of War is an open educational resource (OER) course made available in spring 2023. The course surveys the experience of war through three themes: 1) Myth, Narrative, and the Experience of War, 2) Empire, Resistance, and the Experience of War, and 3) Modernity and the Experience of War. The Experience of War provides a long history exploring the relationship between justice, war, and the lived experience of soldiers and their families over several thousand years. Divided into three parts, the first portion covers ancient writing on war, including works from Mesopotamia, India, Greece, and China. The second part of the course introduces students to questions of justice and war in the context of imperialism in the early modern period. The third part of the course investigates histories of race and racism, which have been so central to the experience of war during the twentieth century.
Learners from around the globe have access to a non-credit version that they can take at their own pace and earn badges as the complete the course.
This course is available to faculty as a Canvas module. Please contact Jason M. Kelly to request materials.
