Marjorie Galelli
Kansas State University
Marjorie Galelli, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of US Military History at Kansas State University and Co-Director of the Teaching Military History project. Her work focuses on modern US military history, with an emphasis on unconventional warfare, civil-military relations, and the role of the media in shaping foreign policy. She is working on her manuscript, Searching for Victory: How Counterinsurgency Shaped Operation Iraqi Freedom. She has recently published a co-authored a book chapter entitled “Haunted by the Lessons of ‘the Good War’: Post-Cold War Contestation of World War II Narratives.”
Undergraduate Syllabi
Hollywood and the Military: Soldiers and Civilians in the All-Volunteer Era
In this course, we will cover key themes about the US military in the late 20th century and use popular movies as a guiding thread. The movies will not simply be an illustration of the themes that we will address. Rather, we will use them as primary sources to better understand the historical context in which they were created.
We will mainly focus on the military as an institution and its interactions with the civilian world. War will be in the background. Through the lens of movie representations, we will be addressing questions such as: How do civilians become soldiers? What does it mean to be part of the US military? How do civilians and military personnel interact? How do movies influence civilians’ perspective of the military? How does the military use Hollywood and what for? How do these popular representations evolve over time?
The new version of the syllabus is designed for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule rather than Tuesday-Thursday. As such, it starts each week with a class solely focused on the historical context. The assignments have also been revised to be more guided and scaffolded.
Assignment
Vietnam War Meme Assignment
This assignment is designed to encourage students to reflect upon conveying historical information to a layman audience in a creative way, by designing a meme and explaining it.