The veterans' culture in postwar eras from World War I to the present is examined in this book, with specific attention to the historic events of each era as they influence veterans, and the literature and movies produced about veterans and by veterans. The intention is to highlight the reciprocal interactions among the influences of the war, the veterans, and the culture. The common alienation of the veterans of foreign wars is thoroughly explored. Films and literary works featuring war veterans of each era are examined in detail for their various views of alienation. Homer's Odyssey, myths, fairy tales, modern novels, memoirs, and short stories are all discussed with an emphasis on detailing what is common and expected with returning veterans, and what is unique for each postwar era.

Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film is the first volume exclusively dedicated to the study of a theme that informs virtually every reimagining of the classical world on the big screen: armed conflict. Through a vast array of case studies, from the silent era to recent years, the collection traces cinema’s enduring fascination with battles and violence in antiquity and explores the reasons, both synchronic and diachronic, for the central place that war occupies in celluloid Greece and Rome. Situating films in their artistic, economic, and sociopolitical context, the essays cast light on the industrial mechanisms through which the ancient battlefield is refashioned in cinema and investigate why the medium adopts a revisionist approach to textual and visual sources.

 In American Westerns, the main characters are most often gunfighters, lawmen, ranchers and dancehall girls. Civil professionals such as doctors, engineers and journalists have been given far less representation, usually appearing as background characters in most films and fiction. In Westerns about the 1910 Mexican Revolution, however, civil professionals also feature prominently in the narrative, often as members of the intelligentsia--an important force in Mexican politics. This book compares the roles of civil professionals in most American Westerns to those in films on the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Included are studies on the Santiago Toole novels by Richard Wheeler, Strange Lady in Town with Greer Garson and La sombra del Caudillo by Martin Luis Guzman.

Movies have provided a record of the war veteran as he was viewed within his own culture and within the culture in which the movies were produced. Thus, movies account for a significant portion of what people "know" about the war veteran and how he fared during and after the war. In this book, the author examines 125 movies from the classical era to the 20th century that feature the war veteran. The author provides commentary on specific categories the films can be organized into and notes similarities between films produced in different periods. The categories deal with the wounded veteran returning home (e.g., The Sun Also Rises, The Best Years of Our Lives, Born on the Fourth of July, The Manchurian Candidate); the veteran struggling with guilt, revenge and post-traumatic stress disorder (Anatomy of a Murder, Lethal Weapon, Desert Bloom, In Country, Jacob's Ladder); the war veteran returning in disguise (Ulysses, Ivanhoe, The Seventh Seal, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit); the war veteran as a social symbol (Dances with Wolves, Gosford Park, The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Big Chill, Gods and Monsters, Cornered); the war veteran in action (The Born Losers, Conspiracy Theory, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Saint Jack, Looking for Mr. Goodbar); and the war veteran before, during and after the war (The Deer Hunter, Forrest Gump).

American Indians have produced some of the most powerful and lyrical literature ever written in North America. Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature covers the field from the earliest recorded works to some of today's most exciting writers. Th

A Companion to the War Film contains 27 original essays that examine all aspects of the genre, from the traditional war film, to the new global nature of conflicts, and the diverse formats that war stories assume in today’s digital culture. Includes new works from experienced and emerging scholars that expand the scope of the genre by applying fresh theoretical approaches and archival resources to the study of the war film Moves beyond the limited confines of “the combat film” to cover home-front films, international and foreign language films, and a range of conflicts and time periods Addresses complex questions of gender, race, forced internment, international terrorism, and war protest in films such as Full Metal Jacket, Good Kill, Grace is Gone, Gran Torino, The Messenger, Snow Falling on Cedars, So Proudly We Hail, Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, Tender Comrade, and Zero Dark Thirty Provides a nuanced vision of war film that brings the genre firmly into the 21st Century and points the way for exciting future scholarship

Historical film has been an important genre since the earliest silent films. The French Revolution, the American Civil War, the conquest of the New World, World War II--all have been repeatedly represented in film. But how do we distinguish between fictionalized spectacle and authentic historical representation? Writing History in Film sets out the narratological, semiological, rhetorical, and philosophical bases for understanding how film can function as a form of historical interpretation and representation. With case studies and an interdisciplinary approach, William Guynn examines the key issues facing film students and scholars, historians, and anyone interested in how we see our historical past.

Literary trauma studies is a rapidly developing field which examines how literature deals with the personal and cultural aspects of trauma and engages with such historical and current phenomena as the Holocaust and other genocides, 9/11, climate catastrophe or the still unsettled legacy of colonialism. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma is a comprehensive guide to the history and theory of trauma studies, including key concepts, consideration of critical perspectives and discussion of future developments. It also explores different genres and media, such as poetry, life-writing, graphic narratives, photography and post-apocalyptic fiction, and analyses how literature engages with particular traumatic situations and events, such as the Holocaust, the Occupation of France, the Rwandan genocide, Hurricane Katrina and transgenerational nuclear trauma. Forty essays from top thinkers in the field demonstrate the range and vitality of trauma studies as it has been used to further the understanding of literature and other cultural forms across the world. Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.