Why do we Fight Wars? Connecting with the Student through Film and Literature.

Two foundations of American democracy are the citizen-soldier and the necessary support by the citizenry for its government waging war. This paper is not focusing directly on the validity of these democratic foundations, the efficacy and dilemmas of creating citizen-soldiers, nor judging those who have or are serving. Rather, the paper strives to demonstrate how popular culture can be utilized in an academic setting to illustrate and examine these foundations. The Political Fiction and Film (PF&F) course discussed in this paper addresses, inter alia, the following questions: Why and how should Americans pay attention to their government's war-making actions? What is the intersection of Americans understanding of war, the government's support for and ability to wage war, the role of the military in carrying out war, and the role of citizen-soldiers to fight these wars? To this end, I have created an upper-division, political science course to assist students in analyzing American values toward the military and war, as well as to understand the dialectic process between popular culture and the American citizenry in shaping and being shaped by our reasons to fight. This course is different in that its basis is the use of film and literature as the primary learning tool and subject matter. Films and literature provide essential heuristic tools for today's technological-focused students, as well as the "mirrors" to illuminate popular culture and public perceptions of war. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]