War Literature Research Articles

The Impact of Hikayat Prang Sabi on the Community: A Sociology of Literature Study

The growing fighting spirit of the Acehnese people against the Dutch colonialists has been documented in history. One factor that significantly influenced this heroic spirit was the Hikayat Prang Sabi (The letter literature of war). How did this text shape the courageous spirit of the Acehnese in their resistance against the invaders? This paper examines the influence of Hikayat Prang Sabi (HPS) on its readers and the broader community. This study aims to reveal the impact of Hikayat Prang Sabi on Acehnese society. The theoretical framework used is the sociology of literature, focusing on the relationship between author, the literary work, and the reading public. The methodology employed is a descriptive qualitative approach that draws on literary sociology. The results indicate that HPS was a significant literary work that deeply affected its readers, especially the Acehnese who embraced it. The creation of HPS by Tgk. Chik Pante Kulu was closely tied to the political conditions in Aceh at the time, as the region was engaged in conflict with Dutch military force. During the Aceh-Dutch war, HPS was read before going to battle until it was confiscated and destroyed by the Dutch. Even after the war, HPS remained a crucial reference for the Acehnese in rebuilding political power.

Effects of Israel-Iran conflict: insights on global stock indices and currencies

PurposeThis study examines the immediate impact of the Israel-Iran conflict on global stock markets and currency pairs, focusing on how these effects vary by market maturity and geographic region.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the event study method to examine the immediate effect of the Israel-Iran conflict. It uses the market model across a 252-day estimation window through −257, −6 trading days and an 11-day event window through −5, +5 trading days. The primary sample includes 73 stock market indices, 7 EURO currency pairs, 14 USD currency pairs, 6 GBP currency pairs, and 7 JPY currency pairs.FindingsThe findings suggest that (1) the global stock markets are adversely affected by the Israel-Iran conflict, (2) the JPY, GBP, and EURO currency pairs are least affected, (3) the USD currency pairs exhibit positive abnormal returns suggesting flight to safety, (4) the frontier and standalone markets experience most adverse effects, followed by developed and emerging markets, (5) the pan-American stock markets experience more pronounced effects of the conflict, followed by the Europe, Middle East, and African stock markets and the Asia Pacific stock markets.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings advise investors to manage risk during geopolitical uncertainty through diversification and hedging. Policymakers should monitor developments and enact responsive measures. Market participants can capitalize on insights for strategic investment.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the extant war literature by exploring the impact of the Israel-Iran conflict on global stock markets and currency pairs. This study serves as the first to examine the effects of the escalating conflict due to Iran’s attack on Israel.

Minimalist strategy: Conflict delegation and proxy use on transparent battlefields

This article examines contemporary proxy war literature, highlighting a distinguishable pattern in the post-9/11 era. The Deniability Strategy, characterized by indirect intervention and plausible deniability, is juxtaposed with the emerging Minimalist Strategy, which emphasizes transparent state involvement using in-lieu-of actors (ILOA) as proxies. The Minimalist Strategy accounts for modern military and information technology, which reduces the effectiveness of non-attributional tactics. The article identifies three infra-strategies within the Minimalist Strategy: Auxiliary, Replacement, and Front Strategies, each serving different state needs in conflict. Through analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the article demonstrates the viability of the Minimalist Strategy and its implications for future proxy wars, offering a complementary framework to enhance existing scholarship.

The Gulf War in Saudi Fiction

Abstract There exists only limited scholarship on Saudi novelists as producers of war literature. Research into Saudi fiction has focused on the questions of its historical development, universality, women’s writing, and the reluctance of earlier writers to negotiate socio-political and psychological dimensions compared with the candidness and boldness of contemporary writers portraying these taboo subjects and daring to investigate unexplored regions of human consciousness. This article, however, diverges, using select novels to critique fictional treatment of the Gulf War by Saudi writers. Two prominent American war novels will be used as reference points through which to determine the similarities and differences between the Saudi war novel and its American counterpart. Putting Saudi novels that deal with the theme of war on a par with some American literature that has the same focus aims to uncover patterns of similarity and highlight differences. The goal is ultimately to show how Saudi fiction saw the war while establishing a war narrative that lends the story coherence and meaning.

War Literature with Reference to Yemeni Zāmil

حاول الباحث من خلال بحثه هذا تسليط الضوء على موضوع الزامل اليمني موضحا علاقته بالحرب الإقليمية التي تشنها دول العدوان على اليمن ارضا وشعبا منذ الرابع والعشرين من شهر مارس عام 2015 وحتى وقتنا الراهن، ولهذا فقد اعتمد الباحث في هذا البحث على المنهج الوصفي النوعي الذي وصف فيه الباحث مجريات الحرب مركزا على المخرجات الأدبية المتمثلة في الزامل اليمني كأحد افرازات هذه الحرب تحت مسمى الاعلام الحربي كرافد للمجاهدين في الجبهات محفزا وباعثا للروح الجهادية للمجاهدين في مختلف الجبهات امام العدو وادواته الاعلامية. وقد قام الباحث باستعراض العوامل التي ساعدت على انتشار هذه الزوامل ورواجها في جميع المناطق اليمنية التي تقع تحت سيطرة حكومة أنصار الله (الحوثين) وذلك من خلال عرضه لعينات من هذه القصائد الحماسية ( الزوامل ) ومن ثم تحليلها وفقا للمحاور( الاغراض) التي ارتكز عليها هذا البحث والمتمثلة في الاتي : 1. مستوى تعميق الهوية اليمنية 2. مستوى بث روح الحماس الجهادي في الجيش اليمني 3. مستوى تحفيز المجتمع اليمنى نحو الانخراط في الجيش اليمني و رفد الجبهات بالمجاهدين للدفاع عن كرامته وسيادته. 4. مستوى بث الرعب والروح الانهزامية في نفوس جيش العدو. بدأت الورقة بالتمهيد للبحث من خلال استعراض عينات من ادب الحروب كمدخل لهذه الدراسة، ثم اعقبها بإعطاء نبذة تاريخية عن الزامل اليمني واصالته وعلاقته بالمناسبات الاجتماعية ، وكيف أصبح فولكلورًا شعبيًا باعتباره جزءًا لا يتجزأ من التراث اليمني الشعبي الاصيل والذي تمتد جذوره التاريخية الى أوائل القرن السادس الميلادي. ولذلك فقد هدف هذا البحث إلى التعرف على اغراض الزامل في خلق روح الحماس لدى الشعب اليمني أثناء المواجهة العسكرية وتأثيره النفسي والوجداني للمجاهدين وحتى على المستويات الاربعة المذكورة سلفا. وختم الباحث ورقته بالتأكيد على اهمية الزامل لما له من تأثير بالغ في نفوس المجاهدين في مختلف الجبهات. كما شدد الباحث على الاهتمام بهذا الموروث الشعبي الاصيل من خلال توصية الجهات المعنية لإثراء هذا الموروث بغية الحفاظ عليه من الاندثار.

Translation of Cultural Conceptualizations in War Literature: A Study of Cultural Schemas and Categories in Translation of Iran–Iraq War Literature

Translation of cultural conceptualizations in the war literature seems to be an overlooked area of research both in Translation Studies and cultural studies dealing with war. In this study, we employed the framework of Cultural Linguistics at the heart of which lies the notion of cultural cognition to analyse translation of cultural schemas and categories in four books selected from the genre of Iran–Iraq war literature. The analysis indicated that typical translation techniques might lead to a change of cultural identity and may not be able to adequately transfer cultural conceptualizations. Therefore, ‘thick translation’ is suggested as a better way of translating them. This study can have implications for the theory and practice of translation and for those studying war from a cultural vantage point.

Writing the Unspeakable: Trauma, Memory, and Resistance in Iraqi War Literature

The paper delves into the profound realm of Iraqi war literature, unraveling its multifaceted dimensions. From capturing the visceral traumas induced by conflict to echoing the resonances of resistance, this literature stands as a testament to the Iraqi people's resilience and defiance. Situating the narrative within historical and sociopolitical contexts, the study underscores the universality of trauma and the tenacity of the human spirit. Drawing parallels with global war literature, it highlights shared human experiences across cultures and histories. The paper also examines the redemptive power of literature, emphasizing its role in healing and peacebuilding, while illuminating the unique and diverse voices that constitute the Iraqi war narrative. As Iraq looks towards a future of reconciliation and hope, its literature not only serves as a historical record but also as a beacon, illuminating paths of empathy, understanding, and peace.

Exploring Dissent and Critique in Anti-war Literature: A Comparative Examination of Narrative Styles in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five

Narrative techniques are poweful tools in conveying dissent and critique in Anti War literature. This paper aims to study and analyse Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five with the objective of exploring the narrative techniques employed by each author to express dissent and critique against war. The paper also aims to trace the similar and distinct features of narrative styles in the two works to highlight how two different narratives which are the results two World Wars strive to achieve the same goal, that is, to portray the incomprehensible and utterly unjustified human cost of wars. sheds light on the impact war and the criticisms of war have on literature.

Why gendered quantification trends are a problem: Post-traumatic growth arguments and the civil war malestream

Feminist scholars have long debated quantification trends in the social sciences. Of particular concern has been the extent to which the prestige assigned to quantitative methods may reinforce ‘malestream’ dynamics in academic knowledge production. ‘Malestream’ dynamics include the (implicit or explicit) privileging of a male-centric lens in the research process and the association of ‘hard’ numerical data with notions of ‘scientifically superior’ masculinity. We build on these discussions by asking how the rise in quantitative writings may affect gender disparities in the civil war literature. Using descriptive data from a newly coded dataset that contains 1,851 articles published in high-ranking journals between 1998 and 2018, we, firstly, illustrate how – in the generally male-dominated field of civil war research – the author gender gap is particularly pronounced among quantitative writings. Secondly, we present an in-depth discussion of three articles that use statistical analysis to test the effects of violence on prospects of post-traumatic growth. A distinct difference between the three articles is that they tend to be more sceptical of arguments on ‘positive change’ following violence the more account they take of gender differentiation in their theoretical framing and/or empirical identification strategy. All in all, our arguments call for greater awareness of gender bias in quantitative research, and for more rigour in currently hegemonic standards of what ‘counts’ as reliable evidence.

The Political Transformation of David Tod: Governing Ohio During the Height of the Civil War

While studies of President Abraham Lincoln, as well as his Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis, and their military generals have dominated Civil War literature, rarely has attention to the politics of the war extended beyond the executive office. Joseph Lambert Jr.’s The Political Transformation of David Tod examines an often-overlooked facet of the political history of the Civil War – the governorship of loyal states. Few historians have ventured into this aspect of the political history of the war.

Whose Dead Is to Be Grieved? A Comparative Approach to Contemporary War Literature

Whose Dead Is to Be Grieved? A Comparative Approach to Contemporary War Literature

Whose Dead Is to Be Grieved? A Comparative Approach to Contemporary War Literature

Whose Dead Is to Be Grieved? A Comparative Approach to Contemporary War Literature

The Front Line in American War Literature

La littérature de guerre américaine a tendance à se concentrer sur l’expérience et le point de vue de soldats placés sur la ligne de front. Le présent article s’intéresse aux causes et conséquences de cette caractéristique centrale du genre. Il avance deux arguments liés : (1) La littérature de guerre américaine est centrée à la fois sur l’expérience du front et sur le défi que constitue la représentation de cette expérience ; et (2) cette caractéristique structurelle est présente depuis les toutes premières origines de ce genre, qui a émergé des bouleversements littéraires, culturels et ontologiques produits par la guerre de Sécession.

‘[M]en’s Dwellings Were Thin Shells’: Uncertain Interiors and Domestic Violence in Ford Madox Ford’s War Writing

The standard image of First World War soldiers is of men in open trenches: waiting to attack or be attacked; walking, sitting, sleeping, dead. Ford’s Parade’s End includes such scenes. But it is a different kind of image which predominates in his war writings and often produces its most memorable passages: images of houses or house-like shelters. The mind seeks protection in such structures; but they offer little security against the destructiveness outside, against the bombardments, gas, shrapnel, bullets. Ford wrote that the experience of war revealed: ‘men’s dwellings were thin shells that could be crushed as walnuts are crushed. … all things that lived and moved and had volition and life might at any moment be resolved into a scarlet viscosity seeping into the earth of torn fields […]’. This realisation works in two ways. The soldier’s sense of vulnerability provokes fantasies of home, solidity, sanctuary, while for the returnee soldier, domestic architecture summons war-visions of its own annihilation: ‘it had been revealed to you’, adds Ford, ‘that beneath Ordered Life itself was stretched, the merest film with, beneath it, the abysses of Chaos’. It is now customary to read war literature through trauma theory. Building on analyses of Ford’s use of repression, but drawing instead on object relations theory, I argue that Ford’s houses of war are not screen memories but images of the failure of repression to screen off devastating experiences. The abysses of Chaos can be seen through the screen or projected upon it. Attending to Ford’s handling of this theme enables a new reading of his war writing and a new case for its coherence. The essay will connect the opening of No More Parades (in a hut, during a bombardment) with the war poem ‘The Old Houses of Flanders’; the postwar poem A House; the memoir It Was the Nightingale (quoted above); and the otherwise puzzling, fictionalised memoir No Enemy, structured in terms of ‘Four Landscapes’ and ‘Certain Interiors’.

Mourning mothers and wars that never end: reading Nasim Marashi’s Haras (Pruning) in the shadow of the Iran-Iraq war

ABSTRACT The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), which the Iranian government frames as a ‘Sacred Defense’, occupies a large space in contemporary Persian fiction, sometimes in surprising ways. This article focuses on the 2017 novel Haras (Pruning) by Nasim Marashi (Nasīm Marʿashī), which despite being shaped entirely by the context of the Iran-Iraq War rarely treats the experience of living through it. The article explores how Haras builds on previous works that use the war not as a focal point, like conventional war literature, but a point of departure to explore different stories about post-war Iran, intricately connected to, yet far beyond, the war with Iraq. The article postulates that by using the war with Iraq to call attention to the loss of people, homes, and the environment, Haras uses the war to innovatively challenge the messaging of the Islamic Republic.

“Those Who Wait, Burn”: New Penelopes in Plays by Sarah Ruhl, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Naomi Wallace

Homer’s Penelope is a nostalgic symbol in the patriarchal imaginary of war literature. Standing for the ever-faithful and dutiful wife who patiently waits at home while her husband returns from war, her paradigm has fulfilled two purposes in traditional war literature. She has helped to preserve, on the one hand, the dichotomy of home front versus war front and, on the other hand, those gendered expectations that have shaped and limited the notion of womanhood, both in war and in peace. This discussion of plays by Sarah Ruhl, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Naomi Wallace discusses the revisions these writers have undertaken on the figure of Penelope. With Passion Play, Part Three (2005), Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) (2015), and In the Heart of America (1994), Ruhl, Parks, and Wallace, respectively, revisit the figure of the waiting woman to reflect on the interrelations between war and home front and to invite the audience to question patriarchal notions of womanhood that continue to operate today. In their feminist revisions of Penelope, this article argues, Ruhl, Parks, and Wallace reconstruct an iconic figure to reclaim women’s agency, independence, and sexuality.

The Checkpoint of History: Testimony and Intertextuality in the Documentary Literature of the Korean War, 1960s–1970s

Abstract Korean War literature has historically encompassed a wide range of ideologically disparate texts. If canonical works of literary fiction have critically interrogated the violence of war and division, the civil war itself has continued to generate institutionalized cultural production purporting to document the crimes of the other side. Working against the categorical separation of these two traditions, this article explores their mutual and intertextual constitution. The sponsorship and commercialization of North Korean defector memoirs (kwisunja sugi) in 1960s South Korea, the article shows, influenced the development of two other popular genres of Korean War literature that alternately reinforced and undermined statist anticommunism. First, the novelist Yi Pyŏngju (1921–1992) employed kwisunja sugi as historical records in his works of the 1960s and 1970s, even as he demonstrated an awareness of the historicity and duplicity of Cold War testimony. Second, while autobiographical essays (ch’ehŏm sugi) submitted to the amateur nonfiction contest (1965–80) of the monthly Sin tonga mimicked kwisunja sugi, charting their authors’ immersion in and escape from the scene of communist violence, these texts also applied this structure to subaltern life in the militarized, capitalist South, reaffirming subversive understandings of the Korean Civil War as a reciprocal system.

War’s Implications: Missionaries and the Global War Novel

Abstract: This article argues that US war literature hinges on nationalistic, exclusionary narratives that are inadequate for the complexities of globalized warfare. Drawing on theories of the global novel, with its focus on individual action within complex systems, this piece considers Phil Klay’s Missionaries as a global war novel that foregrounds how an embrace of chaos and contingency enables new ideas of responsibility and destabilizes the categories “combatant” and “war story.” Klay forces a confrontation with individual and shared culpability, conceptualizing war as a process of implication, laying the groundwork for ethical local action within global systems.

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE SNOW: EXAMINING WAR THROUGH YURI BONDAREV’S “HOT SNOW” AND SHUKHRAT’S “YEARS IN OVERCOATS”

This comparative analysis delves into two pivotal works of war literature, exploring the profound themes of life, death, and human resilience amidst the Second World War’s brutality. By juxtaposing a Russian and an Uzbek perspective, the study not only uncovers the universal existential quandaries precipitated by war but also highlights the unique narrative techniques and cultural insights embedded within each tradition. Through examining narrative structure, character evolution, and the philosophical underpinnings of these texts, the article reveals the war’s multifaceted impact on both the front lines and the home front. This exploration emphasizes the importance of literary inquiry in grasping the complex legacies of war on literature and culture, showcasing literature’s capacity to bridge cultural divides and enhance our understanding of shared human experiences in times of conflict.

A Gap in the Literature: The Evolution of Britain’s Second World War Yugoslav Policies

ABSTRACT The decision processes behind the formation of Britain’s wartime policies represented the intersection of multiple, sometimes competing variables, from political to military and from immediate to long-term. There remain unanswered questions that arise from these competitions and contradictions within the British government’s, oftentimes multi-track policies, which hold far-reaching implications for understanding events. Britain’s policies of support for resistance movements in occupied Yugoslavia during the Second World War serve as a striking example. The historical understanding of how British policy developed concerning Yugoslavia, its motivations, objectives, and how these were defined and prioritized by the individuals and agencies involved with these processes, represents a small but deeply contentious corner of Second World War literature, wherein much remains unresolved. This article, based on doctoral research carried out at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, analyses the forces that shaped British policy concerning Yugoslavia in the light of what Graham Allison has called ‘the essence of decision.’ That is, by looking to the British government as a policy arena and examining the ‘official mind(s)’ of the policy community in that context, highlighting the multiple overlapping forces, both internal and external, that interacted in shaping the evolution of British policy. By resurveying various British archives, it has been possible to resolve many longstanding historiographical disputes, as well as present new alternative approaches to viewing British policy development concerning Yugoslavia. Those findings, presented here, suggest a view of Britain’s Yugoslav policy that was far more reactive and constrained than previously presented. The reality of the British government, its policy development, and its chosen course is far more chaotic and disjointed than the ‘all behind you, Winston’ myth, and when viewed with this appreciation present British policy development as less sensation, but far more remarkable.