Gendering War Talk

These 13 essays, which grew out of a 1990 institute on war and gender at Dartmouth College, range across cultures and disciplines to explore how 20th-century war stories articulate both men's and women's experiences. Some are quite accessible, such as Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer's analysis of Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah, which, in concentrating on testimony from men, refuses to recognize gender differences in the experiences of victims. Some essays address obscure topics, like Diana Taylor's criticism of an Argentine play that concerns the country's ``dirty war,'' or are bogged down in lit-crit language, like Lynda E. Boose's take on ``techno-muscular'' cinematic representations of war and masculinity. Perhaps most interesting is Carol Cohn's ironic report on how male defense intellectuals talk about war--urging caution in an international crisis, for instance, is called ``wimping out.'' Also notable is Irene Matthews's analysis of the stories told by daughters about their mothers in Mexico and Guatemala, which includes one by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize-winner Rigoberta Menchu. Cooke is the author of War's Other Voices ; Woollacott teaches history at Case Western Reserve University. (May)