Teaching war literature, teaching peace

Abstract

This article explores literature taught in three different courses and the peace education approaches used for each, including epics in literature courses, Vietnam War literature, and literature of anger and hope. The author recommends the teaching of war literature as an essential part of a peace education curriculum. Devastating events such as the Holocaust, the Hiroshima‐Nagasaki bombings and the Partition of India should be studied not only as history but also as literature, for deeper truths may emerge from metaphoric representation and descriptive details than can be provided by factual accounts.