Civil War Era Studies

Immerse yourself in the military, social, intellectual, and political history of the Civil War Era—and the ramifications it still has today—in the place that changed history.

The Civil War Era Studies department offers:

Civil War Era Studies

Featured course

Jump to level: All Civil War Era Studies courses

by level: 200 • 300 • 400

CWES-215 Introduction to War Studies

Approach the subject of war through five distinct perspectives: the philosophy of war; the history of war; the experience of war; war, culture, and society; and the memory of war. The goal is to gain an interdisciplinary way of analyzing conflicts both in the past and in our present.

CWES 225 Visual Culture of the Civil War Era

This course examines American visual culture in the Civil War period, encompassing painting, sculpture, prints, and photography. It treats works that directly depict aspects of the conflict, and those that address how everyday life and perceptions of what it meant to be American were shaped by the war and its aftermath.

CWES 245 Gettysburg to Charlottesville: Race In the American Imagination

Integrating Civil War Era Studies, Literature, Film Studies, and Political Science, this class seeks to understand the Jim Crow Era, the Civil Rights Movement, and the elections of 2008 and 2016 through examining the role of Civil War history and mythology in America’s self-understanding and its continuing problem of race.