Telling War Stories: Rhetoric of the Great War

Though the focus of the 61st annual Willa Cather Spring Conference was the literature of Willa Cather and her contemporaries as it reflects the First World War, literature is only one response. “Telling War Stories” highlights other rhetorical tactics from the period—persuasive and inspirational words and images that affected not only Cather and other writers, but the reading public as a whole, the politicians who decided the course of the war, the soldiers themselves and their loved ones. This exhibit gives a historical framework that is accessible and visually interesting for all audiences, while addressing a larger question of the language of war and peace.