April 25, 2003

The Power of Art in a Time of War

By SCOTT McLEMEE

War reduces human beings to things -- and not just by killing them. So wrote Simone Weil, a French thinker who died in exile during World War II, in her essay "The Iliad, or, The Poem of Force." But as dehumanizing as warfare may be, it remains among the oldest (yet also the most urgent) concerns of the humanities.

In the pages of the journal WLA: War, Literature, and the Arts, reflection on armed conflict is often closely linked with the experience of having survived it. Many