Arms, Letters, and the Humanities: Essays at the Nexus of Language, Culture, and Military Themes

West Point Press is excited to announce the publication of Arms, Letters, and the Humanities: Essays at the Nexus of Language, Culture, and Military Themes, edited by John Pendergast. This wide-ranging volume brings the humanities into sustained conversation with military experience, examining how armed conflict shapes—and is shaped by—human expression. At a moment when questions of war, identity, and cultural memory remain urgent, this collection offers a deeply informed exploration of the stories, languages, and artistic forms that emerge from military life.

Spanning centuries and continents, the essays gathered here demonstrate that war is not only a geopolitical event but also a cultural and linguistic force. Contributors explore subjects as varied as medieval Spanish praise poetry, Tolstoy’s battlefield sketches, Iranian dissident cinema, and the linguistic transformations unfolding in wartime Ukraine. Across these case studies, the volume reveals how conflict permeates narrative structures, symbolic systems, and collective identities. Whether analyzing propaganda, literary adaptations, or oral histories, each chapter illuminates the moral and emotional dimensions of military experience, underscoring the ways in which language and culture both reflect and contest the realities of armed struggle.

By bringing together scholars from multiple disciplines and national contexts, Arms, Letters, and the Humanities advances a genuinely comparative and interdisciplinary approach. The volume’s editor, Dr. John Pendergast, brings distinctive authority to this endeavor. A scholar of Russian and German languages and literature, he holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the City University of New York and is the author of Joan of Arc on the Stage (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019). A retired U.S. Army major with a career in military intelligence, Dr. Pendergast has taught at West Point since 2008 and currently serves as Russian Program Director in the Department of English and World Languages. His dual experience in academia and military service uniquely positions him to guide this interdisciplinary conversation.

As with all West Point Press titles, Arms, Letters, and the Humanities is published platinum open access, ensuring immediate and free availability to readers worldwide. We invite scholars, students, and interested readers to explore this important contribution to the humanities and military studies.

Learn more about Arms, Letters, and the Humanities here: Arms, Letters, & the Humanities