AMST 840 - Cold War Culture in the US

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

This course examines the relation between politics and culture in the Cold War era. In the United States the Cold War was marked by a virtually unprecedented campaign to marginalize and contain political and sexual nonconformity, a campaign that threatened to transform the nation into a mirror image of its political and cultural other, the Soviet Union. Americans who failed to conform to the emerging political and sexual consensus, such as communists, homosexuals, and career women, were construed as the "enemy within" and relentlessly persecuted. How did postwar American culture both contribute to and undermine this campaign To answer this question, the course emphasizes the complexity of Cold War culture, focusing in particular on the construction of racical and gendered identity in the postwar period. Texts will include the films Mildred Pierce, I Was a Communist for the FBI, Imitation of Life, Vertigo, and The Misfits; the plays Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Raisin in the Sun; the novels Maud Martha, Invisible Man, On the Road, Another Country, and The Bell Jar. Supplemental readings include essays by James Baldwin, Irving Howe, Ralph Ellison, and Betty Friedan. Undergraduates who wish to enroll in this course must obtain permission of their adviser and the instructor. 1.00 units, Seminar

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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