Culture as History: Making the 20th Century United States

Catalog description

This interdisciplinary course explores selected currents in U.S. cultural history from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Thematic explorations trace the historical development of American cultural forms and practices, showing how transformations in communications, media, and consumption shaped Americans’ experience of capitalism and market expansion, ideas of self and society, social conflict around questions of race, class, gender, nationalism and empire, as well as immigration, migration, and social movements of both the left and right. Our broad goal will be to understand how culture came to shape how historical change unfolded in this period.