The History of Now: The United States Since 1980

Catalog description

This course provides a survey of U.S. history since 1980, examining both domestic and global contexts. Topics include the rise and fall of neoliberalism, U.S. wars and foreign policy, dramatic transformations in technology and media, political realignments, social and cultural changes, and the histories of our most divisive current debates. Aside from simply covering "what happened," we will attempt to go further and explore how historians think about contemporary events, place current events into longer historical contexts, develop skills in media literacy to better evaluate the quality of information we receive, and discuss the uses and misuses of historical analogies in public debate. We will also investigate the importance of structural narrative in making sense of historical events and processes: what questions do we ask of the past and why some questions and not others? Why do our questions about the past change over time? How do present circumstances affect our historical work? When do we draw our chronological boundaries; when do our stories start and when do they end? Counts as a Communication Intensive course.