Film and American Culture

Catalog description

The course will be an examination of major shifts and events in American politics as reflected through the films of the twentieth century. What can we learn about periods in history from the cultural products they leave behind Can we piece together an accurate look at an era through the stories they tell We will explore time periods such as pre-WWI immigration, The Roaring Twenties, The Depression, Isolationism, World War II, the post-war atomic era, the 1960s counterculture, Vietnam, the Reagan 1980s, and the post-9/11 era. We will look at a variety of filmmaking genres-from cartoons to documentaries to government films to narrative features-to piece together the history of politics in twentieth century America.