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This course is about American feminist fiction of the 1970s and 1980s. Participants will examine how the discourses of Women’s Liberation and Black feminism reshaped the imaginative constructions of women’s lives in American society. In addition to revisiting the major social movements in America of the 1930s to the 1980s, students enrolled in the class…
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What makes a western a western, a musical a musical? For Hollywood, genre has historically served as a form of product differentiation organized around specific narrative codes and conventions. Genres reveal much about how Hollywood interacts with and responds to shifts in audience tastes and cultural values. The course will introduce students to a variety…
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Examination of writers since the post-World War II period from a variety of discourses and traditions in U.S. culture, including Native American, African American, Latino/a and Asian American.
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U.S. cinema has always struggled with both race and racism. This course examines the long, complex history of representations (and erasures) of racial difference in U.S. film. Although most mainstream films and public discussions frame race as a black-and-white issue, this course understands racial formations in the U.S. to be more multiple. We will watch…
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Despite America’s preeminent position in the world since 1945, the anxieties of the Cold War and the nuclear age pervaded postwar life. Issues such as civil rights, McCarthyism, Vietnam, the counterculture, Watergate, economic fluctuations and political cynicism all raised particular concerns. This course will trace American history in these years–political, social and cultural.
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African American music from rhythm and blues to rock and roll, from Latin-influenced Cubop and Brazilian Bossa Nova to contemporary jazz. Study of the influence of African-based musical aesthetics and traditions in the United States since 1945. A balance of lecture, listening and discussion. Considerable use of film.
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An overview of the wealth of diversity in religions practiced in the U.S., including a study of mainstream Protestantism, Judaism and Roman Catholicism, as well as Native American traditions, Evangelicalism, African American religion, Eastern religious traditions and feminist spiritualities.
