Courses

The purpose of this course is to increase the history department’s offerings in American cultural history and to familiarize students with how to use and interpret cultural documents and sources in the writing of history. To this end, it also designed to expose students to interdisciplinary
scholarship in the context of research firmly rooted in historical practice. A second goal is to increase students’ sophistication as media consumers by increasing their awareness of how industrial practices and outside institutions work to shape what we do and don’t see on movie
screens. It will pay particular attention to two related issues: how Hollywood’s shifting attitudes toward its audience and the controversies the industry sparked in American society, reflected broader changes in the American cultural landscape. In this way, students will come to
understand the agendas and desires of those who supported, disliked, or simply sought to control the nation’s first mass cultural form of entertainment.