| The “Cold War” names a period of social, political, and economic upheaval in the United States following World War II. It was a time of widespread shock and horror as people learned of the unprecedented human cruelty and devastation in the wake of the war, of fear as they contemplated new threats in a nuclear age, and of hope as they came together to imagine new ways of organizing society in the future. That mixture of fear and hope led to lively experimentation in the arts, as writers and visual artists engaged in a variety of ways with the momentous changes of their moment. This class will explore those cultural responses, beginning with an investigation of how Americans registered collective trauma in the aftermath of the war and turning to issues such as: the threat of atomic and germ warfare; developments in science, such as the identification of viruses, DNA, and mechanisms of psychological control such as brainwashing; the rise of McCarthyism and concerns about the spread of Communism; the pervasive influence of consumer culture and advertising; the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Movement; and cult of domesticity and suburbanization. We will explore the innovations produced by these engagements in poetry, novels, drama, journalism, film and the visual arts (painting and photography), considering the common ground forged in apparently diverse responses ranging from the poetry of the New York School and the canvases of abstract expressionists to the body snatchers and other monsters of science fiction horror films; from the novels of drop outs who went on the road to the scathing journalism of Civil Rights activists. The course works at the intersection of history, literature, and the visual arts. |
