AMST 2020 - Popular Culture in the United States, 1950 to 2000

(HA-AS)

Winter, summer. 4 credits.

G. Altschuler.

This course treats the period from 1950 to 2000 as we examine best-sellers, films, sports and television, radio, ads, newspapers, magazines, and music. We try to better understand the ways in which popular culture shapes and/or reflects American values. The course also depicts popular culture as “contested terrain,” the place where social classes, racial and ethnic groups, women and men, the powerful and less powerful seek to “control” images and themes. Topics include The Honeymooners and 1950s television; soap operas; “gross-out” movies; Elvis; the Beatles, and Guns ‘n Roses; gothic romances; and People Magazine and USA Today.