Matt Lassiter Winter 2003
2513 Haven Hall Tu/Th 3:00-5:00
mlassite@umich.edu 1339 Mason Hall
Office Hours: Fridays 1:00-3:00 p.m., and by appointment
Course Webpage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mlassite/history196/history196.html
This first-year seminar provides a topical introduction to the popular culture and domestic politics of the Cold War era, with an emphasis on viewing modern American history through mass media forms such as television, novels, science fiction, and especially Hollywood films. The class will examine the psychological impact of the nuclear era, and the half-century global power struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, through a focus on the intersection of popular and political culture on the American home front. This is not a class about warfare, but instead about the historical possibilities of examining personal anxieties and public mythologies through a cultural analysis of Cold War America. Themes include the dawn of the atomic age, the changing imagination of the frontier, the boundaries of political dissent, the problems of historical memory, the privatization of suburban family life, and the cultural responses to key episodes such as McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Reagan's "Evil Empire," and the Gulf War.
Requirements: Members of the seminar are expected to attend every class meeting, to watch all films and complete all readings and projects before the Thursday deadline, to be prepared and participate actively in each discussion section, and to submit all assignments on time. Students should also consult the course webpage routinely for reading material, research links, class updates, and general course information.
Films: Students should analyze films with the same rigor as reading assignments—as historical documents and as cultural texts—taking notes in preparation for discussion section and in anticipation of graded assignments. The films will be on reserve for one week before the class discussion at the Language Resource Center, if a student misses a Tuesday screening session, but absent extraordinary circumstances all seminar members should watch films with the class.
Discussion: Class discussion is the essential feature of a small-group format and the primary reason that U-M offers the first-year seminar option. There will not be any lectures in this course, but instead a roundtable discussion for two hours every Thursday based on the films, readings, and short research projects. A student who must miss a discussion section should inform me in advance.
Discussion Projects: On six occasions during the semester, discussion projects will include a short (one page maximum) written or research assignment that will serve as a basis for discussion and should be completed in time for submission in the Thursday section. The details for the discussion projects will be posted on the course webpage under the link Discussion Projects.
Oral Presentation: Each member of the seminar will choose one week to present a short (5 minute) oral report at the beginning of class on Thursday. The presentation either will address issues involving the historical background and political context for the weekly film, or it will examine themes in a separate but related area of popular culture relevant to the weekly topic. Potential topics for the oral presentation will be provided on the History 196 Cold War Timeline handout, but students can also select a relevant topic on their own initiative. In either case, confirmation of the topic should be made in e-mail or personal consultation with the instructor. The oral presentation will be part of your first written assignment (see below).
Coursetools: The discussion leader for a particular week will also be responsible for launching a dialogue on the Coursetools website for History 196. We will use Coursetools to generate questions and debate interpretations of the weekly film, and to facilitate preparation for the Thursday discussion section. There are twelve opportunities for Coursetools postings, excluding the first and last weeks of the semester. Each member of the seminar should post a response to the film on half of those occasions, a minimum of six times during the semester. All responses should be posted by Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. All members of the seminar should read the Coursetools web thread in advance of the Thursday discussion section. The direct link to the Coursetools sign-in page:
http://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/
**Please note: Students are discouraged from consulting film reviews on the internet (or elsewhere) in advance of discussion section, unless you are the discussion leader who is presenting background material to the rest of the class and choosing that particular film for your first research assignment. We are more interested in your personal interpretation of the film than in a summary of what someone else has said. If you do consult and utilize a film review for a Coursetools posting or other activity, you must acknowledge this through a citation.
Graded Assignments: Each aspect of the course must be completed to receive a passing grade.
**Discussion section (50%). The evaluation of discussion performance will include consistent attendance, active participation, Coursetools submissions, discussion projects, and the oral presentation.
**Research Report #1 (20%): A 5-page research and analysis paper, addressing the topic in the context of popular and political culture, will be due the Tuesday after your oral presentation. (The discussion leaders who present during Weeks 2-3 will have an extended deadline of Feb. 4). More details will be provided in class and posted on the course webpage through the link Research Report #1.
**Research Report #2 (30%). Instead of a final exam, each member of the seminar will write an 8-10 page research paper based on a film, novel, or another document of Cold War popular culture not directly covered on the course syllabus. This project will require primary research of the specific document and historical analysis of the broader political and cultural context, and will be due during the final exam week. Details will be posted on the course webpage through the link Research Report #2.
Please note: The History 196 Style Guide will be available on the course webpage. These guidelines should be followed for both research assignments. They address stylistic issues as well as the proper documentation of sources and the penalties for plagiarism.
Readings:
1. Electronic Reserve: A selection of book chapters is available as a web-based Electronic Reserve. These assignments are denoted as [ER] in the syllabus, and can be accessed through the U-M Library Reserves Service. The readings are PDF files that use the Adobe Acrobat Reader. They will be read and/or printed more quickly from a campus computer site or with a fast computer network connection, and will load slowly through a traditional dial-in modem. The direct link for the electronic reader:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/reserves/W03/HS196/index.html
2. Internet Documents: A
number of readings are available through external sites on the worldwide
web. These assignments are denoted
as [WP] in the syllabus, and hyperlinks are available on the course webpage in
the section called Links to Assigned Internet Documents.
3. Required Books: The following books are available for purchase at Shaman Drum Bookstore, 313 S. State Street, or on-line at <www.shamandrum.com>. One copy of each book is also on reserve at Shapiro Undergraduate Library.
**Paul
Boyer, Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America's Half-Century Encounter
with Nuclear
Weapons
**Stephen
J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (second edition)
**Elaine
Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (rev. ed.)
**Bill
Ayers, Fugitive Days (not
available early February)
**Stephen
Prince, Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies
**Bobbie
Ann Mason, In Country
**Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The electronic reserve includes chapters from two important books not required for purchase:
**Margot Henriksen, Dr. Strangelove's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age
**Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America
Jan. 7: Introduction and Atomic
Cafe
Jan. 9: Boyer, Fallout (introduction, chapters 1-5)
Margot Henriksen, "Knowing Sin" [WP]
Henriksen, "Duck and Cover" [WP]
Jan. 14: The Manchurian Candidate (1962, dir. John Frankenheimer, 126 min.)
Jan. 16: Whitfield, Culture of the Cold War
Jan. 21: High Noon (1952, dir. Fred Zinneman, 85 min.), and John Wayne excerpt
Jan. 23: Gary Wills, "John Wayne's Body," The New Yorker, Aug. 19, 1996 [ER]
Richard Slotkin, "The Frontier Myth" and "Killer Elite" [ER]
Slotkin, "Conquering New Frontiers" [ER]
**Discussion Project #1: Westerns
Jan. 28: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 dir. Don Siegel, 90 min.)
Jan. 30: Elaine May, Homeward Bound (introduction, chapters 1, 4, 6-9, postscript)
Feb. 4: No class meeting: watch Twilight Zone episodes in Language Resource Center
Feb. 6: Discussion of Twilight Zone
**Discussion Project #2: Twilight Zone write-up
Feb. 11: Dr. Strangelove (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 93 min.)
Feb. 13: Richard Rhodes, "The General and World War III," New Yorker, June 19, 1995 [ER]
Margot Henriksen, "Is God Dead?" [ER]
Henriksen, "Judgment Day: Dr. Strangelove's Cultural Revolution" [ER]
**Discussion Project #3: Cuban Missile Crisis
Feb. 18: The Graduate (1967, dir. Mike Nichols, 106 min.)
Feb. 20: Ayers, Fugitive Days
Students for a Democratic Society, Port Huron Statement (excerpt) [WP]
**Discussion Project #4: Family Interview
March 4: The Wild Bunch (1969, dir. Sam Peckinpah, 145 min.)
March 6: Prince, Savage Cinema (introduction, pp. 1-51, 98-161, 213-253)
Richard Slotkin, "The Crossover Point" [ER]
March 11: Platoon (1986, dir. Oliver Stone, 113 min.)
March 13: Michael Klein, "Historical Memory, Film, and the Vietnam Era" [ER]
Thomas Prasch, "Platoon and the Mythology of Realism" [ER]
David Halberstam, "Platoon" [ER]
Robert Rosenstone, "Oliver Stone as Historian" [ER]
Oliver Stone, "Stone on Stone's Image (As Presented by Some Historians)" [ER]
Frank M. Tomasulo, "The Politics of Ambivalence: Apocalypse Now as a Prowar
and Antiwar Film" [ER]
March 18: Coming Home (1978, dir. Hal Ashby, 130 min.)
March 20: Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country
**Discussion Project #5: Vietnam Veterans Memorial
March 25: The Day After (1983, dir. Nicholas Meyer)
March 27: Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
**Discussion Project #6: Cold War Artifacts
April 1: Red Dawn (1984, dir. John Milius, 114 min.)
April 3: Boyer, Fallout, chapters 8-16
Slotkin, "The Crisis of Public Myth" [ER]
Ronald Reagan, "Star Wars" and "Evil Empire" 1983 speeches [WP]
April 8: The Big Lebowski (1998, dir. Joel Cohen, 127 min.)
April 10: Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone" [WP]
Gulf War/Cold War Legacies Article Packet [WP]
April 22: Research Project #2 Due