2513 Haven Hall
Winter 2007
Tu/Th 11:30-1:00
Angell Hall Aud. D
Office Hours: Thursdays, 2:00-4:00 p.m., and by appt.
Course Webpage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mlassite/history467.html
Lauren Hirshberg <lhirshbe@umich.edu> Sections 003, 004, 010
History 467 provides a topical and thematic approach to post-1945 United States history, including Cold War politics and culture; national security and imperialism in American foreign policy; the fate of liberalism and the rise of conservatism; social movements of the Left and the Right; the relationships between mass consumer culture, countercultures and youth subcultures; and the era of globalization and its discontents. The course explores issues of American national identity and the changing boundaries of American citizenship with emphasis on the intersection of politics, culture, and society in modern U.S. history.
We will engage questions such as: How has the "frontier mythology" shaped postwar America? How did the Cold War reshape politics and popular culture in the United States? What happened to the power base of organized labor? How have civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, the Christian Right, and other grassroots movements changed American society? Why did the United States lose in Vietnam? Can the federal government win the "War on Drugs"? Were the Seventies more important than the Sixties? Will the "culture wars" ever end? How are Latinos and other immigrant groups changing contemporary politics? Did the ideology of American Exceptionalism reclaimed by Ronald Reagan and on display in two wars in the Middle East overcome the "Vietnam Syndrome"? Is it accurate to speak of a new "American Empire" in the global arrangements that have replaced the Cold War framework? Did the 1990s really mark the triumph of the "new economy"? Where did your shoes actually come from?
Requirements: Students are expected to attend lectures regularly, to be present at all discussion sections, and to be prepared and participate actively in the section meetings. Assigned films should be watched in advance of the weekly discussion section. Students also should consult the course webpage routinely for reading material, graded assignments, research links, class updates, and general course information. The Lecture Outlines will be available on the course webpage by the morning before the relevant class meeting.
Films: We will watch six films/documentaries outside of regularly scheduled class meetings. 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 at the Language Resource Center for one week before and one week after the discussion meetings (although they will be unavailable at the LRC from Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon during the week of the class screening). Before and after the LRC reserve period, the films will be in the Askwith Media Library. Most of the films also are available in area video stores, with the exception of My Generation. The class screening for each film will begin at 8:00 p.m. on the Sunday evening immediately before the relevant discussion sections, all in Angell Hall Auditorium D.
Sunday Screening 8:00 p.m. Location: Angell Aud. D
Film #1 Week 2 1/7 Natural Born Killers
Film #2 Week 4 1/21 Rebel without a Cause
Film #3 Week 7 2/11 Berkeley in the '60s
Film #4 Week 10 3/11 Kramer vs. Kramer
Film #5 Week 12 3/25 Traffic
Film #6 Week 14 4/8 My Generation
In a pilot program, assigned films also will be available in streaming video format through a History 467 CTools site, so that you can watch them on your own timetable.
<https://ctools.umich.edu/portal/site/eb831734-023e-4779-00ab-57032d593a1a>
Discussion Projects: On five occasions during the semester, discussion projects will include a short (maximum one page, single-spaced) written assignment to be turned in at your section meeting. The details for the discussion projects will be posted on the course webpage, under the link Discussion Projects, and the assignments also will be hot-linked from the electronic version of this syllabus.
Graded Assignments: The guidelines for graded assignments also will be posted on the course webpage in a timely fashion. Anything covered in the course—reading assignments, films, lectures—is fair game for the final exam, although it will be tilted toward material after the midterm. All four components listed below must be completed in order to receive a passing grade in the course (even if you are taking History 467 with the pass/fail option).
*Discussion: consistent attendance, active participation, discussion projects (30%)
*5 page midterm, take-home essay assignment, based on course readings (20%)
*10 page research paper, based on primary and secondary sources (25%)
*Comprehensive final exam on Monday April 23, 1:30-3:30 pm (25%)
Style Guide: The History 467 Style Guide is available on the course webpage. These guidelines should be followed for the midterm essay and the research paper, and they also explain issues such as the documentation of sources and the penalties for plagiarism.
Readings:
1. Electronic Reserve [ER]: A selection of journal articles and book chapters is available as a password-protected, 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. The direct link for the electronic reserve:
<http://www.lib.umich.edu/reserves/ures/lists/1/wi2007/wi2007HISTORY467mlassite.php>
2. Internet Documents [WP]: Other course readings will be available through external sites on the worldwide web. These assignments are denoted as [WP] below, and hyperlinks are available on the electronic syllabus and through the course webpage in the section Links to Assigned Internet Documents.
3. Required Books: The following books are available for purchase at Shaman Drum Bookstore (313 S. State Street), and one copy of each is on reserve at Shapiro Undergraduate Library.
**Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
**Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
**Glenn Altschuler, All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America
**William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom
**Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
**Bruce Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics
**Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America
**Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War
**William Finnegan, Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country
**Anthony Bianco, Wal-Mart: The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Everyday Low Prices Is Hurting America (paperback available Feb. 20, 2007)
Jan. 4: The Ideology of American Exceptionalism
Reading: Thomas Friedman, "A Manifesto for the Fast World," New York Times Magazine (March 28, 1999) [WP]
**Michael Ignatieff, "The Burden," New York Times Magazine (Jan. 5, 2003) [WP]
Jan. 11: The Atomic Age
Discussion Reading: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, 3-89
**Plus the three articles listed in Week 1
**Film #1: Natural Born Killers (1994, dir. Oliver Stone, 118 min.)
Week 3—The New Deal Order
Jan. 16: Liberalism and the Social Contract
Jan. 18: The Fate of Organized Labor
Discussion Reading: Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, 1-14, 33-88, 125-177, 209-271 (Introduction, Chapters 2-3, 5-6, 8-9, Conclusion)
Jan. 23: Culture of Consensus
Jan. 25: Subcultures of Dissent
Discussion Reading: Altschuler, All Shook Up
**Film #2: Rebel without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray, 111 min.)
**Discussion Project #1: Youth Culture
Jan. 30: The South and the Nation
Feb. 1: The "Great Society"
Discussion Reading: Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights
**Discussion Project #2: Civil Rights Strategies
Feb. 6: Politics of Anticommunism
Feb. 8: Dr. Strangelove's America
Discussion Reading: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, 90-132
**Richard Rhodes, "The General and World War III," New Yorker (June 19, 1995) 47-59 [ER]
**Margot Henriksen, "Is God Dead? An American Awakening on the Eve of Destruction," 184-191, 200-239 [ER]
Week 7—Vietnam Era
Feb. 13: The Vietnam War
Feb. 15: The New Left
Discussion Reading: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, 133-259
**Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement (1962—excerpt) [WP]
**Film #3: Berkeley in the '60s (1990, dir. Mark Kitchell, 117 min.)
Midterm Essay Due: Friday, Feb. 16, by 5:00 p.m.
Feb. 20: The "Vietnam Syndrome"
Feb. 22: Countercultural Cycles
Discussion Reading: O'Brien, The Things They Carried
**James Fallows, "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" [ER]
Spring Break: Feb. 24-March 4
March 6: Rise of Conservatism
March 8: "Morning in America"
Discussion Reading: Schulman, The Seventies
**Discussion Project #4: Family Interview (due either Week 9 or Week 10)
March 13: Feminism
March 15: Culture Wars
Discussion Reading: Rosen, The World Split Open (Preface, Chapters 1, 3, 5-6, 8-9, Epilogue)
**Film #4: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979, dir. Robert Benton, 105 min.)
March 20: Star Wars
March 22: Imperial Encounters
Discussion Reading: Bacevitch, The New American Militarism, 1-146, 175-204
**Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, 263-303
**Ronald Reagan, "Evil Empire" and "Star Wars" speeches (1983) [WP]
Week 12—Home Front
March 27: War on Drugs
March 29: Immigration and Identity Politics
Discussion Reading: Finnegan, Cold New World (Introduction, 3-92, 211-351)
**Film #5: Traffic (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh, 147 min.)
**Discussion Project #5: Generational Changes
April 3: Living Wages
April 5: Environmentalism
Discussion Reading: Bianco, Wal-Mart
**Research Paper Due: Friday, April 6, by 5:00 p.m.
April 10: MTV Generation
April 12: Globalization and its Discontents
Discussion Reading: Malcolm Gladwell, "The Coolhunt," New Yorker (March 17, 1997), 78-88 [ER]
**William Finnegan, "After Seattle: The New Anti-Globalists," The New Yorker (April 17, 2000) [WP]
**Film #6: My Generation (2000, dir. Barbara Kopple, 103 min.)
April 17: The U.S. in the Middle East
Final Exam: Monday, April 23, 1:30-3:30 pm, in Angell Hall Aud. D