vWeek One: January 22

Introduction to the course and each other

gPART ONE: 1945-1954–POST-WAR AFFLUENCE & ANXIETIESg

1950s Civil Defense pamphlet

www.conelrad.com

The atomic age: dropping the bomb

Documentary: Hiroshima/Nagasaki 1945 (15 minutes)

From World War to Cold War: Atomic Politics and Culture

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 1: "The War Years," Chapter 2: "Origins of the Cold War," Chapter 3: "Truman and the Cold War"

vWeek Three: February 3-5

Facing the Holocaust: war crimes trials

Returning soldiers and the transition to a peacetime economy

Reading for Discussion: All My Sons (February 5)

Reading: All My Sons

Recommended films: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

vWeek Four: February 10-12

Library Workshop (February 10 meet in Library Electronic Classroom 2041)

Post-war immigration: "displaced persons" and "war-brides"

Recommended films: Gentleman’s Agreement (1947); I Was A Male War Bride (1949); The World of Suzie Wong (1960)

vWeek Five: February 17-19

Containment culture: The New Look and the remaking of domesticity

Containment culture: HUAC and the Hollywood Ten; McCarthyism

Documentary: Hollywood on Trial (excerpt)

Recommended films: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953); Rear Window (1954); Pillow Talk (1959); The Apartment (1960); The Manchurian Candidate (1962); The Best Man (1964)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 5: "The Paradox of Change"

vWeek Six: February 24-26

Film Noir

Film: In a Lonely Place (1950, 91 minutes)

Discussion: In a Lonely Place (February 26)

Reading: In a Lonely Place (Polan essay and Hughes novel)

Recommended films: Double Indemnity (1944); Out of the Past (1947); Sunset Blvd. (1950)

vWeek Seven: March 2

Remaking class and race in America after the war

Documentary: The G.I. Bill

1947: the New Look in fashion (Time 9-15-47)

...and in labor (Textile Workers Union meeting, 1947)

—PART TWO: 1954-1975--REFORM AND RESISTANCE

FROM BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION THROUGH THE VIETNAM WAR—

March 4

Seeds of the sixties: beatniks, bikers, bebop and Ban the Bomb

Anti-heroes and abstract expressionists

Recommended films: Rebel Without A Cause (1955); The Misfits (1961); Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1962)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 4: "The Other Half of the Walnut: Social Reform and Activism in the Post War Years"

vWeek Eight: March 9-11

Ending Jim Crow in the Courts and on the Streets

Brown I and Brown II

Enforcing Brown: Montgomery Bus Boycott and Lunch Counter Sit-ins

Recommended films: Imitation of Life (1959); A Raisin in the Sun (1961); Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 6: "The Civil Rights Movement," Chapter 7: "John F. Kennedy"

vWeek Nine: March 16-18

Civil Disobedience and White Resistance

Reading for Discussion 3/16: From the Mississippi Delta

Black nationalism

Recommended films: In the Heat of the Night (1967); Sweet Sweetback’s Bad Asssss Song (1971)

vWeek Ten: March 23-25

Mobilizing students and workers in California: the Free Speech Movement; United Farm Workers

Documentary: Berkeley in the Sixties (excerpt)

The war in Vietnam

Reading: My Lai

Recommended films: The Graduate (1967); Apocalypse Now (1979)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 8: "LBJ," Chapter 9: "Vietnam–The Early Years," Chapter 10: "Lyndon’s War"

vWeek Eleven: March 30-April 1

The war at home: Movements for peace, ethnic pride and equality

Discussion: My Lai (April 1)

Reading: My Lai

Recommended films: Medium Cool (1969); Gimme Shelter (1970); Coming Home (1978)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 11: "Coming Apart at Home," Chapter 12: "1968"

vWeek Twelve: April 6-8

SPRING BREAK

vWeek Thirteen: April 13-15

Second Wave Feminism

Reading: Virgin or Vamp

Discussion: Virgin or Vamp (April 15)

Recommended films: Divorce American Style (1967); Boys in the Band (1970); Foxy Brown (1974); The Stepford Wives (1975); An Unmarried Woman (1978); Born in Flames (1983); The Accused (1988)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 14: "New Rules, Old Realities"

vWeek Fourteen: April 20-22

Gay rights, gay pride; Environmental movements

Watergate

Recommended films: All the President’s Men (1976); The China Syndrome (1979); Silkwood (1983)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 13: "Bringing Us Together"

—PART THREE: 1975-2004 – GLOBALIZING INTERESTS—

vWeek Fifteen: April 27-29

The U.S. and Central America

The U.S. and the Middle East

Recommended films: Missing (1982); El Norte (1983); The Three Kings (1999)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 15: "The Reagan Years," Chapter 16: "The 1990s"

vWeek Sixteen: May 4-6

The U.S. at the turn of the 21^st century

Reading: Nickel and Dimed

Discussion: Nickel and Dimed (May 4)

Individual appointments to discuss research papers

vWeek Seventeen: May 11

Uncounted?: Election 2000 and 21^st century critiques of the state of the union

Recommended films: Wall Street (1987); Falling Down (1993); Forrest Gump (1994); Mi Vida Loca (1994); Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Recommended reading: Chafe, Chapter 17: "2000 and Beyond"

Striking Grocery Clerks, 2003