The 90s: Birth of the Present

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Were the 90s really the “last good decade”? A period of wonderful mediocrity before it all got too much, too complicated? An era when the promise of peace and prosperity still seemed real – before we entered the crisis-ridden twenty-first century? There is a lot of 90s nostalgia out there right now, both politically and culturally. And a lot of interest from historians as well, who have begun to assign the era to history. The underlying assumption of many people who focus on the 90s seems to be that this decade gave birth to our present. Are they right? This course explores the 90s as history – the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. The focus is on the United States and Western Europe. We start with what observers at the time briefly thought was the “the end of history,” the “West’s” triumph in the Cold War – and the anxious search for a “new world order” and ways to make sense of the post-Cold War world. We then investigate the key intellectual currents as well as the defining political, social, and (pop-) cultural developments and transformations of the 1990s – including the emergence of a new form of rightwing populism; a distinct “culture wars” politics; the hegemonic status of neoliberalism across the political spectrum; a specific form of (anti-)feminism and gender politics; a certain proud mediocrity, perhaps, in film, music, and literature; and the rise of the internet. Ultimately, we want to assess the relationship between our present and the 90s and reflect on the difficult task of “historicizing” that which is barely past yet. And we might even find an answer to the question of what all this 90s nostalgia is really about.