Cold War Media Culture

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Red Dawn, this course explores the popular media of the Cold War. The course explores the interconnections between film and television, popular music, foreign and domestic policy, and US social movements. Topics include anti-communism, the Red Scare, invasion films, sub-urbanization and domestic "containment culture", anxieties about the nuclear bomb, Beats and the counter-culture, the civil rights and women's movements, and youth culture. The course centers on the ways in which the Cold War was experienced culturally, with particular attention to its impact on everyday cultural practices and identities.