Women, Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America

3 units

We will explore the history of the United States since 1945 by focusing on the ways that gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of Americans, particularly the diverse group of women who make up more than half the nation's population. Topics will include: domesticity and the culture of the 1950s; gendering the cold war; the gender politics of racial liberation; the sexual revolution; second-wave feminism and the transformation of American culture; the new right's gender politics; and the impact of new conceptions of sexual and gender identity at century's end. Course texts will include scholarly literature, memoirs, novels and film.