This course examines how U.S. cultures are constructed, reinforced, and changed, and how those cultures act simultaneously at a given time. To help students develop skills in cultural analysis, lectures will contrast various methods and perspectives as they apply to the study of a particular year or decade. Topics will vary from semester to semester. This course may include discussion sections depending on available funding. Some versions of this course need four in-class contact hours because of the extensive use of media.

How did the 1930s shape us, and how does it continue to do so? This decade was defined by crisis after crisis, from the economic hardships of the Great Depression, to political protest and deep labor unrest, to vast ecological disaster and the seeming demise of democracy around the globe. Despite this—or perhaps because of this—the period was rich in technological, cultural, and social development. How did this decade of crisis help form a new kind of modernity, one that continues to reverberate in our world today? Our task is to try and answer this question. To do so, we will examine the material and representational cultures of the period, such as new technologies of the era (both imagined and realized), popular entertainments (music, novels, and Hollywood films), the arts (folk arts, handicrafts, and the “fine” arts); and examples of the work of planners, architects, and industrial designers (consumer products, buildings, even whole cities both built and unbuilt). Through these and other examples, we will develop a better understanding of the relationship between crisis and creativity, and how different people used space, place, and representations to attempt to exert power over politics, wealth, and the American imagination itself.

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Requirements class fulfills