For example, students consider how Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove shaped, and was shaped by, the nuclear build-up of the Cold War. From there they examine the impact of the Vietnam War in America, from Lyndon Johnson's White House to college campuses across the country. Students also explore how the representations of women and African Americans in popular culture changed in light of the burgeoning feminist and Civil Rights movements. Finally, students consider how the backlash of Richard Nixon's Silent Majority altered, and maybe even ended, the cultural explosion that characterized the 1960s. This class asks students to draw sophisticated connections between historical events and cultural representations.
Emphasis is placed on critical reading and writing, as well as developing advanced research skills.
By using cultural artifacts of the Sixties as primary documents, students are able to piece together and make sense of a period in our history that, at the time, appeared to make very little sense at all. Any CTY humanities or writing course. Coming of Age in Mississippi , Moody. The Johns Hopkins University. All rights reserved.