This course examines various events and episodes in the interaction between culture and politics in America. Likely topics include the origins and emergence of distinctive regional and ethnic cultures; political orientations and conflicts associated with these; changing cultural and artistic styles over the course of US history; cultural "levels" and categories of evaluation (e.g. “highbrow,” “lowbrow” and “middlebrow”); the influence of ethnic styles, arts and subcultures on the cultural mainstream; "countercultures," challenges to prevailing cultural authority, and "culture wars" past and present; and the controversies and “moral panics” associated with cultural change, including the rise of new media.
- Professor: Jeffrey Alan Smith