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WiSe 20/21: American Culture after World War II

Frank Kelleter

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Having emerged from World War II as a world power, the United States faced numerous problems of cultural self-definition in the second half of the 20th century. The Cold War produced not only an ideology of international leadership but also new anxieties about America’s social identity and the nation’s changed position in the world. Topics discussed in this lecture course include the advent of a postindustrial economic order, the decline of New Deal liberalism, postmodernist aesthetics, the New Hollywood, and the interrelated emergence of the New Left and the New Right. In the early 21st century, many of these developments have been radicalized under conditions of military hegemony, globalized capitalism, corporate anti-statism, neoliberal governance, and catastrophic ecological transformations. Our lecture course focuses on select phases and moments of cultural production between 1945 and 2020, when American novels, poems, films, and TV shows often defined the state of the art in their respective fields. We will concentrate on literary sources (especially poetry and fiction), sociological writings, political documents, cinema, television, and other cultural fields. ----- The lecture course serves as “Vorlesung” of Culture-Module C (Kulturgeschichte einzelner Medien und ästhetischer Darstellungsformen) in the M.A. program. Registration: All participants need to be registered via Blackboard and Campus Management by the first session. If you cannot register online or cannot attend the first session, please contact Prof. Kelleter before the beginning of the term. Requirements and Online Organization: See Syllabus and Course Description in the “Teaching” section of my JFKI website or on Blackboard (go to “Kursmaterial”; you may have to click on “open Syllabus here” to download it; if this doesn’t work, try a different browser: students have reported problems with the Chrome browser). All communication about and within this class will be channeled through the course’s Blackboard site; please make sure you’re registered there. First session: November 3. ----- (Asynchronous Online Course – Lecture Uploads: Tuesdays) close