|
Komar and Melamid, Quotation, 1972 |
Cold War Cultures: Ideological Visions of the “Good Life” History 378: Scarboro Summer 2009
Office: Hafey-Marian Hall 312 E-mail: cristoferscarboro@kings.edu Phone: (570) 208-5900 ext. 5637 Sharepoint: https://sharepoint.kings.edu/sites/HIST378summer09/Shared Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx Moodle Site: http://kings.mrooms2.net/course/view.php?id=98
|
I. Course Description
The Cultures of the Cold War
This course explores the cold war as a global ideological phenomenon premised on differing visions of the “good life.” Each actor in the cold war was continually engaged in defining what it meant to live well: how to balance the needs of the individual and society, to arrive at correct understandings of consumption and leisure, to balance the needs of the public and private spheres. How these understandings were envisioned, enforced and transformed through culture will be the focus of our investigation. How did people live the cold war? What were its comforts and horrors? How were the intentions of Moscow and Washington met in the streets of Kabul, Prague and Paris? How were these conceptions of the good life expressed through official, unofficial and dissident culture?
Special attention will be paid to Europe as a central field of contestation over these questions. As Europeans rebuilt from the devastation of the Second World War, they were forced to accommodate themselves to the military, economic and cultural power of the Soviet Union and the United States. How did Europeans come to terms with the constraints of the cold war? What opportunities did it afford? How did it transform the meaning of “Europe”? How does the end of the cold war and its result impact our understanding of it as a historical period?
We will trace the Cold War’s development through movies, architecture, visual art and novels and through competing visions of the “good life” manifested in consumer culture and leisure: art galleries (both public and private), vacations, housing, washing machines, automobiles and televisions.
A. Objectives for the student:
This course will ask you to make sense of the cold war as a historical phenomenon--to become familiar with the major cultural, social, political and economic trends of the cold war and to be able to interpret them in historical context. Extensive use of primary source documents with give you an opportunity to engage with artifacts of the time as a historian placing them in conversation with one another and a range of historiographical interpretations. In short, you will engage in the creation of historical narrative as an academic historian. These everyday tools of the historian will serve you well in any field you chose to enter.
B. Goals for the student:
This course is intended to both introduce students to the historical content of the cold war and its interpretation, but also to help foster their own skills as critical readers and writers of history. Students will be asked to organize major events, actors and social and cultural trends in historical context, explain their transformation over time, and interpret them from several differing perspectives. To that end we will explore basic elements of historical practice: how to define a problem for historical study; how to find relevant evidence upon which to base your findings; how to write up this research into an informed, judicious and convincing representation of the past. This will culminate in both a written research paper and in a group oral presentation at the end of the semester.
C. General Learning Outcomes for the student:
In researching and writing the cold war, this course will ask students to sift through many differing types of data and interpretations and to form from this morass a well articulated and defensible understanding of the past. Broadly speaking this course is intended to foster a greater facility in organizing, prioritizing, synthesizing and reporting information.
A. Course Readings:
Gaddis, John Lewis, The Cold War: A New History, Penguin, 2005.
Kotkin, Stephen, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000, Oxford University Press, 2003.
The films for the course are an intrinsic part of the course--they will be the centerpiece of class discussion on the week they are shown, and viewing them is a requirement for the course. The films will be available both in the King's College Library and in streaming form via the course's password protected Moodle site. The films will be available on-line the week we will be discussing it and will then be unavailable for viewing on the course website.
Loader and Rafferty, Atomic Café, 2002.
Menshov, Moscow does not believe in Tears, 1979.
Siegel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956.
C. Course Readings, Primary Sources:
Each week you will also be expected to examine a series of primary sources consisting of texts, visual art and/or short video clips. These sources will either be websites (links are provided in the syllabus) or files found on the course sharepoint site:
https://sharepoint.kings.edu/sites/HIST378summer09/default.aspx
In the sharepoint site they will be filed under "Shared Documents." These set of sources are to supplement the readings in the textbook and place you in dialogue with another time and place. You will need to examine these sources as a historian. What can they tell us about the past and the worldview of past cultures? How do they help us understand the historical theme of the week and the class as a whole? Further, these documents will be the source upon which you will base your microthemes and paper for the class.
D. Microthemes:
Every two weeks you will be responsible for writing a 1-2 page microtheme on the assigned source material covered during that time. (Over the course of the semester you will write a total of five). These microthemes consist of two parts: first, you should summarize the argument of the sources—you should ask and elucidate what the author, director or artist was trying to say. Second, you should place the piece and argument within the larger context of the 20th century. What themes and trends is the artist or author tapping into? How does it relate to larger issues in the class? How are we to make sense of the work historically?
Due Dates for Microthemes:
| 1st microtheme | May 30th |
| 2nd microtheme | June 13th |
| 3rd microtheme | June 27th |
| 4th: microtheme | July 11th |
| 5th microtheme | July 25th |
E. Exams:
There will be two exams in this course a midterm taken during the seventh week and a final taken during the twelfth week. All exams will consist of short identifications quizzing knowledge of detail and significance, geographical content and essays demanding your understanding of the course material through logical presentation of facts and explanation of historical trends. The exams will cover both the material from the textbook and the primary sources. You may take a missed exam only at the discretion of the instructor.
F. Written Assignment:
Your written assignment is due any time before the final week of class. Here you are to take any two of your microthemes and expand it into a 6-8 page paper placing the documents and authors in both historical context and with one another. Like the microtheme, you should seek to answer the meaning of the primary sources: what argument or worldviews were the authors/artists seeking to put forward? How was this a product of the time and place in which they were living? Importantly you are also to relate the sources to one another and to a minimum of three secondary sources. What problems and opportunities do they articulate? What larger issues are they wrestling with. You are free to chose any two sources from the course.
G. Class Discussion:
Each week you will participate in a threaded class discussion on two to three topics from the weekly readings on the course moddle site. I will have posted discussion questions at the beginning of the week and you will be expected to contribute to the class discussion at least twice during the week (once before Wednesday and once before Saturday). Your contributions to the class discussion must be substantive and should be in response to both my comments and the observations of your classmates. You will be expected to read all the posts each week and material from the class discussion will appear on your exams.
H. Grading:
Your final grade will be based on the following percentages
100-98 A+
97-95 A
94-92 A-
91-89 B+
88-85 B
83-84 B-
80-82 C+
77-79 C
75-78 C-
74-70 D
69< F
Your grade distribution for assignments is as follows:
Microthemes: 20%
Midterm Exam: 20%
Class Discussion: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
Written Assignment: 20%
I. Academic Integrity:
The Department of History adheres to guidelines on academic integrity outlined in the Student Conduct Code in the Student Handbook:
http://www.kings.edu/student_handbook/studentregulations_rights/conductcode.htm
Cheating and plagiarism will be penalized in accord with the penalties and procedures indicated in that source. All students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the definition of these infractions of academic honesty.
J. Dissabilities:
King’s College and I will make every effort to accommodate students with a bona-fide disability that impacts on their ability to learn the course material. Please meet with me privately so that appropriate arrangements can be made to help in the learning process.
IV. Course Schedule:
Week 1:
May 19th – May 23rd
**Reading: Gaddis, Chapters 1-3 (1-119)
Week 2:
May 24th – May 30th
***First Microtheme Due, May 30th, 5:00 p.m.
**Reading: Gaddis, Chapters 4-7 (119-267)
**Sharepoint: Socialist Realism: 1930s & 1940s
Week 3:
May 31st – June 6th
**Film: Loader and Rafferty, Atomic Café
Week 4:
June 7th – June 13th
***Second Microtheme Due, June 13th, 5:00 p.m.
**Film: Siegel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers
**Kitchen Debate: <<http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pwxl_richard-nixon-vs-nikita-khrushchev_news>>
Week 5:
June 14th – June 20th
**Reading: Greene, entire
Week 6:
June 21st – June 27th
***Third Microtheme Due, June 27th, 5:00 p.m.
**Reading: Kotkin, Chapter 1-4 (1-113)
**Sharepoint: Paris 1968 Graffiti and Posters
Week 7:
June 28th – July 4th
***Midterm Exam
**Film: Menshov, Moscow does not believe in Tears
**Sharepoint: Pop Art
**Sots Art: <<http://www.komarandmelamid.org/chronology/1972/>> and <<http://www.komarandmelamid.org/chronology/1981_1983/index.htm>>
Week 8:
July 5th – July 11th
***Fourth Microtheme Due, July 11th, 5:00 p.m.
**Reading: Kotkin, Chapter 5-7 (113-197)
Week 9:
July 12th – July 18th
**Film: Stallone, Rocky IV
**Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Address at Harvard University, 1978 <<http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html>>
Week 10:
July 19th – July 25th
***Fifth Microtheme Due, July 25th, 5:00 p.m.
**Reading: Fukuyama, “The End of History?” <<http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm>>
**Film: Pichul, Little Vera
Week 11:
July 26th – August 1st
**Reading: Hensel, entire
Week 12:
August 2nd – August 6th
***Final Exam Due, August 6th, 5:00 p.m.
**Film: Balabanov, Brother
