Schedule | FYSE1335A: COLD WAR CULTURE

PART I: THE EARLY COLD WAR

Orientation week: Course Logistics

Civil Defense film: Duck and Cover (1951).

“The Origins of the Cold War 1946-1960” (timeline at the Authentic History website)

Introduction to Academic Honesty Tutorial. PLEASE COMPLETE THE TUTORIAL NO LATER THAN NEXT WEDNESDAY, 9/13.

Discuss course registration and sign up for advising appointments.

Week 1: What Is “Cold War Culture”?

9/11: The Dawn of the Atomic Age

Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, Ch. 1.

President Harry Truman’s Statement Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). Alternatively, watch this archival recording of the speech.

Survival under Atomic Attack (short film, 1951)

Editors of Good Housekeeping, A Frightening Message for a Thanksgiving Issue (1958) in William H. Chafe, et al., ed., A History of Our Time, 8th ed. (Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

Powerpoint: The Atomic Bomb and Cold War Culture

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

9/13: A Culture of Unity? Of Conformity?

Peter J. Kuznick and James Gilbert, “U.S. Culture and the Cold War,” and Alan Brinkley, “The Illusion of Unity in Cold War Culture,” in Kuznick and Gilbert, ed., Rethinking Cold War Culture (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 1-13, 61-73.

Norman Vincent Peale,The Power of Positive Thinking, 6-22.

William Whyte, The Organization Man, excerpt.

The House in the Middle (1954).

In-class discussion of Academic Honesty Tutorial.

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [post your own]

Week 2: The Red Scare

9/18: HUAC and McCarthyism

House Un-American Activities Committee, 100 Facts about Communism in the U.S.A. (1949) (READ THROUGH PAGE 21)

Communism (short film, 1952)

Senator Joseph McCarthy, “The Internal Communist Menace” (1950)

Margaret Chase Smith, Declaration of Conscience, 1950

The Cold War, episode 6: “Reds”

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [post your own]

Powerpoint on Anti-Communist Ideology

In-class discussion of first essay assignment.

9/20: HUAC and Hollywood

Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)

Miller, “Why I Wrote the Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics,” The New Yorker (October 21, 1996)

HUAC testimony of Hollywood performers, writers, and producers:

Paul Robeson

Lillian Hellman

Jack Warner, Louis Mayer, Ayn Rand

Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney

Powerpoint on Arthur Miller and HUAC

Discussion Question [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

Week 3: Anti-Communism, Manhood, and Homophobia

9/24: Screening of On the Waterfront (1951) at 7:30 PM in AXT 110.

9/25: Elia Kazan and Naming Names

Jeffrey M. Shaman, “On the Waterfront: Cheese-eating, HUAC, and the First Amendment,” Constitutional Commentary, Spring 2003, p. 131+.

Discuss On the Waterfront; compare the film to Miller’s play.

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

Powerpoint on Kazan and Naming Names

9/27: Cold War Masculinity and the “Lavender Menace”

K.A. Cuordileone, “Anti-Communism on the Right: The Politics of Perversion,” in Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War, 37-96.

Hearings in on homosexuality in government service in Major Problems in American History since 1945.

Powerpoint: “The Lavender Menace”

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [post your own]

Week 4: Television and McCarthy’s Demise / Venona Project / “Good” Families in the Cold War Era

10/2: The Army-McCarthy Hearings and the Venona Project

McCarthy-Welch exchange at Army-McCarthy Hearings

PART II: THE HIGH COLD WAR

Week 7: The Cuban Missile Crisis

10/23 – No class – Midterm Recess

10-25 — Kennedy, Kruschev, and Cuba

The Cold War, episode 10: Cuba (1959-1962)

President John F. Kenndy, Speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 22, 1962.

Interactive documentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis at the JFK Presidential Library website

Jutta Weldes, “The Cultural Production of Crises: U.S. Identity and Missiles in Cuba,” in Weldes, et al., ed., Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 35-62.

Powerpoint: The Cuban Missile Crisis: Real or Culturally Produced?

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [post your own]

10/27: First draft of second essay is due via email anytime before midnight today.

Week 8: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Rsing Opposition to the Cold War

10/29: Screening of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) at 7:30 PM in AXT 110.

10/30: Satirizing Mutually Assured Destruction

Paul S. Boyer, “Dr. Strangelove at 40: The Continuing Relevance of a Cold War Cultural Icon” [blog post], Arms Control Association, December 1, 2004.

Jonathan Kishner, “Subverting the Cold War in the 1960s: Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Planet of the Apes,” Film & History 31:2(2001), 40-44.

The Cold War: MAD, 1960-1972 (episode 12)

Powerpoint: Dr. Strangelove

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

11/1: College Students and Housewives Protest

The Cold War, episode 13：Make love, not war (the 1960s)

Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement (1962)

Amy Swerdlow, “Ladies’ Day at the Capitol: Women Strike for Peace versus HUAC,” Feminist Studies 8:3 (Autumn, 1982), 493-520

Powerpoint: Women Strike for Peace and the New Left

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [post your own]

PART III: THE SECOND COLD WAR

Week 9: Nuclear Anxiety and National Politics

11/6: Politicians react to changing perspectives on Vietnam and nuclear war

George C. Herring, “The Cold War and Vietnam.” OAH Magazine of History 18, no. 5 (2004): 18–21.

John Kerry, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Statement to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, April 23, 1971.

Here is a video/audio recording of Kerry’s testimony. He starts speaking at 4:20 and finishes his prepared remarks at 24:45.

Johnson 1964 campaign ad, “Daisy girl”

Johnson 1964 campaign ad, I ce cream”

Nixon 1968 campaign ad, “Vietnam”

Nixon 1972 campaign ad, “Russia”

Powerpoint: Vietnam and the Cold War

Discussion Question [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

11/8: Reagan and The Evil Empire

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction, chapter 8.

President Reagan’s Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals
Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983. (The “Evil Empire” Speech); See video also.

Reagan 1980 campaign ad

Mondale-Ferraro campaign ad: “Arms Control”

Reagan 1984 campaign ad, “Peace”

Reagan, Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security, March 23, 1983

Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the USA” (live i n 1985)

Ronald Reagan Campaign video: “A New Beginning” (aired at 1984 RNC)

Powerpoint: Reagan and the Evil Empire

Discussion questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

Week 10: Ronald Reagan, Cold Warrior

11/13: Final drafts of second essay are due via email anytime before midnight today.

11/13: Imagining Nuclear Apocalypse in the 1980s

The Day After (ABC, 1983)

Deron Overpeck (2012): ‘Remember! it’s Only a Movie!’ Expectations and Receptions of The Day After (1983),” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 32:2, 267-292;

Excerpts from post-film commentary that aired on ABC directly following the film, The Day After, on ABC.

William F. Buckley, “The Day After,” National Review (December 23, 1983), 1632;

Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (1982), excerpted in Howard Zinn et al., The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace (2002).

Powerpoint: The Day After and the Nuclear Debate in the 1980s

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

11/13: Screening: Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) at 7:30 in AXT110.

11/15: Science Fiction and the Late Cold War

Peter Lev, “Whose Future? Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner,” Literature/Film Quarterly; Salisbury 26:1 (1998), 30–37.

David S. Meyer, “Star Wars, Star Wars, and American Political Culture,” Journal of Popular Culture 26:2(Fall 1992), 99-115.

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

Week 11: The Cold War Ends

11/19: Screening of The Terminator at 7:30 PM in AXT 110.

11/20: Nuclear Menace in the Mass Culture of the Late Cold War

John Beard, “Science fiction films of the eighties: Fin de Siecle before its time,” Journal of Popular Culture32.1 (Summer 1998): 1-13.

Paul Boyer and Eric Idsvoog, “Nuclear Menace in the Mass Culture of the Late Cold War and Beyond,” Fallout (1998), 199-225.

Powerpoint: Filmic Portrayals of Nuclear Catastrophe in the Late Cold War and Beyond

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [post your own]

11/22: NO CLASS — THANKSGIVING BREAK

PART IV: AFTER THE COLD WAR

Week 12: Nostalgia for the Cold War

11/27: Losing the Cold War Frame of Reference

Daniel T. Rodgers, “Losing the Words of the Cold War,” The Age of Fracture (2011), 15-40.

Jon Wiener, “Hippie Day at the Reagan Library,” How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 13-28.

Powerpoint: Cold War Nostalgia

Discussion Questions [1] [2] [3] [4] [post your own]

11/27: Screening of The Manchurian Candidate (2004) at 7:30 PM in AXT 110.

11/29: Research paper topic and list of sources that includes three primary and two secondary sources are due.

11/29: Nostalgia for the Cold War

Mark Wildermuth, “Electronic Media and the Feminine in the National Security Regime: The Manchurian Candidate before and after 9/11,” The Journal of Popular Film and Television 35:3(October 2007).

Junghyun Hwang,“From the End of History to Nostalgia: The Manchurian Candidate, Then and Now,” Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2:1(2010), 1-19.

Discussion Question [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [post your own]

Week 13: Cold War 2? World War III?

12/4: Reviving the Language of the Cold War in the Age of Trump

Evan Osnos, David Remnick, Joshua Yaffa, “Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War,” Washington Post, March 6. 2017.

Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 19, 2017. [see video of speech]