AMST498R

"The Best War Ever": World War II in American Popular Culture This course examines representations and repercussions of World War II in postwar American popular culture. Exploring varied source materials, including scholarly writings, feature films, theater, literature, poetry , and music, the class will scrutinize the multiple, contested, and changing meanings attached to World War II and the unstable dynamics of the American War Story through the Cold War years, War in Vietnam, and finally into the era of the War on Terror. Themes of the course include images of soldiers and masculinity, race and multiculturalism, US militarism and national identity, and World War II remembrance and the politics of gender in negotiating postwar international relations.