US Cultural History (Bachelor Year 2 / Spring)

This course aims to provide students with a more precise knowledge of the history of “American culture” in order to better understand the contemporary U.S. We will consider the term “culture” in its multiple meanings: “high culture,” “cultural productions” in general; and the
“imaginary ties between individuals creating a group.” Crucially, we will examine the multiple cultures that characterize U.S. history, and how they overlap in a complex and fractured cultural landscape. This means understanding divisions between “high” and “low” culture, “popular” vs. “mass” culture, the cultures of different groups defined by race, ethnicity, gender, etc., as well as how culture evolved as it mediated changing economic, technological, and social conditions. We will examine what a “national” culture has meant in a geographically vast and sociologically diverse nation, from frontier society to world power. American culture will be presented through both its singularity and its apparent paradoxes: segregation and multiculturalism, urbanism and open spaces, commercial dynamism and institutional inertia, isolationism and global power.