The 1950s: Independent Writing Seminar in Literature or American Studies 1

The 1950s: Independent Writing Seminar in Literature or American Studies is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies class taught by Michele Hardesty. It is one of three writing seminars for The 1950s: Cold War Culture and the Birth of the Cool.

Course Description
Students in this small seminar course will use American Studies/Cultural Studies approaches to develop and complete an independent research paper on any aspect of the literature, film, and/or popular culture of the 1950s in the United States. Areas of research might include a single figure (e.g James Baldwin, Alfred Hitchcock, Lorraine Hansberry), a genre (e.g. sci-fi television, the Broadway musical, Hollywood melodrama), or a cultural event/phenomenon (e.g. anticommunism, Beat subculture, the civil rights movement). Students will begin by building strong library research skills in both primary and secondary materials. They will then pursue a focused research project, present their work to each other, and revise and refine a substantial paper with support from the instructor. Enrollment is limited to six students. Students in this workshop MUST ALSO ENROLL in HACU 240: The 1950s: Cold War Culture and the Birth of the Cool.