Post 9/11 Culture: Rumors, Stories and Songs
Course #: HIST 411L
Description:
This American Studies course is interested in exploring the cultural legacies of 9/11. This 9/11 class will not be explicitly concerned itself with capital 'P' politics: the real burden of the course has more to do with the construction of a rhetoric of what I call '9/11 culture' in American popular arts than with the motivations, strategies, or outcomes associated with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003. Yet the wars shadow every moment of the class. I will begin the class by showing America: A Tribute to Heroes, the celebrity telethon that was broadcast on September 21, mostly to help students begin to understand the rapid deployment of hero as a keyword in our post-9/11 discourse. Throughout the course we will consider keywords and phrases that came to define the era. First responder, hero, terrorist, and so on, will all come under historically-contextualized scrutiny.
Notes:
AMST 411L and HIST 411L are the same course.
Pre Requisites: Pre-requisite: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102