Culture and Belief 50: The European Postwar: Literature, Film, Politics

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2015

Head Teaching Fellow (for Peter Gordon)

Course Description: What happened in the last half century in European culture and politics? How can we read history through culture, and culture through history? This undergraduate lecture survey offers a general overview of European history since 1945, with a primary focus on some of the greatest works of postwar European film and literature. We will interrogate major trends in cinema and literature (e.g., expressionism, existentialism, neo-realism, minimalism, the New Wave, the realist political dramas of the 1970s, and so forth); in conjunction with new modalities of political discourse concerning communism, democracy, colonialism, and sexuality. Note: The course includes six classic novels by postwar European authors, and twelve of the greatest postwar films by noteworthy European directors.