#  HL90CX: Stop Making Sense: America in the 1980s 

 





 Semester:   Fall 

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 Year offered:  2018 

 

 

 

   ![America in the 1980s](/sites/g/files/omnuum3671/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/angelasallan/files/hl90cx_aa_1980s.png?itok=6Pjw7JKc) 

 

The 1980s saw the convergence of American politics and economics to strengthen US interests abroad, but the decade was also a moment of social, political, and economic divergence at home. How compatible—or causal—was the end of the cold war with the end of the American cultural consensus? Did such a consensus ever exist, or was it a mere illusion and nostalgia for a “simpler time”? Three decades later, these questions remain essential to understanding the history surrounding the cold war and the culture wars. This course will look at how culture--including novels, films, plays, music, and more--both shapes and is shaped by social and political attitudes. As the 1980s experiences a pop culture comeback in the 2010s, how do we begin to critically make sense of a decade of contradictions? **\[Also offered Fall 2017\]**