American Life and Culture: Fall 2007 Courses

During the Fall 2007 semester, the University of Massachusetts History Department will present two courses in conjunction with the Connections 2007 program.

History 279D
How Does the Song Go? The Grateful Dead as a Window into American Culture
[click here for course syllabus ]

A lecture, audiovisual and discussion course that looks at American society and politics between 1965 and 1995 as reflected in American popular music, especially the Grateful Dead.

Although no single individual, band, song, or movement can encapsulate the complexity of multiple decades of social change, the roots, production and lecagy of the Grateful Dead provide useful lenses through which to view many of the demographic, economic, political and personal challenges facing American of varying backgrounds and ideologies. This course is designed to take a deeper look at the zeitgeist of late 20th century American culture.

As such, music is a vehicle through which we will apply scholarly analysis and illumine historical change that takes us beyond a “tribute” to the Grateful Dead, music appreciation course, and pop culture apologia.

HIST297D is open to undergraduate students of the University of Massachusetts and the Five College System; a limited number of spaces are also available for interested Continuing Education students. The class will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:10a until 11:00a, with discussion sections on Friday morning (times TBA).

History 693G
American Beauty: Music, Culture, and Society, 1945-95
[click here for course syllabus]

A readings seminar that will examine the intersection of American Culture, society, and politics from 1950 to 1995.
This course is designed to help students construct a model for teaching and/or researching the period through the use of popular culture as expressed and consumed by various audiences, theorists and scholars. The popular rock band the Grateful Dead will be used frequently as a microcosmic example through which broader patterns can be illumined.

This course will pay special attention to those individuals and movements that, at least initially, were viewed as outside the cultural mainstream. It will explore the essential tensions within ideals that challenged– even altered– the status quo, yet did so within a capitalist ethos that paradoxically reinforced the hegemonic structures which cultural rebels sought to overthrow.

Enrollees should plan to attend the Unbroken Chain symposium, which takes place the weekend of November 16-17, 2007.

HIST693G is open to graduate students of the University of Massachusetts. Class will meet on Wednesdays from 4:00p until 6:30p.