HIST262N: Honors Movies and Social History of USA

This course will explore the effectiveness of movies as a source for understanding social history.Topics include modernization, the struggle to escape poverty, prejudice, family life in the suburbs, gender roles, and the rise of youth culture. We will study the accuracy of how our movies portray various social groups, from high society to the suburban middle class to gangsters, as well as what they reveal about changing attitudes, norms and problems faced by various segments of our society, from the gilded age and the roaring twenties to the end of the 20th century. Analytic writing, independent research and joining Netflix for the term will be required.