FIRST YEAR SEMINAR COURSE OFFERING

History and Hollywood

Professor: K. Parkin

Location/Day/Time:

Term: Fall

Year: 2011

Course Code: FY-101-HS04

This course explores the relationship between film and history in the United States. We will consider how filmmakers have presented people, places, and events in historic context and evaluate their effectiveness in communicating the essence of the period and the particulars of their subject. Major areas of analysis will include politics, war, gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and national identity. Working with monographs, scholarly articles, primary sources, and the movies themselves, we will explore the benefits and challenges of movie makers as historians and interrogate the role of movies in American history.