Dr Strangelove's America Literature Film and the Visual Arts in the Atomic Age

Course description: The lecture series will deal with the literature and culture of the American 1940s and 50s. How were literary and cinematic texts influenced by the »age of anxiety« that began after the end of World War II? Did America really learn to -stop worrying and love the bomb,- as Stanley Kubrick's 1964 movie, Dr. Strangelove, suggests? How were the various discourses of the time - e.g., the cult of spontaneity and Beat culture - joined in a public attempt to cope with the challenges of the Cold War? The course will deal with developments in literature, cinema and the arts as well as with shifts in the political and social fabric of American society. Texts to be scrutinized in the lecture will include Saul Bellow's picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Howard Hawks's satirical film comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Ralph Ellison's critical book Invisible Man (1952) as well as the gloomy paintings by Edward Hopper and Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionist works. Emphasis will be placed on the composition, function, and aesthetics of works which were crafted under the auspices of the Atomic Age. How can the culture of the early postmodern era be classified? Which effect did the era have upon later periods such as the Hippie era of the 1960s and the neo-conservatism of the 1980s? Anglistik - Amerikanistik BA-LKM: Modul 1 abgeschlossen Universität Siegen SoSe 2011 Priv.-Doz. Dr. Brandt Stefan L Priv Doz