Investigates key issues and themes in American arts and letters. Topic for Spring 2015: Cold War and Consensus in 1950s America. Explores the tensions between domestic ideals and fractured reality in Cold War America. Combining film study, literary criticism, material culture, and cultural history, students gain a thorough, interdisciplinary understanding of the 1950s. Topics include Elvis Presley, McCarthyism, suburbia, and Disneyland.