HIS 360 Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Postwar United States
This course uses popular culture, particularly the development of rock ‘n’ roll music, it’s variants, and other forms of popular music in the decades after the Second World War to illustrate the social, political, and economic changes that reshaped the United States. How did popular music, its marketing and distribution, and impact on American culture reflect trends like racial segregation, the push for Civil Rights and full citizenship, housing patterns, and deindustrialization? Course themes include record industry business and distribution models, racial politics, free expression and censorship, and social movements in the United States.