Course Intro, American People in 21st Century
by admin - January 18th, 2012
We used to think the early 2000s would look like this:
But apparently, we were wrong.
In addition to the statistical list in the back of the Chafe book, we might also explore other ways to look at change over time.
Maybe language and word frequency:
Popular Science Archive Explorer
or the Popularity of Names:
Name Voyager
or the top Google searches for each year (since 2001):
Google Zeitgeist
or how the future looked from the past:
French Retro-Futurism, 1940s-1970s
What to do by Friday:
- Read the syllabus
- Read HOT pp. 1-12 (McMahon, “World War II and the Destruction of the Old Order”) & Moss, 1-18 “Postwar America”
- Bring a discussion question on these readings to Friday’s class
- Explore one thing on Billy Joel’s list (video is here) that you didn’t know before (please try not to use Wikipedia), and be prepared to talk intelligently about it
- Find a reliable news source & start paying attention
