HIST 001I. FYS: Star Wars and Culture Wars: The US in the 1970s

A cultural history of society, politics, and popular culture in the United States in the 1970s, asking why we can trace so much of our 21st-century world to that singular decade. Topics will include the Vietnam War, antiwar movement and draft resistance, Watergate, the energy crisis and the beginnings of climate change denial, the birth of the personal computer, feminism, reproductive freedom, gay liberation, race and debates over affirmative action, the rise of the “religious right” and neoliberalism, disco, punk rock, hip hop, Blaxploitation films, disaster films, and the movies of Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Altman, and more. This seminar will focus on analysis of primary sources and alternative methods of communicating history.
Concentrations: Culture and Identity
Social Sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity
Spring 2026. Dorsey.
Fall 2026. Dorsey.
Catalog chapter: History
Department website: https://swarthmore.edu/history

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