The Literature of Cold War America (EASM157)

30 credits

This module seeks to critically assess the ways in which U.S. writers negotiated the domestic and international politics of the Cold War, as well as the extent to which the long-running conflict impacted more widely on U.S. intellectual and cultural life, not least in the rise of American Studies itself as an academic discipline. Emphasising and interrogating some influential early paradigms in Cold War studies – specifically the “containment model” articulated by scholars such as Elaine Tyler May and Alan Nadel – and engaging with more recent work in global Cold War Studies, the module will introduce you to the range and diversity of writing that emerged from the United States during the Cold War era.

The module may be taken as part of the broad M.A. in English Literary Studies, but it is also a qualifying module for the American and Atlantic Studies Pathway.