HIST 105-05, Americans in Paris, Spring 2012

Abstract

This course examines the relationship between France and the US in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For many years, Americans have been fascinated with France as a land of art, literature, philosophy, and exciting political ideas, among other things. Likewise, the French have long been interested in America as a signal of things to come and, more recently, as the source for much of the worldwide mass culture of the late twentieth century (from the latest Hollywood movies to McDonald’s to rap music). How has this relationship evolved over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and what does it tell us about ways in which the “Old World” of Europe and the “New World” of America have come to interact? How do other places serve as mirrors for our own culture and experience? Why have these two nations shared such a close relationship in the minds of their inhabitants during the twentieth century?