Dr. SASmith
LIT 4535/summer A/period 2 (9:30-10:45)
Office: 4348 TUR/office hours  W 1:00-3:00)
email: ssmith@ufl.edu
homepage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ssmith

From the moment Russia, the former Soviet Union, launched a small satellite named "Sputnik," in October of 1957, America found itself in a "space-race" with its former WWII ally. Of course, America and the Soviet Union had been locked into a "Cold War" for some time by 1956, but once Sputnik orbited the earth, sending signals home, the two nations engaged in a "space race" to see which nation could reach the moon first. And thus from 1957 until the last man left the moon in 1972, American popular culture became deeply effected by what we now call the Space Age. Of course imagining a "trip to the moon," is a very old story; but once America decided to put all of its resources into actually going, popular culture followed suit. In this course we will re-examine the popular culture of the Space Age with a particular eye on how women were--and were not--imagined as part of that Age.

We will use a variety of text and media in order to construct a "space-age mythology," using Roland Barthes' Mythologies as a theoretical model for understanding how popular culture both constructs and comments upon historical events.

Requirements include a mid-term test and a final project.

Unit Breakdown

I  Sputnik Years 1957-1962
II Fly Me To the Moon  1963-68
III Lost In Space: The End of an Era  1969-72