4 responses to “Single Life and Marriage in the 20th Century”

1. 

   Svetlana Rasmussen

   August 24, 2012 at 2:44 pm

   Single Life and Marriage in the 20th Century America

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2. 

   Svetlana Rasmussen

   November 11, 2012 at 5:33 pm

   Actually, “Single Life and Marriage in the 20th Century White Middle and Upper-class America”

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   1. 

      Brian Sarnacki

      November 11, 2012 at 6:20 pm

      I had thought of this issue, particularly thinking I’d use episodes of various non-middle class and non-white family sitcoms (as well as addressing the issue through articles and lectures). If I ever actually teach the class I imagine the reading list would be tweaked, so if you have some good titles feel free to suggest them. But in the end, there was just a limit to how much effort I wanted to put into a fictional class

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      1. 

         Svetlana Rasmussen

         November 22, 2012 at 1:57 am

         Ok, I’m sorry, I guess I should have offered constructive criticism outright.

         I thought about it for the last few days and here is what I would have come up with if this class were mine (I guess I could make it my class, couldn’t I?)

         1) Think of a fictional class not in terms of books to read and things to watch, but the themes by weeks. So under your original title one could have come up with class themes like “bachelors at the turn of the century America” or “Working women in turn of the century America” or “Family life in Soviet Russia after WWII” (based on watching such wonderful films as “The Thief” (dir. Pavel Chukhrai – check this out, it is in the UNL library and I believe easily Netflixable/ordered) and “The Edge” (came out recently, but more fictionalized compared to “the Thief”)

         2) Either limited the title to America’s white middle class or tried to come up with the title that would be both engaging and more cosmopolitan
         Title 1 “Men and Women In and Out of Bed in America and Europe after WWII”
         Title 2 “Men, Women, Sex: Family and Social life in Europe and America after WWII”

         3) The best part: get students to read something and watch something for every theme covered in class. Aside from classics like “Leave it to Beaver” and the Russian ones I named, I recently discovered for myself a guy named Ed Wood and his film “Glen or Glenda.” I could also include watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 shorts “A Date with Your Family” and “Are You Ready for Marriage?” and a documentary on the “Little Red Schoolbook” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Schoolbook) , as well as chapters on the history of Russian sexuality in the 20th century from Igor Kon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Kon). Some episodes from Alfred Hitchcock Presents might also be useful – he has some nice stuff on the 50s’ sensibilities.

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