WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2018-2019       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
The Communist Experience in the 20th Century

HIST 353
Spring 2019 not offered
Crosslisting: REES 353
Certificates: International Relations

Two decades have passed since the collapse of Communism, its empire, and its utopian vision of the kingdom of heaven on Earth. Indeed, the Communist collapse was heralded as not just the end of the Cold War but the end of history itself. Yet how do we understand the nature of the communist way of life, the causes of its decline, and the meaning of its demise? This course will trace the development of Communism's answer to capitalist modernity from the 1917 Revolution through the Soviet collapse. It will seek to shed light on the birth, life, and death of Communist modernity through history, literature, and art, by exploring the world socialism created as an ideological model and a way of life. The emphasis of the course will be on the lived experience of Communism, primarily within the Soviet Union, but also beyond it (in Eastern Europe and Asia). In the global conflict between capitalism and Communism, how did people understand the competing demands of ideology and reality, individual and society, private and public, production and consumption, labor and leisure? How did the state manage the contradictions that arose when lofty ideologies encountered everyday life, and how did citizens make sense of these ideological transformations? What killed Communism: bombs and diplomacy, or refrigerators and Finnish shoes?
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST
Course Format: LectureGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (HIST-MN)(HIST)(REES-MN)(REES-Social Sci)

Last Updated on DEC-02-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459