Mad Men: Gender, Work and U.S. Culture

GSF 390S

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This course will focus on the popular television series Mad Men, which charts the development of American advertising across the second half of the twentieth century.  Questions guiding the course will be:  How does gender get defined through work and how is work  gendered?  What kinds of jobs are men and women expected to perform?  What can Mad Men tell us about relations among gender, work, and capitalism?  How does the show’s primary focus on white Americans inflect its portrayal of gender and work? We will consistently route these questions through Mad Men’s representation of feminism and its nuanced portrayal of feminism’s impact on the lives and perspectives of the show’s characters.