This course will examine the complexities and contradictions of US Cold War culture. Through literary texts featuring a diverse range of protagonists, we will engage characters who question the status quo, often by exploring the limits and exclusions of national belonging in this period. Though the 1950s saw the rise of McCarthyism and the threat of nuclear war, landmark events in these years also galvanized the civil rights movement and demands for social justice. Course readings in Cold War fiction, drama, and poetry will demonstrate how mainstream social identities conditioned by racial, class, gender and sexual norms, were being challenged and subverted in ways that would intensify and take on collective expression in the 1960s. Authors studied may include: Gwendolyn Brooks, William Demby, Lorraine Hansberry, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Carson McCullers, Mitsuye Yamada, Sylvia Plath, and John Okada. Not offered 2018-19.