INTL 364 - Culture and Revolution

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This course examines the relationship between cultural and political change during three very different revolutions: France 1789, Russia 1917, Iran 1979. How do people change when governments are overturned? How do revolutions shape popular consciousness? Do people understand events as revolutionaries intend? To answer these questions, we will examine symbols and political ideologies, mass media, education, social identities, the culture of violence, popular participation and resistance, and other issues. Readings will include revolution-inspiring works of Voltaire and Rousseau, Marx and Lenin, Khomeini and the Koran. We will read sympathetic and antagonistic contemporary accounts, and look at popular culture to see how events were understood. Fashion and etiquette, comics and caricatures, movies and plays will be used. Alternate years. (4 Credits)