HIST 273 - U.S. Politics & Culture: The 1990s

This course will examine the recent history of partisan and popular politics, social movements, and transformation in U.S. political culture during the long 1990s. Key world events (the end of the Cold War U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, eastern Europe and Africa) shifted global alliances and inspired protests, while communication technologies (video via satellite, the Internet) made the world seem smaller. In domestic politics feminist, LGBT, civil rights, and environmental activists forged new ideologies and strategies while conservatives waged culture wars on political ground. We will pay particular attention to the two terms of Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Republican predecessors. Topics include responses to the ongoing AIDS crisis, enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), the reception of the televised Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, and the racial politics of the 1992 LA uprising.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2026-27
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.