Tuesday, November 30, 2010

8211: Mad (Men) Professor.


The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Northwestern University is offering a course on AMC series Mad Men titled, “Consumerism and Social Change in Mad Men America, 1960-1963.” The instructor claimed the program spotlights social reform movements and “shows the way the 1950s and 1960s blend together and how they related to each other.” Well, sure, in a culturally clueless, revisionist history kind of way.

Northwestern offering class on ‘Mad Men’

By Kara Spak

It’s not just Sterling Cooper employees who get to study the ins and outs of “Mad Men’s” dashing Don Draper.

Sixteen Northwestern University freshmen are watching the first season of the hit AMC series for a freshman seminar titled “Consumerism and Social Change in Mad Men America, 1960-1963.”

History professor and “Mad Men” fan Michael Allen, who teaches post-1945 U.S. history, said one of the main questions of that period is the origins of social reform movements, like civil rights and feminism.

“It shows the way the 1950s and 1960s blend together and how they related to each other,” Allen said of the show.

The first season of “Mad Men” was set in 1960. Allen expects to teach the seminar next year “if the show maintains its high quality.”

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