This course will place U.S. cultural history in a global context as we ask how people within and outside of the United States have imagined and debated the United States’ relationship with and role in the world. Focusing on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will ask how the global flows of people, products, and ideas have shaped both U.S. culture and the cultures of other countries, regions, and peoples. In particular, we will read recent scholarship, and examine primary sources including diplomatic sources, media coverage, various forms of popular culture, from literature and music to film and tourism to assess how they have served as spaces in which these ideas could be produced and debated. Topics may vary to focus on particular issues (e.g. Popular Culture) or U.S. engagements with particular regions (e.g. The Middle East).