History 414: Oliver Stone, Hollywood and the World
Fall 2014
Dale Graden
Course Overview
August 25 Introduction and view Midnight Express
September 1, Labor Day, no class
South America
September 8 Salvador
September 15 South of the Border
September 22 Savages
Vietnam
September 29 Platoon
October 6 Born on the Fourth of July
October 13 Heaven and Earth
October 20 The Doors
Culture
October 27 Any Given Sunday
November 3 Wall Street
November 10 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
November 17 The People vs. Larry Flynt
November 24, Thanksgiving break, no class
Leadership
December 1 Nixon
December 8 W.
December 15-19, final exams
Books
Tentative readings
Robert Brent Toplin, Oliver Stone’s USA:
Film, History, and Controversy
Le Ly Hayslip, When Heaven and Earth
Changed Places
Susan Sherman, America’s Child: A Woman’s
Journey through the Radical Sixties
Joseph B. Frazier, El Salvador could be
Like That: A Memoir of War, Politics and Journalism on the Front-Row of the Last
Bloody Conflict of the US-Soviet Cold War
Robert Jensen, Arguing for our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialog
Recommended is Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, book and dvd
Recommended is an interview with Oliver Stone entitled "Oliver Stone's America" available in dvd and on reserve at UI library