Through this semester-long two-period course framed through the examination of technological advances and their direct impacts on the literature and art of contemporary Western history, students will analyze the relationship and influence of each on the other. Focusing on primary historical documents, poetry, literature, and art, students will analyze key historical events and the technological advances that not only influence them but also result from them. Pairing their understanding of history with their analysis and engagement in literature and art, students will analyze fiction, nonfiction, and visual texts, writing frequently in ways that synthesize their understanding of the reciprocal influences that events, technological developments, and art have one one another. Students will demonstrate their understandings through a culminating project driven by their own inquiry and areas of interest within the focus of the course.