American Foreign Policy: A Video History
The history of American foreign policy is studied on campuses throughout the country, with distinguished programs at the undergraduate and graduate level at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Rutgers, Texas, Yale, and other institutions. Although in their daily lives students receive information about contemporary American foreign policy (the war on terror, arms treaties, environmental accords) through online and moving-image media, the overwhelming majority of assets deployed in teaching and learning U.S. foreign relations in history, political science, law and economics is textual in nature.
Intelligent Television is mobilizing new assets for the teaching and study of American foreign policy, assembling and producing new and archival moving image and recorded sound assets into a rich and openly available repository to help make the teaching and study of U.S. foreign policy more engaging for university students in the age of Google Video, the Apple iPod, and Facebook.
The project will, in its first phase, assemble and produce short video pieces explaining a document, image, or artifact central to the history of American foreign relations. Produced for university students, but extensible to those interested in education worldwide, the project will build upon the unique relationships and knowledge that its production partners bring, including broad experience with the subject and with documentary producers and cinematographers, electronic publishers, editorial advisors, and faculty and students.
Stanford University Law Professor and media expert Larry Lessig recently pronounced that written words are the “Latin of our time”—that the new vernacular is video and sound; the new tools of creativity are centered here; and new literacy requires one to be able to use these tools to remix and create new works. Is there any area of American life where there is more in need of greater engagement? How did we arrive in a war where we are spending billions of dollars a day? The project recognizes that more and more moving images are being deployed in the field of education, consumed and—increasingly—produced in the academy. The project intends to provide university students with a richer understanding of the role the United States plays in the world today—the activities of our government, industry, media, and culture that together comprise, influence, and change because of American foreign policy—and a more vibrant educational experience at the same time.
