Course Description and Requirements:

This capstone is a course on cultural and social movement and change in the sixties and the consequences of that change for contemporary American society. No decade is more frequently or more heatedly discussed and contested in terms of its effects on contemporary American life than that of the 1960s. Some view it as a period of profound and positive growth and community that was unfortunately disrupted by the coming of the disenchanted alienation of the "Me Decade" of the 1970s; others see it as the root of all our current social and political problems; still others see it merely as a time of weird hairstyles, fashion and music that can be appreciated for its campiness but not taken very seriously today.

We will examine this period closely, exploring its social and political movements, its cultural expressions and its contested meanings and legacies for the American landscape. More specifically, we will look at the historical context of 20th century America, and especially the post-WWII period, in order to situate what comes later, then discuss the rise of the civil rights movement, the "New Left," the student movement and other social and cultural manifestations of the period. A good portion of our focus will be on those movements and cultural changes that were associated with and greatly affected the American university, and the counter-culture will merit much attention. Though we will concentrate on events and situations in the United States, some comparison to events and situations in other countries will be made.

Though there is much history to be learned here, this is not a history course. Our perspective is that of cultural sociology.  We want not only to learn a lot about what actually happened in the 1960s; we want to learn some of the cultural and sociological arguments as to why it happened and what it meant for the people living in it, as well as for those of us living in its wake. So we will not be content to memorize a bunch of facts about e.g., who was important in the Civil Rights or student movements; we want to be able to begin to address why those movement emerged when they did, what drove them, how events and situations changed them, what ideas motivated them, what effects they had on the society around them.  This will entail addressing information from a wide array of sources and with a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.  

We will also be keenly interested in using the course material to reflect on the single question that I believe is of central importance in the cultural and social sciences, a question of great importance also in the humanities and physical sciences. This is the question of the relationship between a (social/cultural) 'object' (e.g., the political and cultural movements of the 1960s) and the person/s attempting to investigate and understand that 'object' (in this case, all of us). In all forms of knowledge, the relationship between the knower/subject and the known/object is important to theorize and understand; this is even more the case in the cultural and social sciences precisely because the knower is so intimately, inextricably a part of the known. So we will constantly be reflecting on the question of the way in which our own interests, agendas, perspectives affect our knowledge and understanding of the events and movements of the 1960s and vice versa. To a fair degree, this question will be highlighted by the two different 'textbooks' used: the Chalmers book attempts to look at the 'object' with some kind of 'detachment' and 'objectivity,' while the Gitlin book much more clearly positions its author within the object studied and therefore inherently criticizes 'detachment.'

There is a lot of reading in this course; you are well advised to do all of it.  It will be helpful to your written work, even if it proves impossible to get around to directly discussing each and every thing we read. 

The bulk of your grade (60%) will be made up of a collection of four (4) short (3-5 pages each) papers.  For three of these, I will provide you questions to which you will write a brief response informed by the reading. It is imperative in these papers that you cite and demonstrate understanding of readings; they are response papers, but your responses must be rooted in the literature on the topic.  

As you have six opportunities to do three papers here, late papers are absolutely unacceptable; if you miss one, do the next.  DO NOT GET YOURSELF INTO THE SITUATION LATE IN THE TERM OF REALIZING E.G., THERE ARE ONLY TWO PAPERS LEFT AND YOU HAVE YET TO DO EVEN ONE because I will be unsympathetic to your plight.

The final of the four short papers is a cultural sociological account of a film from or about the 1960s (a suggested list is included at the end of this paragraph; I will take suggestions for other options).  I will say more about what I want you to do here on the first day of class.

• A Few Possible Films for Assignment #4:  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; A Clockwork Orange; Easy Rider; Bonnie and Clyde; The Graduate; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?; Malcolm X; The Weather Underground; Berkeley in the Sixties; Them!; The Manchurian Candidate; In the Heat of the Night; The Dirty Dozen; if...; Help!; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Apartment; Dr. Strangelove; A Hard Day's Night; Midnight Cowboy; Planet of the Apes; Night of the Living Dead; Mississippi Burning; The Isle of Wight Festival

The remainder of your grade (40%) will be determined by a cultural sociological reading of some aspect of 'the sixties' in contemporary America that will take the form of a final paper.  We will discuss this more in class in the first two weeks of the term. 

As this is a seminar, it is anticipated that you will participate in class discussions.  If you choose not to do so, I will not force you.  However, frequent and intelligent participation will be grounds for boosting your grade up should your written work fall between two grades.