You Say You Want a Revolution? Society, Culture, and Politics in the 1960S AMS 370, Unique Number 30860
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You Say You Want a Revolution? Society, Culture, and Politics in the 1960s AMS 370, Unique number 30860 Professor: Julia Mickenberg Office: 420 Burdine Email: [email protected] Office phone: 232-2650 Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 3:20-4:50 Course Description In this class we will explore the major social movements and the political, cultural and intellectual developments of the 1960s, as well as their origins in the 1950s and earlier. These include: post-war liberalism; the Great Society and the War on Poverty; the New Left; the Free Speech Movement; the peace movement; the civil rights movement; nationalist and liberation movements among African Americans, Chicanos, Asian Americans, American Indians, gays and lesbians, and women; the counterculture; the conservative movement; and the environmental movement. Throughout, we shall seek to learn not only what happened, but also why it happened. Moreover, as members of a university community, we will be attentive to the question of how political and social activity in the 1960s, activity inspired largely by young people in and around universities, has affected our lives today and our relationship to politics and civic life. In the 1960s spirit of “participatory democracy” this class will be run as something of a cooperative enterprise. Rather than working on the model of expert teacher and student receptacles-of-knowledge, as students you will be actively contributing to the course content through your own research and presentations to the class. In other words, your active participation is essential to the success of the course. If you were hoping for a more passive learning experience, you should look elsewhere. Course Texts: Required: Andrew Jameson and Ron Eyerman, Seeds of the Sixties Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s Fourth edition Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin’ It To the Streets: A Sixties Reader. Third edition Roberta Price, Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture Additional packet of readings Films (some shown outside class, some shown only in clips) Berkeley in the Sixties Black Panthers San Francisco State on Strike Chicago 1968 Easy Rider The Woman’s Film Recommended Books: Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity; Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society Recommended films: Making Sense of the Sixties (PBS series), Eyes on the Prize (PBS series on civil rights) Requirements and Assignments: 1. Regular attendance—more than two absences in the class are likely to affect your grade; if you miss six or more classes you will fail the course. 2. Active, informed participation: be prepared to read and discuss approximately 120 pages per week. 3. Reading journal, in which you will record responses to assigned readings (topics noted throughout syllabus). I will collect individual entries sporadically, and mark them on a check, check minus, check plus scale based on the level of engagement with the readings that they show. Each entry should be dated, and should be between half a page and one page, single or double-spaced (typed). At the end of the semester you will read over your own, individual entries, and turn them in as a portfolio, along with a two-page reflection on common themes, issues, or other things you discovered by reading over your entries. The portfolio will receive a letter grade, but, again, the grade will be based primarily on the level of thoughtful engagement (that is, the writing can be much more informal and unstructured than in formal writing assignments). *Portfolio due Thursday, December 5th . 4. Team presentation: Fifteen to twenty-minute power-point presentation on a 1960s event, movement, issue, figure, or trend, focusing on media portrayals. Following initial background research, preparation generally involves scanning magazine and newspaper articles from the period, although you may also be able to find television and/or radio clips and some newspaper articles on line. You should not limit yourself to sources available on the internet: part of the point is for you to find sources that are a little harder to get to (use the library!). Each member of your team (2-3 people) should try to find at least three sources. The presentation should thus include at least six examples of media from across the political spectrum. You should try to include mainstream and alternative media sources, representing a range of political viewpoints. To do this you will look at newspapers, at magazines (which you can find through the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, available on-line through the library's website), and the underground newspaper microfilm collection (see http://catalog.lib.utexas.edu/search?/Xalternative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D/Xalt ernative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D&SUBKEY=alternative%20press/1%2C1381 %2C1381%2CB/frameset&FF=Xalternative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D&33%2C 33%2C). To find alternative news sources you can also look directly at sources such as The Berkeley Barb, The Rag (published in Austin); Ramparts, New Left Notes, Everywoman (1970-), Off Our Backs, Ms. and The Black Panther (1967-80). For right- wing sources you can draw upon the University of Iowa's right wing collection, using the guide (Microfilm 9208) to find relevant materials. The National Review is also a good source for conservative views. The Briscoe Center for American History has complete runs of the Daily Texan and the Rag, as well as many other sources that may be helpful. Contact Brenda Gunn ([email protected], 512-495-4385) or Margaret Schlankey ([email protected] 512-495-4537) for further information/assistance. As a team, you might divide the research tasks into several areas, eg. mainstream, alternative, and local coverage; and/or radical, conservative, and mainstream, recognizing that the alternative sources will be harder (but probably more fun) to find. Your presentation should analyze and draw conclusions about the media portrayal of a particular event or phenomenon. For events and phenomena not sufficiently covered in class readings, this may require giving some background, but your focus should be on media portrayal, rather than on chronicling a series of events. •Always be prepared to present on the Tuesday of your week, although some presentations—at instructor's discretion—will be pushed back to Thursdays. If you are absent or not prepared to present on the day of your presentation you will not receive credit. Because of the course's tight structure, there will be no opportunity to make up a missed presentation except under exceptional circumstances. •Presentations should end with questions for discussion that link your material to assigned readings. Presenters are expected to help facilitate discussion for the week they are presenting. •1-2 page handout/outline (with enough copies for all class members), bibliography, and print-out of power-point slides are due with presentation. Each member should hand in their own bibliography detailing the sources for your research. There are suggested presentation topics on the syllabus, but these are only suggestions; as long as your idea fits with a given week's readings and discussions, it is probably okay. LAITS offers free, formal power-point classes at regularly scheduled times, as well as (free) individual consultations by appointment. 5. Formal paper #1: You will write a 4-6 page paper focusing on and possibly expanding on the research that you conducted for the presentation. The paper should analyze relevant media coverage in detail, relating it to course readings, especially those due the week of your presentation. You may draw upon sources that team members in your group have found, but your paper should have its own focus and be quite different from other members of your team (eg. one group member’s paper could focus on the radical press, while another person focuses on responses in Texas news outlets, while another focuses on national, conservative news outlets). Obviously material in this paper will overlap with material in your presentation, but the paper can go into greater depth. Moreover, the form of this paper should be quite different from the presentation. In other words, your presentation should not involve simply reading your paper out loud. Those giving presentations before the paper is due can incorporate feedback on the presentation into their paper; those doing the paper before the presentation will be able to incorporate feedback on the paper into their presentation. Due Monday, October 14th at 5:00 pm. 7. Final term paper (7-10 pages). This paper can use the topic of your first formal paper as a starting point for researching 1960s subject in greater depth and making sense of it in light of major course themes; or you can choose something entirely new. Think of this assignment as a combination term paper/final exam essay question: your paper should be focused on a particular topic, with readings and research to back up your arguments, but it should also be broader in scope as far as thinking about why your topic is significant for a more general understanding of the 1960s. For instance, if you did a presentation on utopian communities, you could use this as a starting point for discussing the utopian impulse in the 1960s, noting how it manifested in, for instance, the counterculture and the New Left as well as in communal experiments. For this paper, you should draw directly upon readings from throughout the course (material from at least three weeks should be discussed) and include at least three scholarly sources from outside the course, as well as at least three primary sources, one or more of which should be from outside the course (using material from your presentation/paper #1 is fine).