#23 The Cultural Revolution of the Sixties:  Its Roots and Legacies

Friday – 10:00 a.m.                                                          Winter Term 2009
Coordinator:  Jill Spuehler                                           Co-coordinator:  Katie McGovern

Course Description
Was the phenomenon in fact so extraordinary as
                   contemporaries supposed?  Was it as unprecedented,
                   as profoundly subversive and world-changing as they
                   thought?  What was its true significance, its real nature,
                   what were the permanent effects of this strange and
                   terrifying revolution?  What exactly did it destroy, and
                   what did it create?
Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1856

American society is well into the 40th anniversary of the cultural revolution of the sixties. What was the revolution really about? 
What did it change in American society?  We will examine the social and political movements of the decade to better understand their:

1) Inception:  What were the prior conditions that inspired these calls for change?  Who
were the spokesmen and women for the movements?

2) Evolution:  How have the movements changed over the last forty years?

3) Status today:  How do we evaluate the legacy?  We will address the cultural shifts in values and beliefs of these movements and their impact on our institutions today.          

Topics
1. Before the Revolution:  the 50s.  Defining and exploring culture
2. Origin and issues of the Civil Rights Movement
3. Evolution and legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
4. The Women’s Movement:  beginning and leaders
5. The Women’s Movement:  changes and legacy
6. The Counterculture:  drugs and lifestyles
7. Art and music in the 60s
8. The Human Potential Movement
9. Changes in Religious Institutions:  from churches to cults
10. Education:  60s impact on higher education
11. The Greening of America:  the Environmental Movement
12. Changes in our political life
13. 60s influence on the economy and labor
14. Where are we now?  Where are we going?

Bibliography

Core Books:
Bailey, Beth and Farber, David.  The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s.  Columbia            University Press, 2001.
Charters, Ann.  The Portable Sixties Reader.  Penguin Books, 2003.

Other:
Benedict, Ruth.  Patterns of Culture.  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959.
Bennett, William J.  America, The Last Best Hope, Vol.II.  Thomas Nelson, 2007.
Kimball, Roger.  The Long March:  How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed      America.  Encounter Books, 2000.
Roszak,Theodore.  The Making of a Counter Culture.  Doubleday, 1960.
Special edition of Time: 40th Anniversary: 1968, April, 2008. Time Books Inc.,2008.

Pre-Meeting:  Friday, December 12, 2008, 10:00 a.m.