ADEN 2266 Special Topics: Cultures and Countercultures of the 1960s

In this class, we explore the creativity, conflict, and contradictions of the 1960s in the United States across a symphonic range of voices that call out to us in speech, song, sermon, and story. Moving across the American landscape, we will encounter new viewpoints as they emerge from Harlem and downtown, Selma and Montgomery, Motown and Bronzeville, all the way to the grape fields of the Central Valley, the campus of UC Berkeley, and the occupation of Alcatraz. Throughout, our goal is to situate the texts we study within the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the period and then to analyze them, both as responses to their context and as unique textual, sonic, and visual forms bearing distinctive signatures of style and emphasis. Students will develop their own synthetic understanding of the 1960s in seminar-style class discussions. Assessments (take-home midterms and final exams) ask them to apply their existing knowledge to new texts and to evaluate them critically. In the final presentation and project, students will generate an original argument based upon their informed selection and of two objects of study: figures, forms, movements, or places.