U.S. in the 1960s

HIST 352, By Steven Beda

Term: Winter 2009

Exploration of a watershed era: civil rights, student activism, educational crisis, Vietnam War, gender revolution, environmentalism.

This course will be a place to read, think, and talk about the 1960s in two particular ways: as a watershed in modern U.S. history and as an era whose contested reputation continues to preoccupy scholars and observers. Issues and images associated with the 1960s inspire some Americans, trouble others, and serve as reference points for us all. Why is this the case? The course will investigate how the history of the 1960s has been challenged and changed by recent scholarship. Why, for example, is a period still popularly perceived as a progressive era of civil rights victories, student activism, feminist revolution, and counter-culture emerging as a turning point in the histories of racial anti-liberalism, educational crisis, and cultural and political conservatism? How can we come to terms with the stunning defeat in Vietnam in the post-1989 era of Cold War triumphalism and the post-2001 era of global war on terror? Interpretive fashions have changed, but the consensus points to the 1960s as a critical dividing line in modern U.S. history, culture and politics. What exactly do the 1960s represent? Are the 1960s even over yet?

4 credits