HIST 4907 The Radical Sixties Alhelí Alvarado Columbia University

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1 HIST 4907 The Radical Sixties Alhelí Alvarado Columbia University The Sixties in Global Perspective: Intellectual Origins, Cultural History and Political Legacies will examine the lives of key militant leaders, social and cultural movements, and intellectual figures that defined the identity of the radical 1960s at a global level. This seminar course will cover a period beginning in 1945 and concluding in 2011, from the end of the Second World War to the formation of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The seminar will explore key geographic areas affected by the political and cultural effervescence of the times: North America (the United States), Western Europe (France/Italy/West Germany), North Africa (Algeria), Asia (China/Vietnam) and Latin America (Cuba/Mexico). The course will require attentive study of primary sources (manifestos, documents, original texts, visual material and film excerpts) in combination with assigned chapters from selected secondary sources. Students will learn about the cultural, political and philosophical manifestations of the radical sixties, as well as reflect on the ongoing legacies of the historical period. Objectives This course will enrich the existent curriculum in the field of international history, intellectual and cultural history, and international politics. The course is contributing to a global analysis of the historical period in question, emphasizing the connections between different world regions, as well as different fields of human activity and production. Students will explore the relations between activism and 1

2 philosophy, arts and politics, gender, psychoanalysis and radical action, the West and the colonized. This course will fulfill the need to offer an interdisciplinary and multi- regional study of the recurrent intersections between militancy, public policy, political philosophy and culture during the 1960s. From Paris to Havana, from Berkeley to Rio de Janeiro, from Hanoi to Mexico City, the awakening of political activism at an international sphere redefined the local and global understanding of civil society, individual rights and democratic culture. The reinvention of democracy as a condition for radical freedom was exceptional to the era of the sixties when militants, philosophers and grassroots collaborated in the formation of movements of protests against state authority, capitalism, imperialism, racial divisions, and gender inequality. Artists in the fields of cinema and music were also central in conveying a message of protest against multiple forms of authoritarianism, denouncing the burden of tradition and obsolete social conventions. The adoption of spiritual traditions from the East in the West also contributed to the reinterpretation of the role of individuals in society. This seminar will offer an in- depth analysis of the multiple manifestations of the sixties radical identities in different geographic and social contexts. The course s interdisciplinary approach will enlighten students on the connections between seemingly different facets in society, emphasizing the ongoing dialogues between the multiple spheres of human activity- political militancy, philosophical reflection and artistic creativity. Grading: The breakdown of the seminar will consist of Active Class Participation 15% Weekly Reading Responses and Newspaper Article Discussion 15% Bibliography and Abstract of Final Essay 10% (2-3 pp. Due on Week 4, Session 8) One Oral Presentation 20% (10-15 minutes, Scheduled for Week 6, Sessions 11 & 12) Final Research Essay 40% (15-20 pages, Due: Week 6, Session 12) Newspaper Reading Prior to each session, you are required choose one article from the New York Times that is relevant to our topic of discussion, such as international conflict, social protests and alternative cultural trends. You will to me your choice of article and briefly discuss the connection between our session s topic and the contemporary issue discussed in The New York Times. : will be available at Bookculture; supplementary material will be posted on the course s website. Week by week list of class topics: The Radical Sixties Week 1: The Historical Precedents of the Sixties: A Global Approach Session 1: The World after 1945 and The Spirit of 1968 Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Authoritarianism American and European Hegemony Communes, Anti- Colonialism and the Concept of Civil Rights 2

3 Michael Scott Christofferson, Anti- totalitarianism against the Revolutionary Tradition, French Intellectuals against the Left (Berghahn Books, 2004) Julian Bourg, Cobblestone Beaches, From Revolution to Ethics (McGill- Queen s University Press, 2007) Kristin Ross, Forms and Practices, Different Windows, Same Faces, May 68 and its Afterlives (University of Chicago Press, 2002) Session 2: The Formation of a New Political Avant- Garde: New Militancy The Nationalist Fervor of the Algerian Liberation Front Latin American Anti- Imperialism: The Cuban Revolution Popular Empowerment and the Anti- Colonial Strife: East Asia & Africa Diana Sorensen, The Cuban Revolution and Che Guevara, Scenes from the Latin American Sixties (Stanford University Press, 2007) Pierre Bourdieu, Colonization, Culture and Society, Algerian Sketches (Polity, 2013) Ho Chi Mihn, Down with Colonialism, Walden Bello, ed. (Verso Books, 2007) Film Excerpts from Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, dir.) Week 2: Philosophical Discourses of the New Political Avant- Garde Session 3: Philosophy as Social Criticism The Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse: One- Dimensional Man The Problem of Consumer Society: Guy Debord s Society of the Spectacle The Rejection of the Old Avant- Garde: Daniel Cohn- Bendit Herbert Marcuse, One- Dimensional Society, One Dimensional Man (Beacon Press, 1991) Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Zone Books, 1995) Daniel Cohn- Bendit, The Student Revolt, The Strategy of the State, Obsolete Communism (AK Press, 2000) Session 4: Civil Rights Militancy, Anti- Colonialism and Guerrillas 3

4 The Civil Rights Movement in America: Martin Luther King Latin America s Anti- Americanism: The Cuban Revolution s the New Man United States of America: The Weather Underground Ernesto Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara Reader (Ocean Press, 2003) Fidel Castro, Words to Intellectuals, Manifesto for the Liberation of Latin America, On the Latin American Revolution, Fidel Castro Reader (Ocean Press, 2007) Henry Hampton, Freedom Rides, 1961, Malcolm X, Birth of the Black Panthers, The Black Panthers, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement (Bantam, 1991) Jeremy Varon, Agents of Necessity: Weatherman, Red Army Faction and the Turn to Violence, Bringing the War Home (University of California Press, 2004) Week 3: 1968 s Cultural Revolution Session 5: Music, Feminism, Sexual Revolution Musical Counter- Culture: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan Betty Friedan and Feminism in America: The Feminine Mystique (1963) Sexual Rights and Individual Freedom: History of Reproductive Rights Alice Echols, Magnetized into Music, On the Edges of America, Trading her Tomorrows, Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (Henry Holt, 2000) Susan Sontag, What s Happening in America, Styles of the Radical Will (Picador, 2002) Betty Friedan, The Happy Housewife Heroine, The Crisis in Woman s Identity, The Functional Freeze, the Feminine Protest, The Feminine Mystique (Norton, 2013) Wilhelm Reich, The Institution of Compulsory Marriage, The Influence of Conservative Sexual Morality, The Abolition of the Family, The Sexual Revolution (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1963) Barbara Crow ed., The Personal is Political, Toward a Female Liberation Movement, Theory of Sexual Politics, The Bitch Manifesto, Radical Women Manifesto, Consciousness, Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader (New York University Press, 2000) 4

5 Session 6: Icons of the Sixties: Art New York in the 1960s Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini: Italian Cinema Tropicália, Bossa Nova and the Musical Avant- Garde in Brazil Greil Marcus, Prologue, The Last Sex Pistols Concert, Faces, Legends of Freedom, The Art of Yesterday s Crash, Lipstick Traces (Harvard University Press, 2009) Caetano Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil (Da Capo Press, 2003) Federico Fellini, Letter to a Marxist Critic, Letter to a Jesuit Priest, Notes on Censorship, Fellini on Fellini (Da Capo Press, 1996) Pier Paolo Pasolini, Civil War, The Hippies Speech, The Power without a Face, Let s Unite, In Danger (City Lights Publishers, 2010) Week 4: Icons of the Sixties: Intellectuals and the Field of Theory Session 7: The Field of Theory in France Louis Althusser: Structuralism Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari: Schizo- Analysis Derrida, Kristeva: Deconstruction Jacques Derrida, The Theory of Writing, Of Grammatology University Press, 1998) (Johns Hopkins Julia Kristeva, The Semiotic and the Symbolic, Revolution in Poetic Language (Columbia University Press, 1984) Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Mapping Ideology (Slavoj Zizek, ed., Verso, 2012) Julian Bourg, Spinoza on Prozac, From Revolution to Ethics (McGill- Queen s University Press, 2007) Session 8: New Interpreters of Reality Foucault s Theory of Knowledge Claude Lévi- Strauss Anthropology 5

6 Lacan s Psychoanalysis Michel Foucault, We Other Victorians, The Foucault Reader (Pantheon, 1984) Michel Foucault, Las Meninas, The Limits of Representation, The Human Sciences, The Order of Things (Vintage, 1994) Claude Levi- Strauss, The Meeting of Myth and Science, Primitive Thinking and the Civilized Mind, Myth and Meaning (Schocken Press, 1995) Jacques Lacan, Excommunication, Analysis and Truth, The Subject and the Other, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Norton, 1998) François Dosse, Kristeva and Barthes Reborn, Nanterre- Madness, Lacan: Structures have taken the Streets!, Foucault and the Deconstruction of History, History of Structuralism (University of Minnesota Press, 1998) Week 5: Othering the West Session 9: Radical Counter- Culture in Latin America Elvis, Rock n Roll and Alternative Music Circles Fashion, Hairstyles, Anarchism A reading of Bolaño s Savage Detectives (Part One) : Roberto Bolaño, Part One, Savage Detectives (Natasha Wimmen, trans.; Picador, 2008) Eric Zolov, Rebeldismo in the Revolutionary Family, La Onda, The Avándaro Rock Festival Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (University of California Press, 1999) Paula Reed, Fifty Fashion Looks that Changed the 1960s (Conran, 2012) Session 10: Orientalizing America Hippies, Yogis and Alternative Spirituality Hallucinatory Experiences and the Quest for Other Realities Critique of Material Culture : Ann Charters, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, The Portable Beat Reader (Penguin Classics, 2003) 6

7 Micah, Issitt, Sex and the Hip Body, Drugs and the Search for Enlightenment, Hippies: A Guide to an American Subculture (Greenwood, 2009) Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain, The Roots of Psychedelia, Acid Dreams (Grove Press, 1994) Elizabeth de Michelis, Roots of Modern Yoga, Twentieth- Century Developments of Modern Yoga, A History of Modern Yoga (Continuum, 2005) Week 6: Legacies of the Sixties Session 11: Politics of Memory Theory and Practice of Militancy: Carlos the Jackal, a Case Study Oral Presentations : John Follain, Jackal: The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Arcade Publishing, 2011) Excerpts from the film Carlos (2010, Olivier Assayas, dir.) Session 12: The Children of the Sixties The Arab Spring Occupy Wall Street Oral Presentations Lin Noueihed The Roots of Rage, The Battleground, The Battle for the Arab Spring (Yale University Press, 2012) Mark Bray, Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street (Zero Books, 2013) David Graeber, 1971: The Beginning of Something Yet to be Determined, Debt (Melville House, 2012) 7