UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA School of History Main Series UG Examination 2016-17 SEX & DRUGS & ROCK N ROLL? SIXTIES BRITAIN HIS-6057Y Time allowed: 3 hours Answer THREE questions. Do not use the same material in the same way in more than one answer in this paper. Notes are not permitted in this examination. Do not turn over until you are told to do so by the Invigilator. HIS-6057Y Module Contact: Dr Ben Jones, HIS Copyright of the University of East Anglia Version 1
Page 2 1. How successful was the British New Left as both an intellectual tendency and a social movement? 2. To what extent was working-class life changed by post-war affluence? 3. Account for the origins and development of EITHER the counter-culture OR cultural studies. 4. Account for the transformation of urban Britain in the long 1960s (c. 1956-1976). 5. Why, and with what effect, did distinctive youth sub-cultures emerge in Britain from the 1950s? 6. What was the impact of EITHER New Commonwealth immigration OR decolonization on British politics and society? 7. Sexual intercourse began in nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles first LP. (Philip Larkin, Annus Mirabilis). Discuss with reference to sexual attitudes and practices during the period. 8. From Wolfenden to liberation. Is this a fair summary of gay politics from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s? 9. What impact did the civil rights movement have in the United Kingdom? 10. The personal is political. Discuss with reference to the emergence of the Women s Liberation Movement in Britain. 11. 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt (Fraser et al., 1988). Discuss. 12. How influential was the New Right in the years up to 1976? END OF PAPER HIS-6057Y Version 1
1 HIS 6057Y Sex and drugs and Rock n Roll? The Sixties Generic Report on the main examination 2016/17 As usual the better answers made an argument using evidence. The best answers achieved this by conveying a sense of both the historical context (what happened) and the historiography (what historians have written about what happened). Below is a summary of how candidates answered the questions. Where there is none, no one answered the question. 1. How successful was the British New Left as both an intellectual tendency and a social movement? (7 answers). This question produced some of the strongest answers across the exam. What distinguished first class answers from weaker ones was the following: the ability to convey what made the new left new in terms of theoretical orientation (e.g. socialist humanism, positive neutralism, their focus on culture and an eclectic Marxism) and organisation (looser networks, working within and outside party structures, an emphasis on direct action); had a discussion of other activities (e.g. the Left Clubs, housing activism) besides CND; thought in wider terms about intellectual legacies (cultural studies, the History Workshop movement) beyond New Left Review; discussed generational divides and the relationship between the New Left and the later social movements of the 1960s (e.g. the student movement, Second Wave Feminism); had a strong sense of the historiography. 2. To what extent was working class life changed by post-war affluence? (8 answers). The best accounts combined a discussion of the economic underpinnings of affluence with an analysis of the contemporary debates about affluence and embourgeoisement. These answers also thought about significant continuities in terms of elements of working class life (e.g. the structure of the family, patterns of leisure and sociability, aspirations for privacy and homeliness.) They were empirically rich (drawing on the social survey data, oral histories etc) and conveyed a strong sense of the historiography. 3. Account for the origins and development of either the counter-culture or cultural studies. (4 answers). It is important that some attempt is made to define the key terms here. There is scope here to discuss how cultural theorists like Williams, Hoggart and Hall understood culture and the degree to which they were indebted to or differed from more conservative thinkers like the Leavises and T.S. Eliot. Weaker counter culture answers tended to just describe the underground whereas stronger ones thought about what made up the counter culture in terms of ideology, practices and politics. 4. Account for the transformation of urban Britain in the long 1960s (c. 1956-1976). 5. Why, and with what effect, did distinctive youth sub-cultures emerge in Britain from the 1950s? (9 answers).
2 Weak answers failed to think about what made post-war youth subcultures distinctive. Or presented partial and confused accounts of the work of key theorists (e.g. Hebdidge, P. and S. Cohen). You need to do more than just mention affluence and describe the Teds or Mods to answer this question well. Too much emphasis was placed on Americanization, rather than thinking about what young people did with Rock n Roll or elements of American style, to produce something distinctive. The question also requires candidates to reflect on what sort of more uniform mass culture sub-cultures began to displace. 6. What was the impact of either New Commonwealth immigration or decolonization on British politics and society? (6 answers all focusing on immigration). Weaker answers provided narratives of key events/figures which equalled racism but didn t explain or analyse it in any way e.g. 1958 Teddy boys riot; 1964 Smethwick election; 1968 Powell s new racism. Strong answers though about the racialization of politics in terms of both white victimhood and Blackness as a political identity. These for example compared liberal race relations discourse and liberal activism (e.g. CARD and the Institute for race relations) with the emergence of Black Power politics on the ground. 7. Sexual intercourse began in nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles first LP. (Philip Larkin, Annus Mirabilis). Discuss with reference to sexual attitudes and practices during the period. (7 answers). Weaker answers tended to describe permissive legislation or mention that the pill had an impact. Strong answers both outlined how sexual practices changed (drawing on sex surveys, opinion polls, material on declining religious practice etc), and gave excellent accounts of the historiography. Weaker answers argued (incorrectly) that Langhamer proposes the emotional revolution as an alternative to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, whereas they are the latter is explanatory of the former. 8. From Wolfenden to liberation. Is this a fair summary of gay politics from the mid- 1950s to the mid-1970s? (6 answers). The best answers here actually answer the question and challenged its premise. Weaker answer failed to think about what gay liberation was, and what people actually did in terms of gay politics in the 1970s. i.e. what did the GLF or activists involved in CHE actually do? Most answers were poor on the historiography. 9. What impact did the civil rights movement have in the United Kingdom? 10. The personal is political. Discuss with reference to the emergence of the Women s Liberation Movement in Britain. 11. 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt (Fraser et al., 1988). Discuss. (2 answers). I had hoped that this question would provoke answers which discussed whether 1968 was a student revolt or a series of political shifts encompassing rising working class militancy and new critiques of existing structures of power which were manifest in identity politics (e.g. the
3 WLM, gay liberation, black power). However, most answers just described some of the differences between the student movements in e.g. the USA and France, achieving 2:2s and low 2:1s. 12. How influential was the New Right in the years up to 1976? (3 answers). The first class answers were conceptually sophisticated and empirically grounded. A discussion of the new right requires some definition of the term. Better answers worked with some version of Hall s authoritarian populism idea and ensured that the populist strands of New Right embodied by the likes of Enoch Powell and Mary Whitehouse were granted the same weight as discussions of neoliberal economics.