9/9
)
Van Gosse, "Consensus and Contradiction in Textbook Treatments of the Sixties," Journal of American History 82:2 (September 1995): 658-669

In what ways does the "brief history" presented in the Columbia Guide replicate or depart from the consensus that Van Gosse describes?

9/12
No reading assignment

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9/16
Farber and Bailey, Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s, parts 1 and 6 (pp. 1-76, 435-446

Track down an artifact of the sixties, and write a one-page essay on the ways in which it amplifies or perhaps contradicts the Columbia Guide's vision of the sixties. Come to the seminar meeting with both your artifact and your journal entry, which you'll present to the class.  

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9/19
Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi

In this autobiography, Anne Moody is highly critical--one might say hypercritical--of Black southerners of the older generation.  She defines the civil rights movement as a youth movement. Does that view of the movement make sense?

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9/23
Malcolm X, "Message to the Grass Roots" and "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Write this entry after class:  What were your images of Malcolm X before you read or heard the two speeches and saw Malcolm X: His Own Story? What are the most important things you know now that you didn't know before?

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9/26
Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle

Yuri Kochiyama defines herself as a "revolutionary nationalist." What does she mean by that?

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9/30
Selected poems from LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal, eds., Black Fire: an Anthology of Afro-American Writing
Selected poems from Toni Cade Bambara, The Black Woman: an Anthology

The poets whose work appears in these volumes defined themselves as revolutionary artists. In what ways was their poetry revolutionary?

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10/3
No journal assignment

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10/7
Young, Soul Power

Cynthia Young examines various political projects: a trip to Cuba by Harold Cruse, LeRoi Jones, and Robert F. Williams; the activities of the hospital workers union Local 1199; the Newsreel and Third World Newsreel film collectives; the revolutionary work of Angela Davis; and the L.A. Rebellion of radical filmmakers in the 1970s.  What did these various projects have in common?

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10/10
United Front Against Imperialism I: documents listed on the syllabus

Although these documents come from all over the world and were produced over the course of twenty-three years (1945-1967), they're remarkably similar in some respects.  What accounts for that?

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10/14
United Front Against Imperialism II: documents listed on the syllabus

How do these documents fit into the picture of the sixties that emerges from the international documents we discussed on
October 10?

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10/17
No journal assignment

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10/21
No journal assignment

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10/24
Dang, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace

How do you explain Dang Thuy Tram's perseverance in the face of the hardships she endured and the suffering she witnessed?

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10/28
O'Brien, The Things They Carried

War stories reveal as much about the people who tell them as about the events they describe. What do the stories told in this book reveal about the tellers?

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10/31
Documents from Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, eds., "Takin' It to the Streets": a Sixties Reader
Sir! No Sir! website: http://sirnosir.com

Most of the GIs who went to Vietnam had volunteered for military service.  Why did so many of them turn against the war?

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11/4
Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left

Find an artifact--text, image, music--of the politics of eros circa 1968-1970. Write a one-page analysis of this item.  Come to the seminar meeting with both your artifact and your journal entry, which you'll present to the class.  

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11/7
Rius, Marx for Beginners

In the United States and around the world, Marxism had a tremendous influence on radical activists and intellectuals of the sixties.  Even those with little or no sympathy for socialism picked up on Marxian terminology, concepts, and critiques of capitalism. Why was that?

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11/11
No journal assignment

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11/14
Selections from Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement - items listed on the syllabus
Selections from Alma Garcia, ed., Chicana Feminist Thought - items listed on the syllabus
Selections from Rachel DuPlessis and Ann Snitow, eds., The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women's Liberation - items listed on the syllabus

Compare the women's liberation movement to the feminism(s) you have encountered. What are the principal differences and similarities?

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11/18
Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman

Toward the end of the book, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz remembers the moment when she came to terms with the limitations of sixties movements in the United States:  "Finally, I acknowledged that the women's liberation movement as a whole was fundamentally reformist, not revolutionary.  I had expected something that it could not produce, any more that the antiwar, student, or civil rights movement could:  a socialist revolution." (377) What had led her to misjudge the potential for revolution, and why were her expectations unfulfilled?

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11/21
No journal assignment

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11/25
Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

Address the issue that Mary Crow Dog raises at the beginning of chapter 8: "I do not consider myself a radical or revolutionary. It is white people who put such labels on us. All we ever wanted was to be left alone, to live our lives as we see fit? To govern ourselves in reality and not just on paper." (111) Why has white society, most notably the U.S. government, regarded these desires as revolutionary?

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11/28
No journal assignment

12/2
García, Chicanismo

Ignacio García describes Chicano nationalism as, among other things, an interpretation of history.  What does he mean by that?

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12/5
From Andrés Torres and José Velázquez, eds., The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora:
- Pablo Guzman, "La Vida Pura: A Lord of the Barrio"
- Iris Morales, "¡PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE! The Young Lords"
Palante website at http://www.palante.org/

As the memoirs by Guzman and Morales attest, the turn toward Marxism-Leninism subjected radical activists to stifling discipline and hierarchical leadership. Still group after group made the turn with enthusiasm. What were the attractions of Marxist-Leninist styles of self-organization?

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12/9
Terence Kissack, "Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York's Gay Liberation Front, 1969-1971," Radical History Review 62 (Spring 1995)
Luis Aponte-Parés and Jorge Merced, "Páginas Omitídas: The Gay and Lesbian Presence," in Torres and Velázquez, eds., The Puerto Rican Movement
Diwas Kc, "Of Consciousness and Criticism: Identity in the Intersections of the Gay Liberation Front and Young Lords Party" (M.A. Thesis, Sarah Lawrence College, 2005)

Based on these case studies, what generalizations can we make about the gay and lesbian liberation movement's relationship to revolutionary nationalism?

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12/12
No journal assignment

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12/16
No journal assignment

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12/19
No journal assignment

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Over the winter break:
Ali, Street Fighting Years

Although he lived elsewhere, the United States looms very large in Ali's memoir of the sixties.  How do you account for that?

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