This seminar will examine the social movements that came to the fore in the year that began with the Tet Offensive and ended with the launch around the moon. The first three classes will examine the antiwar, civil rights, and women’s movements using images and texts to consider what the ‘60s came to represent. In our last class we will consider how the divisions between the counterculture and “moral majority” led to the election of Richard Nixon—and to the antigovernment sentiments that have spread from left to right in recent decades. In the last class we will also examine the environmental movement as a final case to reflect upon how our political consciousness has evolved over the last half-century as guerilla wars have continued to rage on the evening news, minorities and women have struggled to claim their rights, and our sense of self has become ever more mediated.
