HUM 4.02 The Sixties
With the possible exception of the Civil War, no period of American history was more transformative than the era from 1963 to 1974, commonly referred to as "The Sixties." As the nation mourned its slain president, John F. Kennedy, American society was convulsed with social revolutions ranging from the civil rights movement and the assertion of women's equality and gay rights to the emergence of a counterculture and its assault on traditional institutions. The era witnessed both Freedom Summer and the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., the assassinations of two Kennedy brothers, the shootings at Kent State and the emergence of Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy and his Silent Majority.
This course will be organized chronologically, with approximately one week devoted to each of the years of "The Sixties." Each week, lectures will provide the historical context, supplemented by a sampling of the music, art, and literature characteristic of the era.
Instructor
Balmer