Course description

This interdisciplinary class uses the year 1968 to explore the intersection of memory, popular culture, art, history, philosophy, and radical politics. Students will explore a variety of narratives to consider one of the most eventful years of the 1960s and how it is remembered today. This course begins with the ‘Tet offensive’ in Vietnam, an event that shocked the American public and signalled the beginning of the end for America’s war in Vietnam. The course will investigate some of the main historical events, philosophical thought, and art movements which informed and embodied the revolution of 1968 in Paris, Berkley and beyond. Critical questions discussed include the relationship between freedom and determinism, imagination and language, self and society, popular culture and politics. Students will consider how these events have been remembered and chronicled by reading excerpts of autobiographies and other narratives to gain insight into the political, social and cultural changes of the 1960s. Students will also be introduced to iconic film and music that explore revolutionary ideas of personal and societal transformation.
We will focus on how and why 1968 provoked international political and social unrest by considering turmoil in the United States, Northern Ireland/Britain and Czechoslovakia. This will be done by addressing the Black Civil Rights movement and anti-Vietnam protests in the United States, the campaign for Civil Rights and outbreak of ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland and the attempt by Czechoslovakia to embrace political reform and ‘socialism with a human face’ behind the Cold War Iron Curtain. Students will read autobiography and commentary by figures including Tim O’Brien, Bernadette Devlin, Angela Davis and Vaclav Havel.

All students will be required to work with a partner during the semester and with that partner lead at least one of the weekly discussions. All students are expected to engage in these weekly discussions that are a critical part of the course. The course syllabus is an essential resource that contains readings, music and other material and should be consulted frequently. (This will be edited to be tailored to this version of the course) Students will be evaluated by the short papers (2 pages or 500 words each) they submit and class participation. Readings will be drawn from the bibliography at the end of this document as the semester progresses.

Class policies:
• No cell phones.
• As per VIU policy class attendance is mandatory.

Course Outline:

1) Week 1
Introduction to the course, Why 1968? Why memory?
Lecture/review: the Cold War In Asia, film clips addressing America’s War in Vietnam.
Homework due next week: review website; watch Apocalypse Now; (excerpt) read excerpt of a soldier’s narrative: Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried, and submit short (2 page) essay.

2) Week 2:
Lecture/discussion: Historical context and representations of America’s War in Vietnam
Discussion: film and popular culture/autobiography Apocalypse Now/The Things They Carried
Homework to be determined by next week’s field trip. Short essay # 1 due (hard copy)

3) Week 3
Lecture/review: International perspectives on America’s War in Vietnam.
Discussion: The print and broadcast media coverage of the war.
Short essay # 2 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: select readings from Jean-Paul Sartre, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Simone de Beauvoir (see website for details).

4) Week 4
Lecture/review: Student unrest: The ‘Paris Revolt’ and Chicago’s 1968 Democratic National Convention, ‘The Whole World is Watching’
Discussion: Bendit, Simone de Beauvoir and popular protest in Paris and Chicago.
Short essay # 3 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: readings including excerpts The Beatles and 1960’s Britain and lyrics of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

5) Week 5
Lecture/review: Radical politics and student protest in 1960s Italy.
Discussion/listening, music and lyrics of 1968 (Beatles, Dylan, Cohen)
Short essay # 4 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: Readings from Herbert Marcuse, ‘Essay on Liberation’, selections from Beneath the Paving Stones and Protest: The Aesthetics of Revolution.

6) Week 6
Philosophies of refusal, protest art, 1968 protests and riots.
Lecture/discussion: Herbert Marcuse, ‘Essay on Liberation’, selections from Beneath the Paving Stones and Protest: The Aesthetics of Revolution.
Short essay # 5 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: Reading on Civil Rights and Black Power.
Angela Davis autobiography.

Week 7:
Lecture/discussion: Civil Rights and Black Power.
Short essay # 6 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: selections from Foreign Correspondent- A memoir by H.D.S. Greenway; film Vietnam, a television history. Contribute to course blog.

Week 8
Discussion: Covering/remembering War: A correspondent recalls reporting from Vietnam.
Short essay # 7 due (hard copy)
Lecture/review: From Civil Rights to Armalites, the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’.
Homework for next week: read excerpts, Savage, The BBC’s Irish Troubles and Bernadette Devlin, The Price of my Soul.

Week 9
Covering/remembering War, journalists reporting from the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’
Lecture/review: Life behind the Cold War’s Iron Curtain.
Short essay # 8 due (hard copy)
Homework for next week: Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless.

Week 10
Remembering the Prague Spring: Czechoslovakia in 1968, Socialism with a human Face?
Discussion Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless.
Student team presentations: film and political dissent.
Homework for next week read: Selected readings from Psychedelic Art and Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind.

Week 11
Discussion/listening: psychedelic Art and Music
Student team presentations: Looking back, protest music of the Woodstock era, an exploration of poetry and lyrics.
Homework for next week: Readings on popular culture, music and the visual art of 1968.

Week 12
Student team presentations: ‘Remembering 1968’, through music and art.

Bibliography
The syllabus details the books and articles that we will use over the course of the semester.

Last updated: July 15, 2024