Fall 2005
Dr. Edmund F. Wehrle
|
|
|
|
The Instructor:“I believe that the most practical and hopeful compass by which to guide the American ship of state is the philosophy of liberalism. Virtually every step forward in our history has been a liberal initiative taken over conservative opposition: civil rights, Social Security, Medicare, rural electrification, the establishment of a minimum wage, collective bargaining the Pure Food and Drug Act…”
-George McGovern“There’s a time when the operations of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve go to indicate to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machines will be prevented from working at all.”
-Mario Savio
Dr. Edmund F. Wehrle
2576 Coleman Hall
581-6372
cfefw@eiu.edu
Office hours: 12-1pm, MWF and by appointment
Liberalism, the dominant political ideology of the country since the New Deal era, came under rapid fire during the 1960s and 1970s. The course will examine the shifting U.S. political, social, economic, and cultural landscape of the period—with special attention to the rise and fall of liberalism.
Class Meetings:
August 22 Introduction
Perlstein, “Who Owns the Sixties?”
Gerstle, “The Protean Character of Liberalism”August 29 The Civil Rights Movement I
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
MLK Roundtable in the JAHSeptember 12 The Civil Rights Movement II
Thomas Sugrue, “Crabgrass-roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction Against Liberalism in the Urban North”
Romano, “African Diplomats, the State Department, and Civil Rights”
Randall Kennedy, “Reflections on Black Power”
Cass Sunstein, “What the Civil Rights Movement was all about”
Kirk, "The State of Art: MLK"
Arnold Hirsch, “Massive Resistance in the Urban North”September 19 The Riddle of LBJ
Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism
Ira Katznelson, “Was the Great Society a Lost Opportunity”
Pycior, "Meeting the Challenge of LBJ"
Robert Collins, “Growth Liberalism”September 26 Student Movement and Counterculture I
Gitlin, The Sixties, Parts 1&2
Hayden, "Reflections"
Rome, "Give Earth a Chance"
Isserman and Kazin, “Failure and Success of the New Radicalism”Octorber 3 Student Movement and Counterculture II
Gitlin, The Sixties, Parts 3&4
Horowitz and Collier, “Destructive Generation”
Walter Berman, “The Assault on the University: Then and Now”
Jeffrey Herf, “The New Left and Its Fading Aura”
Hall, "On the Trail of the Panthers"
Hunt, “When Did the Sixties Happen?”October 10 Counterculture to Culture
Terry Anderson, “New American Revolution: The Movement and Business”
George Lipsitz, “Who Will Stop the Rain, Youth Culture, Rock ‘n Roll, and Social Crisis”
David Farber, The Age of Great Dreams, Chapters 3&8
Graham, "Flaunting the Freak Flag"
James Winders, “Put on the Shoes and Think about the Blues: Sixties Bohemianism and Southern Self-Hatred”October 17 Women’s Movement
Sara Evans, Personal Politics
Anne Eccolls, “Nothing Distant About It”
Jeremy Rabkin, “Feminism: Where the Spirit of the 60s Lives On”October 29 Appraising Nixon
Joan Hoff, Reconsidering Nixon
Riccio, "Nixon Reconsidered: The Conservative as Liberal?"
Kutler, “The Inescapability of Watergate”October 31 The Blue-Collar Blues
Kenneth Heineman, “The Silent Majority Speaks”
Freeman, “Hardhats: Construction Workers, Manliness, and the 1970s Pro-War Demonstration”
Reider, “The Rise of the ‘Silent Majority’”
Durr, “When Southern Politics Came North”November 7 The Rise of Conservativism
Edsall, “Realignment”
AHR Forum on Conservativism
Sheldon Wolin, “Destructive Sixties and Postmodern Conservativism”
Nickerson, "The Power of a Morally Indignant Woman"
David Horowitz, “White Southern Alienation and Civil Rights: Response to Corporate Liberalism”
November 14 The 70s: Did Anything Happen?
Schulman,The 70s
Wolfe, "Stiffened Gibblets"
November 28 Student Papers
Alan Brinkley, “Writing the History of Contemporary America”December 5 Student Papers
Paper 1. Choose one individual analyzed in our readings for August 29 or September 12
September 12 . Argue that he or she represents the essence of the Civil Rights Movement—the key to understanding its nature and impact. Due September 12.Paper 2. Several of the authors featured in our Students Movement/Women’s Movement readings wrote from their own experience—actually participated in the some of the events they chronicle. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of to this type of “personal history.” Due October 17.
Paper 3. Bruce Schulman argues that LBJ exemplified American liberalism. Based on your reading of Hoff and Kutler, discuss Nixon and liberalism (using Schulman’s definition of liberalism or your own clearly explained definition). Due October 31.
Paper 4. Research Design for Term Paper (includes one page summary for fellow students to be discussed November 28 and December 5). Due November 14.
Research Paper. A 12-20 pages research paper, based partly on primary sources, treating some issue related to the period and topics examined in this course. Citations must be presented in Chicago Manual of Style format. Topic should be chosen in consultation with instructor and will be subject of research design. Due circa December 5.
**The instructor reserves the right to modify the syllabus as the semester progresses as he thinks it necessary.
Paper 1 10%
Paper 2 10%
Paper 3 10%
Paper 4 10%
Participation 20%
Research Paper 40%