Course Description: This seminar will examine a range of writers who define the cultural matrix of the nineteen-sixties. Beginning with the bohemian protests of the Beasts and kindred analyses of the malaise of American cultural conformity, we investigate the struggle for expression of a number of cultural perspectives: the beginning of the women's movement, civil rights and Black Power, Chicago worker activism, gay rights, and the anti-War movement among others. We will follow the various "counter-cultures" from birth through maturity to decline (in some cases), and conclude with some attempt to assess the disputed legacy of the Sixties for literature and culture.

Evaluation Procedures: The course will require an oral presentation and write-up plus a substantial final research paper.

Reading List:

Ginsberg, Howl & Other Poems
Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Jones/Baraka, The Jones/Baraka Reader
Valdez, Early Works
Mailer, The Armies of the Night
Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America, etc.
Burroughs, The Wild Boys
Ginsberg, The Fall of America
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas