HISTORY
546
AMERICA 1975-1985:
HEDONISM, MORALISM, AND MILITARISM
Scheduling
number: 448084
Class
meets Tuesday evenings 6-9 pm in 415 Weaver
Philip
Jenkins 407
Weaver Building
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p/jpj1/
The Course
Most
Americans are familiar with the idea of the 1960s as a social earthquake, a
far-reaching revolution that transformed every aspect of society, politics and
morality. This change reached its height between about 1965 and 1975, the age
of Vietnam and Watergate, of Woodstock and the sexual revolution. Much less
attention is paid to the equally striking social counter-revolution that
occurred on the following decade, roughly 1975-1985, which challenged the
radical changes that emerged during the 1960s, and which succeeded in reversing
many of these developments. This course considers the social counter-revolution
of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the social movement that reached its culmination
with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and which had dramatic effects on
politics and foreign policy, on religion and family life, on attitudes towards
gender and sexuality, on law enforcement and internal security. Throughout, we
will make extensive use of popular culture, particularly literary and cinematic
representations, to understand political and social developments.
The thought
of doing a course on this period might initially seem odd, not least because in
so many history departments, ÒAmerican historyÓ seems to end around 1975, with
the closing phase of the Vietnam War. This is odd, since people were already
offering courses on Òthe sixtiesÓ within a couple of years after the end of
that over-hyped decade. As we will see though, a case can be made that the US
of the present is far more a product of the 1975-85 era than of the
better-known 1960s. The advantage of studying the later period is that the
issues are so much less defined in scholarly terms, giving us a chance to
undertake some pioneering work.
The
course will take the format of a reading and discussion seminar. I expect that
each week, students will come to class having read a text or a common set of
chapters. In addition, I will be allotting particular books to people, either
as individuals or small groups, so that they can be responsible for leading
discussion about those particular issues. Each student should come to class
with open-ended questions around which the discussion of the readings should be
organized.
Each
student will write a major paper on a topic related to problems and
controversies raised in the readings. The paper (about 20-25 typed pages, fully
referenced) will analyze some issue related to the politics, culture, thought
or social developments of the period under discussion. Please note that this
period is quite under-worked, and there are substantial opportunities to maker
an original contribution to knowledge, so choose a topic in which you can make
substantial use of primary sources and popular culture materials. One
extraordinarily important source is Congressional hearings and committee
transactions: I will discuss these in detail, but you will be impressed how
many useful incidental texts and miscellaneous materials are often attached to
testimony. Choose your topic wisely, and a few such hearings should give you a
well-documented account of a particular issue.
My
earnest (and quite realistic) hope is that your written work will be good
enough to be submitted to a journal for publication. I will be asking each
participant to make a presentation based on the paper to the whole group during
April. Each student will have half an hour to present his/her research and the
questions raised.
One
note about choice of topics. Though this is a history course, that does not
mean that people have to apply strictly historical methodologies, still less
political history. I am open to a wide range of themes – social,
cultural, rhetorical, gender, and so on. Students from disciplines such as English,
Political Science, Sociology, and Communication Arts and Sciences are all
encouraged to take the course.
Besides
the main research paper, I want you to write a paper of about 1,200 words on
any one fictional work published in the period 1975-85, describing the
content of the work, and discussing it critically as a historical source for
the period in question. By this, I mean either a film or a book. You might
comment, for example, on how the work reflects the mood of the society at the
particular time it was written; what it reveals about attitudes towards race,
class or gender; and/or what it suggests about the political attitudes of the
time. Basically, I want to know what a historian studying this period might
learn from this film or book. If you choose to write on a book, please note
that none of these novels is on reserve, since they should all be easy to get
in cheap editions from any good bookstore. If you cannot get hold of a library
copy, please be sure to order a copy of your own in lots of time. Any good
bookstore should be able to get a copy within a week or two at most. These are
also exactly the sort of items that will be available second-hand at WebsterÕs
Bookstore on Allen Street.
Regular
class attendance and participation are of course expected as a necessary
element of the final grade.
In
summary, the grade will be derived as follows:
paper
-
60%
film/book
review -
20%
attendance
and participation -
10%
presentation
-
10%
100%
Required
Readings
- all should be in paperback.
Beth Bailey And David Farber, ed., America In The Seventies (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2004).
ISBN: 0700613277
Thomas Byrne Edsall with Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction (New York:
Norton, 1991).
ISBN: 0393309037
William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books 1995)
ISBN: 0441569595
Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine, eds., Crack in America (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997).
ISBN: 0520202422
Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War (New York: Anchor, 2003)
ISBN: 0385722281
Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies (New York: DaCapo
Press, 2002)
ISBN: 030681126X
The
web-page for the course can be found at http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p/jpj1/1980.html
The links here
should lead you to rich documentary sources, especially through the various
Presidential libraries. Through the course, I will
also be distributing various other readings, mainly electronically.
Work assignments will vary week by week.
Some weeks, we will all read a single text, and make that the basis for
discussion. Other classes, I will be expecting people to read books drawn from
a list of readings to be announced, and to present those to the class:
normally, I will expect people to read one book each week of the semester.
1.January 11
Introduction: Going too far.
The Sixties and afterwards. Visions,
myths and stereotypes of the 1970s.
2. January 18
Transforming popular
culture.
In what senses do the seventies mark a
Òcultural earthquakeÓ? How is popular culture transformed? Is this really a ÒMe
DecadeÓ? Why is the decade so well remembered for its fads and foolishness?
READ Schulman, The
Seventies
3. January 25
Liberals and populists:
the Carter presidency.
Who
did Jimmy Carter represent? What constituencies support him? What do different
people think they are getting when they vote for him? Was his presidency really
the disaster it appeared to be?
READ
Bailey And Farber, eds., America In The Seventies
4. February 1
Gender and sexuality. Love in the age of AIDS
Why is the ERA campaign fail? How do feminist issues
develop following the achievement of most of their agenda in the early 1970s?
What subsequent issues move to the forefront? How do gay issues develop in this
era? Why do both gays and feminists suffer such a political backlash?
READINGS TBA
*I NEED TO KNOW THE TOPICS OF
YOUR TERM PAPERS TODAY
5. February 8
The politics of morality:
the age of threatened children
One
central theme of this course is the repeal of the 1960s. How did childrenÕs
issues play such a critical role in this process? How do attitudes towards
children change in this era? How
do fears over children feed into concerns over social change?
READINGS TBA
6. February 15
The Politics of God
America in the 1970s and 1980s seems to have been in the
throes of a major religious revival, a shift towards spirituality, and
especially in fairly orthodox Christian forms. Why did this happen? How was
this manifested?
READINGS TBA
7. February 22
The New Right
What motivated the new right? Was it so new? Was it a
Òpolitics of resentmentÓ? What issues caused the greatest strain to the old New
Deal coalition? Who were the ÒReagan DemocratsÓ?
READ:
Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction
*PLEASE WRITE A TWO
PAGE SYNOPSIS OF YOUR PROPOSED PAPER, WITH ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. BRING
CIRCULATE COPIES OF THIS TO EVERYONE IN THE SEMINAR (PREFERABLY ELECTRONICALLY)
AS A BASIS FOR IN-CLASS DISCUSSION.
8.March 1
The Age of Reagan
Was
there a Reagan revolution, or was it more of the same? What did the Reagan administration want
to achieve? How far did it succeed? What forces or contradictions prevented it
from achieving its goals, domestic and foreign? What constituencies was it
bound to disappoint?
READINGS TBA
9. March 15
Confronting Evil
How
does America reverse the seemingly limitless tolerance for drugs that prevailed
in the mid-1970s? What is the social impact of the drug war? How are social
problems reconfigured to emphasize individual guilt and sin? What are the
consequences for public policy?
READ Reinarman
and Levine, eds., Crack in America
10.
March 22
Evil
Empires: Neo-Cold War and military reconstruction; nuclearism and exterminism
President
ReaganÕs nuclear policies were bitterly criticized, especially on the grounds
of his (allegedly) stark apocalyptic vision of good and evil, and charges that
he failed to understand the complexities of international affairs. In
retrospect, how do such charges hold up? Did Reagan take too many risks to
achieve his goals? In the long run, was Reagan right?
READ Schweizer,
Reagan's War
11.March
29
Triumphs and disasters of the Reagan
Doctrine: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, and Central America
How
was ÒVietnam syndromeÓ put to rest? What was the Reagan Doctrine? How does it
stand in relation to earlier US policies towards enemy states? How does it
relate to the idea of restoring masculinity? How does the Reagan Doctrine
relate to the ÒTerror NetworkÓ debate of the early 1980s? And finally: can we see
a direct line of causation (or even a not-so-direct line) from the conflicts of
the 1980s through 9-11?
READINGS TBA
*PAPER DRAFTS DUE
12.April 5
Terrorism and the crisis of intelligence.
What
do Americans want from their intelligence agencies? Is there a fundamental
contradiction between the quest for security and for legality? Is there a
proper place for agencies of national security? What were the policy
implications of the terror network debate, with everything it suggested about
state sponsorship?
READINGS TBA
13.April 12
Old and new economies: the
computer revolution.
How
did America shift so dramatically into the new information economy? And a final
overview question: Can we
say that this period, rather than the 1960s, marks the roots of modern American
politics and society?
READ: Gibson, Neuromancer
14-15. April 19-26
Class presentations
PAPER IS DUE FIRST DAY OF
FINALS PERIOD
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of Judicial Affairs for further review.
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