124266 AR Cultural/Media Studies 1/2 (AR) (2012W)

"To Stop the Machine": US-American Protest Movements since the 1960s

This class will deal with a variety of social/political protest movements that originated in the USA in the last 50 years. "Make your body a counterfriction to stop the machine", demanded Henry David Thoreau, author of the seminal essay on civil disobedience, "Resistance to Civil Government" (1842) of his fellow citizens in the fight against slavery. From Flower Power to Black Power to Red Power, from Greenpeace (founded by US-American activists in Vancouver, Canada) to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), from the Tea Party (U.S. presidential elections in November!) to Occupy Wallstreet and similar anti-establishment organizations, we will discuss a number of such counterfrictions, bodies, and machines.