160071 PS Literary Cross-Currents (PS): 1960s Counterculture in Music and Literature (2010W)

This course discusses works of art that either or originated in the counterculture of the 1960s or were inspired by it. The works discussed in the course will be taken from the fields of literature and music. The students shall analyze the works as to how the social environment is reflected in them and what position they take in the cultural upheaval of the time. The course will provide different thematic focal points, that will be discussed with the help of the analysis of relevant literary texts, songs, and record albums. These topics include, but are not limited to:
From Beat to Hippie: the transition from one countercultural movement to another – the influence of mass media on the image-making process
Summer of Love: the early stages of the hippie movement, especially in San Francisco
Back to the Garden: the rise of the back-to-the-country-movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s
Student movements of the 1960s
Utopias of the counterculture: From Robert Heinlein to Jefferson Starship
internal criticism of social inadequacies int 1960s counterculture
the influence of 1960s counterculture in later decades
international countercultural movements, e.g. the beginnings of German pop literature with Brinkmann and Rygulla, or the Mexican Onda Chicana movement