Readings and Discussions
Summer 2009
May 5 Introduction
Movie:
The Atomic Cafe
May 7 The Cold War: Politics and foreign policy
The Truman Doctrine
Zinn, A People's History of the
United States, 1945-60
Schrecker, " Setting
the Anti-Communist Agenda"
Acheson's speech, January 12, 1950
Excerpts from NSC-68 (April 7, 1950)
McCarthy to the U.S. Senate (February 12,
1950)
Discussion Questions
May 12
The Cold War: The domestic front
Movie: Seeds of the Sixties
Schrecker, "The Legacy of McCarthyism"
Kerouac, On the Road
Holmes, "This is the Beat Generation"
Allen, "Communists Should Not
Teach in American Colleges"
Homosexuals in the Government
Higher Education's
Appalling Responsibilities
Mental Hygiene
Discussion Questions
May 14
Movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still
**Meet in Room 203, building 355**
"Apocalypse Then...." (pdf.)
"Booting a Tramp..." (pdf)
Discussion Questions
May 19 Origins of the Vietnam Wars, 1945-1963
Movie: Why Vietnam
Vietnam Declaration of Independence
Eisenhower Explains the Domino Theory
JFK: Inaugural Address
White House Statement on
Vietnam, November 1954
Rusk-McNamara Report
Geneva Conference, 1954
"America and Vietnam"
(pdf)
Kennedy Reaffirms the
Domino Theory
Discussion Questions
May 21 Movie: Breaking Boundaries, Testing Limits
***First Assignment Due***
May 26
King, Letter from Birmingham Jail
(1963)
King, I Have A Dream (1963)
Malcolm X, The "Black Revolution"
speeches (1964)
Stokely Carmichael, Black Power
(1966)
Mississippi Freedom
Project: Letters to Home
Black
Panther Platform (1966)
Discussion Questions
May 28 The Johnson Legacy: Vietnam and the Great Society
Harrington, The Other America
Johnson, The Great Society (1964)
Morgenthau, "Vietnam
and the National Interest"
Johnson's speech, April
7, 1965
Johnson's Farewell Address,
March 31, 1968
U.S. Objectives in South
Vietnam, 1964
Johnson's Message
to Congress, August 5, 1964
Johnson's Decision to
Commit Troops to South Vietnam
Discussion Questions
June 2 Student Protest and the New Left
**NOTE: This class will begin at 5:15 due to the
Convocation in the afternoon.
A Call to Resist Authority (1967)
King, Declaration of Independence (1967)
Hayden, The Port Huron Statement
(1962)
Savio's
speech, FSM sit-in, December 3, 1964
Savio
"The Berkeley Student Rebellion of 1964"
Students
for Law and Order (December 1964)
Schlesinger,
"The New Mood in Politics" (1960)
Discussion Questions
June 4 The American Woman, 1945-1970
**NOTE: For this class and
the remainder of the term we will meet in Building 250, Room 120 (air
conditioned!!)**
A Purpose for Modern Woman (1955)
Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (1947)
Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
(1963)
Female
Liberation c. 1970
Steinem, Women's
Liberation (1970)
Manifesto of Shared Rape (1971)
Virginia
Slims advertisements (1969)
Discussion
Questions
June 9 The Wars: various perspectives
Movie: In a Dark Time
The Arrogance of Power (1966)
Life Publishes One Week's Dead
in Vietnam (1969)
Proclamation of the Anti-Draft
Resistance
A Soldier Remembers his Idealism (1965)
The Draft's Inequities (1969)
At War in Vietnam
Smith, "The Nurse With Round Eyes"
(1971)
Discussion Questions
***Final Essay Due***
June 11 Nixon and the end of Vietnam - ****Meet in Room 203, Building 355***
Movie: Easy Rider
Cronkite, "We Are Mired in
Stalemate" (1968)
Nixon's
Speech on Vietnamization (1969)
Nixon's
Speech on Cambodia (1970)
The Shooting at Kent State
(1970)
"Pacification's
Deadly Price", Newsweek, June 19, 1972
Jane
Fonda's Hanoi Broadcast
Address to the Nation,
January 23, 1973
"Vietnam: An Infantryman's
View of the Failure" (pdf.)
"From Counterculture to Anticulture"
(pdf)
"The Allegory of Easy Rider" (pdf)
Discussion Questions
June 16 Final Examination