Students will discuss the impact of rape, physical, emotional and sexual abuse on individuals and groups. Students will recognize cultural violence and analyze strategies for the dismantling of cultural violence. Students will identify aspects of society that promote violence and aspects that might create safer societies. We will put ourselves in the minds of the generation of that era in an effort to understand why it was in rebellion against the middle class culture and Cold War ideology that dominated the fifties. We will look at the beatnik culture, the Jesus Movement, the protest against the Vietnam War, the civil rights, black power, and black arts movement, the feminist and gay rights movements, the counterculture, and the relationship between the rebellion and the evolving national political struggle.
Language provides a crucial avenue for understanding the sixties values.
The final focus of our study will be the conservative backlash of the late sixties, the exploration of which will provide a fuller understanding of the nature of American culture today and the degree to which our individual values reflect large historical, cultural, and literary currents. This course will examine the successful journey to maturity. The aging process will be examined from psychological, sociological, and physiological perspectives and also through the humanities and arts. Literature, film, and visual art will assist students in identifying important developmental tasks of maturity and the characteristics of those elders who make a safe passage into the later years. The course will examine how individual experiences and American culture influence personal expectations of again and perceptions of older people.