Teching Labour History

History 3220B

Winter, 1999

Youth Culture in Canada

Under Construction

Professor:

Michael S. Cross
1435 Seymour St., Room 23
Ph: 494-3643 (Office)
457-2071 (Home)
E-Mail: mcross@is.dal.ca

Readings:

A binder containing all assigned readings is available for purchase from the History department.

Background Material:

Students wishing general background may consult:
Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond and John English, Canada Since 1945
The following texts are on 24 hour reserve at the Killam Library:
Kostash, Myrna, Long Way From Home
Owram, Doug, Born at the Right Time
Some useful Web sites are listed at the end of this outline

Lecture Schedule:

January

4
Introduction
6
Background: influences on youth
11
Education
13
Pop culture
18
Television
20
Television
25
Canada goes to the movies
27
The roots of rock n' roll

February

1
Universities
3
Universities
8
Rock and the stirrings of youth
10
TEST
15
Ideologies
17
Ideologies
February 22-24 - Study Break

March

1
Youth politics
3
Youth politics
8
The rising of the minorities
10
Women and youth culture
15
The style of the 60s
17
The style of the 60s
22
Street culture
24
Experiments in living
29
Nationalism and youth culture
31
The decline of the movement

April

5
The Great Rock n' Roll Trivia Contest
7
TEST


Tutorials:

January

Week of 4th: No Groups

Week of 11th: Introduction to groups

Week of 18th: Suburban life:
John Seeley et al., Crestwood Heights

Week of 25th: Popular culture in the 1950s and beyond:
J. M. Bumsted, "Canada and American Culture in the 1950s"
Doug Owram, "Consuming Leisure"

February

Week of 1st: Impact of television:
Steven D. Clark, "American Bandstand and the Clash of Rock and TV"
Steven D. Clark, "Assassination Television"
Steven D. Clark, "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in and Acceleration as a TV Style
Marshall McLuhan, "Murder by Television"
Paul Rutherford, "Versions of Reality"

Week of 8th: No Groups

Week of 18th: Universities: whose mind is it anyway?:
Student Power
"We Want A University"
Dennis Lee, "Getting to Rochdale"
John Braddock, "Strife on Campus"
"U.N.B. Alive"
Articles on the Sir George Williams crisis
"Dal Votes Yes to Radical Course for CUS"
"Our Master's Voice"
Stephen Langdon, "Student Radicals"

Week of 22nd" Study Break

March

Week of 1st: Politics of rock:
John Street, Rebel Rock
Serge Denisoff, "Death Songs and Teenage Roles"
Paul Axelrod, "An Ode to Phil Ochs"
Spiro Agnew, press release

Week of 8th: Youth politics:
Doug Owram, "Youth Radicalism"
Richard Bowles, "The Radical Left"
Dimitri Poussopolous, The New Left in Canada
Political actions in the era of the youth culture

Week of 15th: Rising of the minorities:
R. P. Bowles, "The Black Canadians"
Harold Cardinal, "Hat in Hand: The Fight to Organize"
J. R. Miller, "Aboriginal Rights"

Week of 22nd: Women, sex and youth culture:
Moya Luckett, "Girl Watchers: Patty Duke and Teen TV"
McGill Students' Society, Birth Control Handbook
Boston Women's Health Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves

Week of 29th: Drugs and street culture:
David P. Szatmary, "Beats and Hippies"
Naomi Pauls and Charles Campbell, eds., The Georia Straight Interview with Peter Coyote

Week of April 5th: NO GROUPS

Assignments:

Note: Tutorials are a vital part of this class. If you do not receive a passing grade for class participation, you will not pass the class.

1. Class Participation
20%
2. Test, 10 February
20%
3. Essay, 3500 words, due 27 March
35%
4. Test, 7 April
25%

1. The class participation mark is based on attendance at tutorials, participation in tutorial discussion, and a presentation to the tutorial. Each student will make a presentation in tutorial as part of a group. Each week, 3 or 4 students will cooperate on an oral presentation. The group will present a piece of music. The music can be from any era so long as it illustrates some significant point about youth culture. The presenters should briefly (no more than 10 minutes) explain the point of their choice of music.

2. The test on 10 February will be one hour long and written in class. You will answer one question from a choice of several. It will test your comprehension of material from both lectures and tutorials up to that point in the term.

3. The essay due on 27 March should be based on substantial research (at least 8 sources) and on primary sources from the period being studied, wherever possible. A list of suggested essay topics will be made available. The essay will have scholarly documentation, including footnotes or endnotes, and a bibliography. If you are in any doubt about the form for an essay, the History department main office has a handout on essay style. The essay will be about 3500 words in length.

A history essay involves developing an argument based on the research you have carried out. That is, you will assess the material you have read, weigh the most important issues which arise about your topic, and advance a point-of-view about them which is informed by your research and analysis. The essay will be marked on the quality of that argument. Literary quality will also influence the final mark.

4. The test on 7 April will have the same format as the earlier test. It will examine material covered since the earlier test.

Web Sites:

The Web has useful information on our period. Obviously, such sources must be used carefully. Most sites are not scholarly and have not been subjected to the sort of reviewing that articles in journals or scholarly books receive. That means information needs to be used carefully and to be checked with other sources. Nevertheless, the Web can provide excellent graphic material and documents.

Some sites I find useful are:

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/
- The Sixties Project provides links to the Sixties-L discussion list, which attracts scholars as well as people who were active then, and links to on-line archives

http://www.sftoday.com/enn2/sumdex.htm
- The 1967 Summer of Love site is fun and has links to various 1960s sites

http://www.fsm-a.org/
- Free Speech Movement Archives has many documents, photos relating to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the first major student protest of the 1960s

http://www.mediahistory.com/
- The Media History Project has essays and links on various media, including recordings

http://www.enn2.com/rock.htm
Rockworld has links to record companies, magazines and some 1960s sites

http://www.allmusic.com/
Allmusic contains brief essays on various musical styles; no more than introductions, but they are places to start and have discographies of major artists