Presented By: Port Huron 50
John McMillian, "Notes from the Underground: The Rise and Fall of the 1960s Underground Press in America"
Preview Lecture and Film Series for the Port Huron Conference
This lecture is part of a series of events leading up to the October 31-November 2, 2012 conference, "A New Insurgency: The Port Huron Statement in Its Time and Ours." Free and open to the public.
Abstract: This lecture will assess the cultural work that was accomplished by the New Left's printed materials – especially its underground newspapers. I argue that New Leftists created an ethos surrounding their publications that socialized people into the Movement, fostered a spirit of mutuality among them, and raised their democratic expectations. Given the obstacles confronting those who have attempted to build mass democratic movements in the United States, this was no small thing. Additionally, I'll discuss the degree to which the political energy that fueled the New Left arose from the grassroots, as opposed to the national office of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) or the pageantry and intellectual ferment that accompanied the New Left rebellion in large cities. In this way, my work is part of a larger revisionist effort to reassess the New Left through the techniques and methodologies of social and cultural history.
Abstract: This lecture will assess the cultural work that was accomplished by the New Left's printed materials – especially its underground newspapers. I argue that New Leftists created an ethos surrounding their publications that socialized people into the Movement, fostered a spirit of mutuality among them, and raised their democratic expectations. Given the obstacles confronting those who have attempted to build mass democratic movements in the United States, this was no small thing. Additionally, I'll discuss the degree to which the political energy that fueled the New Left arose from the grassroots, as opposed to the national office of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) or the pageantry and intellectual ferment that accompanied the New Left rebellion in large cities. In this way, my work is part of a larger revisionist effort to reassess the New Left through the techniques and methodologies of social and cultural history.
Related Links
Co-Sponsored By
- Michigan Community Scholars Program
- The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
- Residential College
- Institute for Research on Women and Gender
- Arts of Citizenship
- Institute for the Humanities
- Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
- LSA Student Honor Council
- School of Social Work
- Office of the President
- University Library
- Rackham Graduate School
- U-M Office of Research
- International Institute
- Women's and Gender Studies Department
- Bentley Historical Library
- CEW+
- Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies
- Women of Color in the Academy Project
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