In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) and Racial Politics in Post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood

On Wednesday 12^th February the Centre for American Studies was pleased to welcome Dr. Eithne Quinn (University of Manchester) to the department's 2013-2014 seminar series.  In what was an illuminating and engaging discussion, Dr. Quinn examined the role of Hollywood in late-1960s racial relations in her lecture “In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) and Racial Politics in Post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood.”

 

Diverting from typical scholarship on the film that focused on the relationship between the characters of Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) and police chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), and the provincial setting of Sparta, Mississippi, Dr. Quinn’s lecture examined post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood in the context of the production and release of Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night. (1967)  Moving from the film’s role within contemporary discussions of a post-racial America to a post-racial Hollywood, Quinn deftly undermined the Hollywood projections the film arguably portrayed on the racial politics of the late 1960s, projections which typically contrasted the provincial, unenlightened and racially divided South with the progressive liberalism of the North and West Coast.  However, as Quinn argues, the post-racial discourses portrayed by Hollywood productions contrasted startlingly with the racial discrimination in the mechanisms of the industry.  It is through this examination of Hollywood’s internal mechanisms that Dr. Quinn argued that the film says more about racial attitudes in the North and West Coast than it does about the South.   Hollywood’s contrast between ideology and industry, exposition and actuality, framed the centre of Quinn’s lecture.

Dr. Quinn’s moved on to a discussion of ideas of the post-racial within the culture of Hollywood’s late-1960s productions.  She noted the rise of Sidney Poitier in 1960s Hollywood, particularly after his performance as the African-American homicide detective Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night.  Becoming not just one of the most prominent actors of the period, Dr. Quinn also notes that he became the most bankable African-American actor in American cinema, a title only relinquished to Will Smith in the noughties.  Poitier’s success in In the Heat of the Night, Dr. Quinn comments, exemplifies Hollywood’s imposition of racial discrimination solely within the isolated southern states, rather than within a wider national context, marking it as a product that avoids the complexities of racial attitudes for a narrative of northern self-congratulation.  

The film’s portrayal of an enlightened North against a racially divisive and backwards-thinking South was very much at odds with the reality of race relations in the late-1960s.  Most noticeably, Quinn reminds us that it was within this period of time that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was moving his campaign north to protest against northern racial discrimination, noticeably found in the squalid living conditions of poor black urban neighbourhoods and a lack of integration in education and employment.   These projects however, were not readily accepted by many northerners.  Although Quinn does take time to note the amount of northern white Americans who recognised and sympathised with this discrimination, many were not ready to accept it was an issue outside of the south.   Furthermore, as Dr. Quinn argued, even those who were earnest about solving the racial issues in the north could be characterised as being more condescending than helpful towards African-American activism, with many involving themselves in the issue with a sometimes paternalistic and unrealistic understanding of the complexities involved in the issue.  This social and cultural dissonance in the north towards issues of racial discrimination, either through patronising attitudes towards African-American activism, an indirectly racist promotion of a colour-blind, laissez-faire ideology held by many white Americans, and productions that reinforced these attitudes such as In the Heat of the Night, were encapsulated in what Stephen Steinberg deemed “the liberal retreat from race”, a phrase Dr. Quinn quoted in this segment.[1]

Dr. Quinn’s went on to examine the battle between ideology and industry in late-1960s Hollywood’s race relations.  The progressive rhetoric of Hollywood’s film productions framed in films such as In the Heat of the Night was much at odds with the racial discrimination inherent in the industry.  She made the point that in the wake of the Civil Rights Act enactment in 1965, Hollywood was particularly slow in responding to the legislation, and refused to accept black employees in the majority of its departments.  This contrast was prevalent in racially-conscious productions such as In the Heat of the Night, where behind the scenes few black workers worked on the film.  Additionally, Dr. Quinn interestingly discussed the development of the early drafts of the film that originally included certain elements of institutionalised racism in the north.  Those elements in the script that questioned northern racial discrimination were taken out.  Lines originally intended for Poitier’s character Virgil Tibbs were removed by director Norman Jewison on the grounds that they were too alienating to Northern audiences, and distracted from the focus on the relationship between the two main characters.  Dr. Quinn noted at this point how the commercial pressures of a large budget film has a tendency to create conservative cinema, and it is likely that it was these pressures in particular that instigated Jewison to remove the lines in exchange for a softer, more northern-friendly final draft.  Additionally, she discussed Sidney Poitier’s position within Hollywood and its contentious race relations, and how top Hollywood executives hindered racial integration within the industry by promoting Poitier as an example of their progressiveness.  She argued that Hollywood’s emphasis on the mere appearance of progressiveness through the promotion of a black bourgeoisie was a definably northern liberal approach to issues of race in the late-1960s.

In the final section of the lecture, Dr. Quinn examined the character of Virgil Tibbs (Poitier), and how Tibbs was promoted as an example of racial exception within the backdrop of the late-1960s.  Although Poitier’s performance as Virgil Tibbs, the embodiment of northern racial enlightenment, served to promote Hollywood’s own progressive stance on race, this perspective clashed constantly with Poitier’s own experiences.  She noted that though Poitier was normally very reserved about making comments about race, he did acknowledge his own difficulties working within Hollywood, especially at a time when he was the only prominent African-American star in a racially discriminatory industry.  Dr. Quinn provided an example of the difficulties he encountered during the production of In the Heat of the Night when he found himself becoming irritated at his co-star Rod Steiger- renowned for constantly staying in character as southern chief Bill Gillespie between takes- making numerous racist remarks during production.   Dr. Quinn pointed to the fact that the lack of support the film received from the local black population during production further illustrated this racial disconnect.  Her successive inclusion of Poitier’s comments on Hollywood’s racially-discriminatory hierarchy was very enlightening.  Commenting that it was white northern Americans who organised every facet of the Hollywood industry, from writing, casting, production and directing, Poitier regarded it as inevitable that issues of race were softened and misunderstood in cinematic productions.   Dr. Quinn went on to argue that it was this paradox between Hollywood’s ideology and its practise that enhanced Poitier’s performance as Tibbs, with the raw anger conveyed in his performance borne out of his own racial isolation within Hollywood.  She concluded that this illustrates the irony of Hollywood’s promotion of a post-racial ideology, where it used Poitier’s position as a prominent African-American actor to placate any demands to revise its own racial practises.  

Dr. Quinn’s lecture on racial politics in post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood was highly-engaging, moving through social, political and cinematic contexts with ease.  Her talk also made for a powerful revision of traditional treatments, not just of Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night, but of Hollywood’s own treatment of race issues in the midst of a heated era.  Rather than simply being a film that exposes the racial prejudices of Mississippi, she demonstrated how it could very easily be turned on Hollywood, and in doing so, expose the limitations of northern liberalism in its treatment of race.  In doing so Dr. Quinn’s lecture illustrated how the complexities of race issues developed within the northern context of the late-1960s, but also highlighted its continued significance, and the diligence needed in monitoring our own forms of complicity with it in the present day.

By James Nixon

PGR at the University of Glasgow

The Centre’s seminar series continues with Prof. Martin Halliwell (University of Leicester): “Trouble or Transcendence? Health, Illness and American Culture in the 1970s.” This will be held on Thursday 27^th February 2014 in Room 202, 4 University Gardens, at 5:15pm. All very welcome!

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[1] Steinberg, Stephen, The Liberal Retreat From Race, New Politics, vol. 5, no.1 (new series), whole no. 17.  Web. Last accessed on February 13^th.  http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue17/steinb17.htm

Taming Disaster: Fatalism and Mastery in American Disaster Management, 1800-2013

Yesterday, 29^th January 2014, the Centre was pleased to welcome Dr. Gareth Davies (St. Annes College, Oxford University) to the seventh of the Centre’s 2013-2014 seminar series. In what was a truly thought-provoking lecture, Dr. Davies discussed ‘Taming Disaster: Fatalism and Mastery in American Disaster Management, 1800-2013.’ Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

              

Marine One above the decimated city of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, 2005

When President George W. Bush flew over flood-ravaged New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, opting not to land for a closer look, it fuelled public sentiment that his administration was not being proactive in the disaster that had taken lives and destroyed so much property. Bush acknowledged as much in his memoirs. Indeed, as Hurricane Sandy in 2012 illuminated, when both presidential candidates effectively had to cancel planned campaign stops and all eyes pivoted to how President Barack Obama would respond, Presidential visits matter in times of disasters. But has this always been the case? Has it always been the federal government’s responsibility to react with all the resources at its disposal when natural disasters strike?

According to Dr. Gareth Davies in his ‘Taming Disaster’ talk, the answer is no. In the Early American Republic there were very few tools to draw from to combat catastrophe and the lack of communications and governmental structures meant that response was limited. For example, in the 1811-12 Missouri Earthquakes, which remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the eastern United States in recorded history, territories were decimated and the extreme ruralness of these rugged frontier lands meant that word of it got out slowly. There was no expectation of governmental assistance at the time but rather it was religious groups, believing these disasters to be the work of God, who would raise money and assist when they could.

After the Civil War, the federal government began to take a larger role in disaster prevention and assistance, but the expectation was still on local organisations and philanthropic efforts. Thus, the government played a role as part of a massive national collective, with the growth in newspapers raising awareness and the strides in technology improving prevention tools. By the Progressive Era, people began to turn to local governments to respond. For example, following the 1900 Galveston, Texas hurricane that destroyed one third of the property in the area, many people were dissatisfied with the way local governments responded, but people did not turn to the federal government or the president. Instead, the hurricane triggered the mobilization of an important movement to reform local government since it was viewed as the locus of response. The Red Cross too increased its role, playing a massive part in assisting those affected by the 1927 Mississippi floods. So then, when did the people start looking to the President to provide leadership in response to disasters? Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives begin to bureaucratise the nature of disaster prevention and response, even President Dwight Eisenhower did not visit the Louisiana coast in 1957 when Hurricane Audrey wreaked havoc, killing some 500 people, nor did he feel compelled to do so. As Dr. Davies argued, it was during the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon presidencies that the decisive change took place.

Accordingly, one of the key turning points in expectations that the President respond to disaster was following Hurricane Betsy in September 1965. Although initially disinclined to visit the site, but eventually persuaded to do so based on political considerations by Louisiana Senator Russell Long, who had recently become the Senate Majority Whip, President Johnson’s response was unprecedented. Betsy was a Category 4 storm with wind gusts near 160 mph that came ashore on September 9, 1965. New Orleans was hit with 110 mph winds, a storm surge around 10 feet, and heavy rain. After the storm passed, Senator Long called Johnson and urged him to tour the devastated areas. Long told Johnson of the severe damaged done to his own home that had nearly killed his family. Johnson, along with the heads of the Office of Emergency Planning, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the Surgeon General, arrived in New Orleans five hours after talking to Long. After seeing the dreadful suffering and damage from his plane, Johnson said upon arrival, ‘I am here because I want to see with my own eyes what the unhappy alliance of wind and water have done to this land and its good people.’

Indeed, within hours of Betsy, Johnson was in the city, making surprise visits to shelters, offering encouragements to the city’s newly homeless residents, saying:

Today at 3 o’clock when Senator Long and Congressman Boggs and Congressman Willis called me on behalf of the entire Louisiana delegation, I put aside all the problems on my desk to come to Louisiana as soon as I could. I have observed from flying over your city how great the catastrophe is that you have experienced. Human suffering and physical damage are measureless. I’m here this evening to pledge to you the full resources of the federal government to Louisiana to help repair as best we can the injury that has been done by nature.

As Dr. Davies highlighted (with a rather spot on attempt at LBJ’s voice), when making one particular visit, and by illuminating his face with a flashlight, Johnson told the audience, ‘I’m your president and I’m here to help.’

Dr. Davies argued that although Johnson’s response to Betsy probably did not significantly affect the expectations that Americans in general had of presidential disaster leadership, it did set significant precedents including the allocation of federal funds to relieve individual disaster victims and a massive, federally funded hurricane defence system for New Orleans. Both measures were included in the ‘Betsy Bill’ drafted by the Louisiana delegation following the disaster, which likely would not have passed without Johnson’s backing. Dr. Davies then drew an interesting parallel between Johnson’s response to Betsy and George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina – which Bush admits in his autobiography was severely lacking in comparison. Here is an insightful op-ed about ‘LBJ’s political hurricane’ from the NY Times.[1]

Moreover, Dr. Davies demonstrated that amidst the height of the presidential campaign in 1972, Richard Nixon was sharply criticised for his response to Hurricane Agnes that affected numerous eastern states, particularly Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Milton Shapp, Democratic Presidential Candidate George McGovern and others seized on the opportunity to criticise Nixon for what they called the government’s incompetent response. Nixon moved quickly to mitigate the damage, but was only able to do so when he took the reins and choreographed the government’s response from the White House. With this politicisation of the government’s response, the President had now effectively become the ‘Responder-in-Chief.’

This expectation of presidential response has only increased with time, and ultimately can have an adverse effect on a president’s image depending on how he reacts. For example, in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew devastated parts of Florida, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton toured the most devastated portions of Florida, getting media coverage as he hugged and shared tears with people made homeless by the storm. President George H.W. Bush visited, as well, though media reports said Bush didn't come close to displaying the 'feel your pain' empathy Clinton did. Here then, one is able to see an example of the importance and development in the politics of disaster response over time.

Throughout his talk, Dr. Davies used the changing responses to natural disasters over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to explore how, why, and when American expectations of government have grown, ending by highlighting that the President’s role as ‘Responder-in-Chief’ has only really assumed grand proportions in the modern presidency. By interweaving both politics and natural disasters, Dr. Davies’ work represents the best form of historical enquiry, and the ability to use natural disasters as a way to unveil a narrative on the changing nature of the federal government is both illuminating and intriguing. With Dr. Davies currently turning this research into a book, the finished product is bound to be nothing but fascinating.

By Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at the University of Glasgow

The Centre’s seminar series continues with Dr. Eithne Quinn (University of Manchester) ‘In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) and Racial Politics in Post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood.’ This will be held on Wednesday 12^th February 2014 in Room 208, 2 University Gardens, at 5:15pm. All very welcome!

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/opinion/24williams.html?_r=0

The Rise of Horse Racing and the Endorsement of Slavery in Kentucky, 1780-1830

Yesterday, 15^th January 2014, the Centre was pleased to welcome Dr. Catriona Paul (Dundee University) to the sixth of the Centre’s 2013-2014 seminar series. In what was a thoroughly enjoyable and highly informative talk, Dr. Paul discussed ‘The rise of horse racing and the endorsement of slavery in Kentucky, 1780-1830.’ Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

Kentucky, known for its two best exports – the Kentucky Derby and bourbon – has a rich history of horse racing and rearing. With this, Dr. Paul argued that by focusing on horses and what they meant to society, we can learn a lot about the development of Kentucky. Indeed, horses were vital to Kentucky becoming established as a viable economic entity. Settlers relied on horses for transportation to travel the vast openness of the state and to get their goods to markets in the east, and by the year 1800 taxpayers owned 90,000 horses in the state, with 87% of all householders owning at least one horse. Moreover, horses were used by settlers to defend their homeland against Native Indian raids as the state began to take shape in the rough frontier of early America.

As Dr. Paul highlighted, from the beginning of the 19th century, Kentucky was acquiring a reputation for producing good quality riding and racing horses, and from this history grew a sense of pride in Kentucky-bred horses and a sense of identity which Kentucky still revels in today. Indeed, Dr. Paul opened her talk by showing the audience the above image of Kentucky’s state slogan ‘Unbridled Spirit’ – incorporated into marketing materials, government stationary and license plates since 2004 – to show the importance of the animal to the state’s history and development.

However, although Dr. Paul acknowledged the importance of these positive associations, it was the deeply negative aspects of slavery and its relation to horse racing that formed the focus of her talk. Breaking it down into three main arguments, Dr. Paul sought to show (i) how horse ownership helped Kentucky elites (many of whom were coming from Virginia) to promote themselves and their views of slavery, (ii) how horse ownership was used to claim that other forms of ownership were acceptable (thus, legitimising the pro-slavery argument), and (iii) how theories of horse breeding were applied by these elites to propagate a vision of purity among white human beings.

As Kentucky was entering statehood, there was a crucial battle being waged among its settlers over whether it would become a slave holding or Free State. Dr. Paul’s argument was that horses played a pivotal role in this. For the reasons highlighted above, elites used horses in various ways to convince the state’s population that slavery was a positive thing. According to Dr. Paul, the elites went on a ‘…charm offensive’ in order to do this. At this crucial juncture in the state’s history, elites brought thoroughbred horses to the outskirts of the frontier to announce their status and sponsored race events that brought the whole community together, with numerous race courses opening up quickly and jockey clubs forming all over the state. Kentuckians from across the social spectrum took an interest in racing even though the majority could not afford to run a horse personally, and by the 1820s, gate tolls were even introduced due to the popularity of these events.

And many who owned, breed, and raced horses also held political office as the state developed and thus played a key role in wielding public opinion. For example, Henry Clay was an early patron of the sport of horse racing, as were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Attached here is a detailed article about ‘Henry Clay’s Legacy to Horse Breeding and Racing.’[1] These elites then made the argument that horse ownership was the same as slave ownership, with John Breckinridge saying that: ‘…Where is the difference whether I am robbed of my horse by a highwayman, or of my slave by a set of people called a Convention?’ Slaves were bought and sold much the same way as horses at the time – key determinants being age, fitness, ability etc., – and one should see both these as related in how they became deeply entrenched in Kentucky culture.

In highlighting the last thread of her argument, Dr. Paul used a quote by Thomas Jefferson to show how ideas of ‘purity’ were used in similar ways to think about horses and humans:

The circumstance of superior beauty is thought worthy of attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, (1787)

So in what was an insightful and fascinating lecture, Dr. Paul unravelled the histories of both slavery and horse racing in Kentucky to show how they are interconnected in important and often unacknowledged ways. Shedding light on the origins of Kentucky’s ‘unbridled spirit’ slogan helps us appreciate better a crucial historical time period and Dr. Paul’s focus on horses brings an interesting and welcomed dynamic to the history of the early American republic.

By Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at the University of Glasgow

The Centre’s seminar series continues with Dr. Gareth Davies (St. Annes, Oxford University) ‘Taming Disaster: Fatalism and Mastery in American Disaster Management, 1800-2013.’ This will be held on Wednesday 29^th January in Room 208, 2 University Gardens, at 5:15pm. All very welcome!

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[1] http://www.jstor.org/stable/23384634

New Masses Magazine: Modernist Communism?

Yesterday, 6th December 2013, the Centre was pleased to welcome Dr. Sue Currell (Reader in American Literature, University of Sussex; Chair of the British Association for American Studies) to the fifth seminar of the American Studies Seminar Series of 2013-2014. In collaboration with the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow, and as part of their 'English and American Literature Lecture Series,' Dr. Currell discussed ‘New Masses Magazine: Modernist Communism?’ Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

As Britain was battered by a winter storm with winds of over 100mph - in what was effectively described as ‘the largest north sea surge for over 60 years’ - Dr. Currell braved the length of the country to give an engaging and insightful lecture based on her current research – which examines the relationship of the arts with political discourse during interwar America, in particular as it relates to the journal New Masses. This formed the focus of her talk – in which she re-examined the political and aesthetic framework within which the Marxist arts and culture magazine New Masses has been understood and assessed by modernist literary studies.

New Masses magazine, published out of New York from 1926-1948, was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with, although not proven to be connected with, the Communist Party in the US. By publishing a large number of visual images along with muckraking political analysis, essays on historical and current events, contemporary fiction, and reviews of art exhibitions, theater, and films, this experimental journal proved to be unique among left and liberal magazines at the time. Originally founded as a monthly magazine of leftist writing and art in 1926, following the model of two earlier American socialist journals, The Masses and The Liberator, it began publishing as a weekly at the height of the Great Depression. It became highly influential in intellectual circles, even being called ‘the principal organ of the American cultural left’ from 1926 onwards, until its final issue appeared in 1948. According to Dr. Currell however, this resource has been left on the shelf of history, inevitably being glossed over when examining this important time period. Thus, Dr. Currell has set out to right this wrong.

According to Dr. Currell, in what little has been published, New Masses has been variously read and interpreted as ‘not-modernist’ and increasingly ‘not-or-anti-modernist’ in its latter period. However, throughout her talk, Dr. Currell challenged this ‘accepted’ paradigm that the magazine took a Stalinist-influenced aesthetic line from the mid-1930s. To do this, Dr. Currell examined the magazine's wider engagement with ideas for a communist modernism more broadly. Unlike contemporary liberal/left magazines such as the Nation, the New Yorker, or Vanity Fair, or radical newspapers such as Art Front and the Daily Worker, New Masses not only promoted explicitly leftist viewpoints but also, in looking beyond the public debates between the literary formalists and the ‘content boys’ that scholars have largely focused on, Dr. Currell was able to show how this incredibly experimental magazine was at the forefront of a nascent Marxism in the US. Accordingly, the early trajectory of New Masses' development was shaped by its founders' fascination with both literary and artistic modernism and Soviet Communist ideals; the tensions posed by these potentially divergent interests revealed themselves in editorial precepts that shifted from the late 1920s into the early and mid-1930s.

Publishing experimental and non-conformist writings of relatively unknown writers, New Masses had both the guise of a ‘little magazine’ and the content of a manifesto – combing them both lyrically to produce a ‘new’ type of magazine. Its editors saw their audience as extremely broad – demonstrated by the magazine’s engagement with both high art and popular culture. Moreover, according to Dr. Currell, the association with leftist political views was at first unofficial, but after Mike Gold took over as chief editor in 1928, a militant proletarianism took precedence over less explicitly anti-capitalist political positions. Gold was influential in making this style of fiction popular during the depression years of 1930s, and was an important presence on the American cultural scene for more than three decades.

With contributions from Ezra Pound, Arthur Miller, and many others, New Masses is an extremely important magazine that must be considered and assessed with a modernist hat on according to Dr. Currell. Moreover, Dr. Currell passed round copies of two New Masses magazines as she spoke – which both brought her talk to life and allowed the audience to identify the various modernist editorial motions and aesthetic qualities she was highlighting. In closing, Dr. Currell argued that as one of the foremost periodicals of a renaissance that transformed American modernism and mass culture, New Masses ultimately deserves a reassessment. And that is just what she has set out to do.

By Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at the University of Glasgow

The Centre’s seminar series continues in the New Year with Dr. Catriona Paul (Dundee University) ‘The rise of horse racing and the endorsement of slavery in Kentucky, 1780-1830.’ This will be held on Wednesday 15th January in Room 208, 2 University Gardens, at 5.15pm. All very welcome!

A Movement of Movements or a Conjuncture of Forces? Interpreting the 1960s, Half a Century On

Yesterday, 21^st November 2013, the Centre was pleased to welcome Prof. Doug Rossinow (Professor at Metropolitan State University – who is currently a Fulbright scholar at the University of Oslo) to the forth of the Centre’s 2013-2014 seminar series. In what was an engaging and highly informative talk, Prof. Rossinow discussed ‘A Movement of Movements or a Conjuncture of Forces? Interpreting the 1960s, Half a Century On.’ Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

From civil rights to black power, and from student radicalism to the Vietnam War, the 1960s immediately connotes a period of protest and social transformation with a resonance issuing, at least in part, from the living memories of so many who experienced the decade and participated in its characterising events. The movement away from the perceived traditionalism of the 1950s enabled revolutionary ways of thinking and a real change in the cultural fabric of American life to take place. Gaining political traction in the 1960s, these movements fundamentally changed the nation’s trajectory, and as such have helped contribute to the mythical remembering of the decade. The decade has been a constant source of historical scrutiny, with many arguing that the 1960s has reverberations that can still be felt today. In terms of historiography, this period is awash with interpretations, and into this historiographical minefield stepped Prof. Rossinow yesterday. Through his talk, Prof. Rossinow was able to guide the audience through the complex terrain of 1960s history before describing his own suggestions of how best to understand the decade – one that he sees importantly as a conjuncture of forces.

In his presentation, Prof. Rossinow began by outlining the various ways scholars have interpreted the 1960s over time, describing the three main ideas as ‘The Long Sixties’, ‘The Global Sixties’, and ‘A Movement of Movements.’ With a brief summary of the first two interpretations, including an analysis of their respective interpretive problems, Prof. Rossinow moved on to an extended discussion of the ‘Movement of Movements’ idea. This idea is most often associated with Van Gosse, whose work ‘Rethinking the New Left: An Interpretative History’ stands testament to this.

Here Van Gosse argues that from the 1950s to the 1970s, a host of movements struggled to make democracy and equality realities in America. With the 1960s as his clear focus, Van Gosse unites the movements for civil rights and black power, for peace and solidarity with the Third World, and for gender and sexual equality together in his conception of the New Left. In its summary, Van Goose argues that: ‘From Vietnam to the war at home against African and Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Asian Americans, from Women's to Gay Liberation, the New Left was the broadest-based movement for fundamental change in American history.’ As Prof. Rossinow highlighted, Van Gosse synthesizes and chronicles the protests, confrontations, victories, and defeats of the 1960s into one umbrella story. However, according to Prof. Rossinow, the complex nature of these movements leaves this interpretation wanting.

Therefore, as Prof. Rossinow suggested, instead of using the ‘New Left’ as a master category, bringing together an array of movements, it is important to think of these movements as distinctive, and as each with their own origins and causes. First there are the movements of the excluded people, who through demanding rights and recognition are quite different from the revolts of the white middle-class youth, who were rebelling against their political and social surroundings within the dominant culture. Thus, with the counterculture as a symbol of the youth’s rebellion against traditional values, to lump them together with movements fighting oppression, persecution, or prejudice is to distort their unique importance within the 1960s.

Instead, Prof. Rossinow encouraged us to think of these movements as a conjuncture of forces. Essentially, these movements had a lot of sympathy for one another, but that does not equate to an automatic alliance/relationship, and scholars should be wary of projecting one identity onto a range of unique movements. By thinking of the 1960s as a conjuncture of forces too, it enables us to identify when the decade ended – which as Prof. Rossinow highlighted, elicits a lot of controversy from those in the field who argue that the 1960s battles are still on-going. For example, if we think of movements of oppression, one could argue that we are still fighting the battle for rights and recognition of many today.  But if we think of the movements of rebellion as a particularly white-middle class revolt, one is able to argue that these movements were unique to their contemporary environment.

In what was an insightful and well-attended lecture, Prof. Rossinow unravelled the various historiographical interpretations of an important era, and offered some of his own conclusions regarding how we should peer through the historical lens to analyse what was a significant decade of transformation. It is true that the 1960s remains the most consequential and controversial decade of the twentieth century. In what dawned as a decade bright with hope and idealism, with many believing that the American state would attain its mightiest reforms and reach, ended in discord and disillusionment. Perhaps no period in American history has been filled with such an expansive and ambitious sense of possibilities—such a grand, inspiring sense of what Americans could achieve. But with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (which happened 50 years ago tomorrow), Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, the crushing of the Great Society’s massive social reform plans by the ravages of Vietnam, and the intense backlash to many of the movements discussed above, this hope was shattered. Prof. Rossinow’s talk was deeply informative, and allowed us all to contextualise this crucial decade in American history. From the counterculture to the rise of conservatism, and from the peaceful marches of those oppressed in society to the violent rioting of those demoralised, the upheavals of the 1960s opened fissures within American society that have continued to affect the nation’s politics and to intensify its so-called culture wars. As Prof. Rossinow superbly highlighted, 50 years on, the 1960s is still very much with us.

By Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at the University of Glasgow

The Centre’s seminar series continues with Dr. Sue Currell (Sussex University) ‘New Masses Magazine: Modernist Communism?’ This is part of the 'English and American Literature Lecture Series', co-sponsored by the Centre, and will be held on Thursday 5th December in Room 202, 4 University Gardens, at 5:15pm. All very welcome!