Amy’s Journal

Yes, that is the name of a class that I am taking. And yes, all of you who lived through the 60’s are now being studied in university history classes. A strange feeling, isn’t it? My mother was definitely a hippie (see the pictures above–my mom at age 16…looks a bit like me, doesn’t she?), and it is so interesting to study the time that I have heard so much about and seen so many pictures of. The 60’s were such a unique time–nothing like it had ever happened before and nothing like it has happened since. The most amazing part of the 60’s to me was the civil rights movement–I cried the entire time I read Why We Can’t Wait, by MLK Jr, and I highly recommend the book. It will inspire you to re-evaluate racism in our current society. I also just finished reading The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test, about the Merry Pranksters, which is a trippy book and is suuper interesting too. Are you on the bus?

This is the reading list for my class, if any of you are interested.

The Sixties Papers (Stewart & Judith Albert, eds)
Fire in the Streets (Milton Viorst)
Dreams Die Hard (David Harris)
Whv We Can’t Wait (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
One-Dimensional Man (Herbert Marcuse)
The Whole World is Watching (Todd Gitlin)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe)
Personal Politics (Sara Evans)
Meridian (Alice Walker)

We also had to watch The Graduate, a great movie, and I am about to write a paper analyzing The Graduate through the lense of Marcuse’s social theories in One Dimensional Man. Marcuse is hard, I must say. But for everyone, interested in the 60’s or not, I highly recommend the movie “Across the Universe” that is playing right now in theatres–it is about the 60’s, is a wonderful romance, is based around the lyrics of the Beatles songs, and is visually stunning. What could be better?

Peace, Love, and Rock’n Roll
Amy