• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

American Counterculture in Literature

Module description

This module allows you to delve into America’s diverse countercultural scene, examining both how the counterculture expressed itself, and how it was captured by others, in literature. Focussing on the period from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, you will engage in close analysis of literary texts (novels, short stories, poetry, etc.) from this period and later works reflecting back on it, alongside exploring contextual material (pamphlets, essays, articles, underground publications, political theory, music, etc.) to gain a sense of the counterculture as a multifaceted cultural, political and historical phenomenon. You will also consider how the formal literary experimentation of many writers associated with the counterculture relates to revolutionary political ideologies.

Module aims - intentions of the module

a. To introduce you via literature to the diversity of views and practices that made up the American counterculture of the 1960s and 70s.

b. To enable you to contextualise literary texts from the period in relation to relevant political, social, cultural and historical developments.

c. To encourage you to consider factors motivating aesthetic (and especially formal) innovation in this time period, and the extent to which they intersect with political innovation.

d. To enable you to develop skills in archival research, through the use of (online) underground press archives.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of key works of literature relating to the American counterculture of the 1960s and 70s
• 2. Demonstrate a critical awareness of relevant contexts to such literary works, whether political, social, cultural or historical
• 3. Show an informed appreciation of critical debates around the counterculture and its literature, and be able to relate texts to larger literary movements (such as postmodernism) where relevant
• 4. Carry out effective research using online archives of underground press material related to the American counterculture

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Engage in advanced analysis of literature relating to the American counterculture of the 1960s and 70s and contextualise such analysis effectively
• 6. Demonstrate an advanced ability to discuss textual form and aesthetics, and to make connections between individual literary texts and broader movements in literature
• 7. Demonstrate an advanced ability to engage with relevant literary scholarship and theory

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Demonstrate, through seminar work and presentations, advanced communication skills, and an ability to work individually and in groups
• 9. Demonstrate, through essay-writing and presentations, appropriate research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, a capacity to present work in clear and correct language and according to disciplinary norms for presentation
• 10. Demonstrate an advanced proficiency, through research for seminars and assignments, in information retrieval and analysis, make critical use of secondary material, and reflect on own learning process

Syllabus plan

The module is intended to enable, through the study of literature, a historical understanding of the emergence of the counterculture, what characterised the counterculture at its peak in the late 1960s, and its cultural, political and literary legacies. We will read literary texts alongside (extracts from) selected contextual works, which may be political manifestoes, pamphlets, essays or books, newspaper or underground press articles, theoretical or historical works, pieces of music, or material on film.

Topics year on year may vary, but will usually include consideration of: 1) the emergence of the counterculture from the late 1950s to the mid-60s, including its connections with phenomena like the Beat movement, Civil Rights protest, early second-wave feminism, and the psychedelic movement; 2) how texts from or reflecting on the peak years of the counterculture from the late 1960s to early 70s depict its revolutionary energies as expressed in, for example, the anti-Vietnam war movement, commune culture, the Diggers, radical feminism, Black Power, the Black Arts movement, and Red Power; 3) how such texts reveal some of the issues (hedonism, drug abuse, factionalism, government interference, etc.) that led to these movements’ failure to politically revolutionise American society; 4) how literary texts represent countercultural ideas and practices as having persisted, despite this overall political failure, into the 1970s and beyond, including in terms of the counterculture’s impact on literary form.

Authors studied on this module may include Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Joan Didion, Thomas Pynchon, Larry Neal, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Toni Cade Bambara.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

An indicative list only of texts we may study; the current year’s reading list will be available on ELE

• Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (1958)
• Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
• Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)
• Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters (1980)
• Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (2009)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• See ELE

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Short literary texts/poetry and contextual resources will be made available to students via ELE
• Independent Voices open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals. Access via Jstor.

Key words search

Counterculture; America: US; 1960s; 1970s; twentieth-century literature; feminism; Black literature; Native American