2022 Summer
Surviving the Sixties: Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n’ Roll
The summer
The resources listed below are available at the J. W. Martin Library or online. Some works from the library collection will be available on-site during the Chautauqua.
Background Reading
These books offer background information and overviews of the decade.
The Columbia Guide to America in The 1960s by Call Number: 973.923 C723ISBN: 9780231113724Publication Date:Amid the polemics and the myths, making sense of the Sixties and its legacies presents a challenge. This book is for all those who want to take it on. Because there are so many facets to this unique and transformative era, this volume offers multiple approaches and perspectives.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties by Call Number: 973.92 L4701pISBN: 9781596985728Publication Date:Get ready to break on through to the other side as critically acclaimed playwright and journalist Jonathan Leaf reveals the politically incorrect truth about one of the most controversial decades in history—the 1960s.
The Radical Reader by Call Number: 303.484 R1184ISBN: 9781565848276Publication Date:The first anthology of its kind, The Radical Reader brings together more than 200 primary documents in a comprehensive collection of the writings of America’s native radical tradition. Spanning the time from the colonial period to the twenty-first century, the documents have been drawn from a wealth of sources—speeches, manifestos, newspaper editorials, literature, pamphlets, and private letters.
Social Movements of the 1960s by Call Number: 303.484 B937sISBN: 9780805797374Publication Date:America was irrevocably changed by the 1960s civil rights, anti-war and feminist movements. This study examines them side by side, revealing their interdependence, common grassroots origins and cumulative impact.
This Is Who We Were: In The 1960s by Call Number: 330.973 T3496 1960sISBN: 9781619252486Publication Date:This is Who We Were: In the 1960s explores American life in the 1960s, a truly tumultuous and pivotal decade in our nation. Readers will uncover what life was like for ordinary Americans as they lived through a Social Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War, all in the span of ten short years.
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (–) was a poet who, along with William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and others, founded the Beat movement. A critic of American culture, he advocated for a freer use of drugs and sex. Like other Beats, he also took a strong interest in Buddhism. His most influential work is the poem “Howl,” in which he denounces conformity and consumerism, and which became the focus of an obscentity trial for its depiction of sexual acts. He was a member of the North American Man / Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which advocated for the legalization of pederasty. He died of liver cancer in .
Print Books
Allen Ginsberg by Call Number: 811 G435YmISBN: 9780805703207Publication Date:Dr. Merrill’s purpose in this study is to present a fair and objective critical analysis of Allen Ginsberg’s work. Avoiding, as far as possible, the carnival aspects of Ginsberg’s career, the author focuses upon the question of his worth as a poet.
Mind Breaths: Poems, – by Call Number: 811.54 G435mISBN: 9780872861015Publication Date:Meditations, rhapsodies, elegies, confessions, and mindful chronicle writings filling inward and outward space thru mid-Seventies decade.
The Portable Beat Reader by Call Number: 810.8 P8308ISBN: 9780142437537Publication Date:The Portable Beat Reader collects the most significant writing of … the Beat Generation …. In poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, it captures the triumphant rudeness, energy, and exhilaration of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.
Romantic Rebels: An Informal History of Bohemianism in America by Call Number: 810.93 H124rISBN: 9781199847690Publication Date:An informal history of Bohemianism in America. Illustrated with portraits of the Bohemians including Henri Murger, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Adah Menken, Joaquin Miller, Bret Harte, James Hunekeer, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Isador Duncan, Lenny Bruce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Floyd Dell, Mary Austin, Joe Gould, Allen Ginsberg, and many more.
Movies
Kill Your Darlings by Call Number: 791.4372 K554 DVDPublication Date:A story of friendship, love, and murder in the early 1940s. The story recounts the pivotal year that changed Allen Ginsberg’s life forever and provided the spark for him to start his creative revolution. Based on true events and characters.
eBooks
Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.
American Scream by ISBN: 9780520939349Publication Date:This first full critical and historical study of “Howl” brilliantly elucidates the nexus of politics and literature in which it was written and gives striking new portraits of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.
Understanding the Beats by ISBN: 9780585321783Publication Date:Foster provides a survey of the four major Beat writers: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso. These writers were closely allied from the beginning of their careers and shared a particular vision of America, one which in turn defined much of their most celebrated work.
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (–) was a novelist and playwright best known for Goodbye to Berlin. Originally from England, he lived for a time in Berlin but settled in the United States in . He was involved in Vedantism, a modern variation of Hinduism, and helped translate a popular version of the Bhagavad-Gita. His time in Berlin brought him into contact with Magnus Hirschfield’s Institute for Sexual Science, and he had relationships with multiple men and boys, including lifelong partner Don Bachardy, whom he met in California when Bachardy was a teenager. His autobiography, Christopher and His Kind, was influential on the Gay Liberation Movement.
Print Books
On the Frontier by Call Number: 822.912 Au23oISBN: 9780404146382Publication Date:The play tells the story of the outbreak of war between the fictional European countries of Ostnia and Westland. Some of the action takes place in the “Ostnia-Westland Room,” an imaginary setting in which two rooms, one in an Ostnian household, one in a Westland household, each occupy half the stage, and the family in one house are unaware of the family in the other—although the son and daughter of the two families sense each other’s existence.
The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita by Call Number: 891.21 M2773s 1972ISBN: 9780451627575Publication Date:The Bhahagavad Gita is the most popular scripture in India, and the most printed next to the Bible. The translators made it a point for the reading to be clear and yet poetic. They thus use the beauty of verse to express the highest truths of Vedanta.
eBooks
Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.
Divine Decadence by ISBN: 9781400863006Publication Date:As femme fatale, cabaret siren, and icon of camp, the Christopher Isherwood character Sally Bowles has become this century's darling of “divine decadence”—a measure of how much we are attracted by the fiction of the “shocking” British / American vamp in Weimar Berlin.
The Making of Cabaret by ISBN: 9780199830190Publication Date:A handy and engaging chronicle, this book is the most detailed production history to date of the original Broadway version of Cabaret, showing how the show evolved from Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin stories, into John van Druten’s stage play, a British film adaptation, and then the Broadway musical, conceived and directed by Harold Prince as an early concept musical.
A Spiritual Bloomsbury by ISBN: 9780739161227Publication Date:A Spiritual Bloomsbury is an exploration of how three English writers—Edward Carpenter, E.M. Forster, and Christopher Isherwood—sought to come to terms with their homosexuality by engagement with Hinduism.
Cass Elliot
Ellen Naomi Cohen (1941–1974), who used the stage names Cass Elliot and Mama Cass, was a singer with The Mamas & the Papas, a folk rock group that largely defined the music of the 60s counterculture. The group broke up in , after which Elliot released five solo albums. She died suddenly of heart failure on . She and the other band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in .
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (–) was a clinical psychologist at Harvard University who researched the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD. He developed a philosophy of drug use blending psychology with religious mysticism, summarized by the catchphrase, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Harvard fired Leary for giving drugs to students. In , he was arrested for possession of marijuana and convicted under the Marihuana Tax Act of , but the Supreme Court ruled the Tax Act unconstitutional in 1969, overturning his conviction. In the 1980s, he advocated for space colonization. He died of prostate cancer in .
eBooks
Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.
The Hippies and American Values by ISBN: 9781572337701Publication Date:“Turn on, tune in, drop out,” Timothy Leary advised young people in the 1960s. The Hippies and American Values uses an innovative approach to exploring the tenets of the counterculture movement. Rather than relying on interviews conducted years after the fact, Timothy Miller uses “underground” newspapers published at the time to provide a full and in-depth exploration.
Psychedelic Revolutionaries by ISBN: 9781786994387Publication Date:Psychedelic Revolutionaries recounts the history of hallucinogenic-drug research in Saskatchewan, and the pioneering work of Humphry Osmond, Abram Hoffer, and Duncan Blewett. They broke new ground in the 1950s and 60s in the use of hallucinogens, like mescaline and LSD, and the development of treatments for alcoholism and schizophrenia—until Timothy Leary hit the scene and undermined everything with his public pronouncements.
Articles
Anyone can access electronic articles from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.
- “Timothy Francis Leary”
by Frank Barron, published in The Humanistic Psychologist, vol. 24, no. 2 (), pp. 291–292.
- “In Memoriam: Timothy Leary”
by Ralph Metzner, published in The Humanistic Psychologist, vol. 24, no. 2 (), pp. 293–297.
- “A New Behavior Change Program Using Psilocybin”by Timothy Leary, et al., published in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, vol. 2, no. 2 (), pp. 61–72.
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon (–) was a vocalist and rhythm guitarist. He formed the band The Beatles, one of the most popular musical groups of all time. Their song “All You Need Is Love” became the unofficial anthem of the Summer of Love in . Lennon married Japanese artist Yoko Ono in and left The Beatles later that year. He then collaborated with Ono and also produced solo albums. The couple moved to the United States in and became involved in Vietnam War protests and other political causes. The FBI closely watched Lennon’s activities, and the Nixon administration unsuccessfully attempted to deport him. A Beatles fan, Mark David Chapman, shot Lennon to death in 1980.
eBooks
Anyone can access eBooks from an NWOSU campus. However, at other locations, you must have a university account.
Beyond Deportation by ISBN: 9781479807543Publication Date:The first book to comprehensively describe the history, theory, and application of prosecutorial discretion inimmigration law. When Beatles star John Lennon faced deportation from the U.S. in the 1970s, his lawyer Leon Wildes made a groundbreaking argument. He argued that Lennon should be granted “nonpriority” status pursuant to INS’s (now DHS’s) policy of prosecutorial discretion.
Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI FIles by ISBN: 9780520924543Publication Date:This book tells the story of the author’s remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the Lennon files under the Freedom of Information Act in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. With the publication of Gimme Some Truth, 100 key pages of the Lennon FBI file are available—complete and unexpurgated, fully annotated and presented in a “before and after” format.
John Lennon: In His Own Words by ISBN: 9780740793127Publication Date:John Lennon inspired millions during his too-brief lifetime. First with the Beatles, then as a solo artist, philosopher, and peace activist, he spoke for a generation that believed they could change the world, and did.
