WORLD ON FIRE

1968 THEN/NOW

Sampada Aranke (sarank@saic.edu)

Jennifer Lee (jlee241@saic.edu)
David Raskin, (draskin@saic.edu)
Bess Williamson, (swilli12@saic.edu)
Tuesdays, 1-4 pm
Lecture: Spertus, 4th Floor; Section Room: Spertus 314
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11-12 or by appointment; MacLean 616

“World on Fire: 1968 Then/Now” examines the intersections of art, design, and politics of
1968 and the mythic dimensions of its global upheaval. Signal events erupted on multiple
continents with near simultaneity: There was “May 1968” in France, the Tet Offensive in
Vietnam, the murder of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Tlatelolco Massacre in
Mexico City; the riots at the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago; the Soviet
Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia; and Mao Zedong’s movement to send red youth in major
cities “Up to the Mountains, and Down to the Countryside,” just to list a few. The course
will draw connections between these and recent events, as well as to what we might
broadly call “the contemporary.”

Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will analyze primary sources (objects, images, texts) relating to art
history.
-Develop skills of visual and textual interpretation
-Contextualize works in relation to global art histories and other relevant
(cultural, social, political) histories
2. Students will use tools developed by art historians.
-Write research papers using and citing sources appropriately
-Give effective oral presentations of research-based arguments
-Use museum and library resources effectively
-Situate their own inquiries in relation to art historiography
3. Students will develop arguments about art history.
-Build original ideas and demonstrate their originality by relating them to
existing scholarly literature
-Make claims persuasive by grounding them in interpretation of sources

Classroom Policies:

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Attendance
Attendance is mandatory in this class, which includes being on time, attentive, and
participating in class discussions. In keeping with SAIC policy, more than 2
unexcused absences may result in No Credit.

Device Use
Please use devices for note-taking in the first two rows of the classroom only.
Please consider taking notes on paper during class instead.

No recording without express permission.

Please use devices to write with in the museum. Please safeguard the works of art
and follow all instructions from the museum’s security officers.

Assessment
Credit in undergraduate classes at SAIC requires a grade of C (70%) or above.
Credit in graduate classes requires a B (80%) or above.

Writing Center
Please consider taking full advantage of SAIC’s writing center in pursuing these
projects:

Writing Center
LV, 116 S. Michigan, 10th floor
http://www.saic.edu/academics/academicresources/writingcenter/

Appointments: http://www.saic.edu/academics/academicresources/writingcenter/
makeanappointment/

Academic Misconduct
From the SAIC Student Handbook:
“Academic misconduct includes both plagiarism and cheating, and may consist of: the
submission of the work of another as one’s own; unauthorized assistance on a test
or assignment; submission of the same work for more than one class without the
knowledge and consent of all instructors; or the failure to properly cite texts or
ideas from other sources. Academic misconduct also includes the falsification of
academic or student-related records, such as transcripts, evaluations and letters
of recommendation. Academic misconduct extends to all spaces on campus, including
satellite locations and online education.

Academic integrity is expected in all coursework, including online learning. It is

assumed that the person receiving the credit for the course is the person
completing the work. SAIC has processes in place, including LDAP authentication, to
verify student identity.”

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 Specific procedures for faculty to follow in the case of academic misconduct are
detailed in both the Student Handbook and SAIC Bulletin.

Inclusion Statement
In keeping with SAIC policy, students with disabilities (including 'invisible'
difficulties such as chronic diseases, learning disabilities, or psychiatric
complications) are encouraged to make an appointment with the professor to discuss
accommodations by the end of the second week of the term so that appropriate
accommodations can be arranged. Students who think they would benefit from
assistance or accommodations should first contact the Disability and Learning
Resource Center (DLRC) by phone at 312.499.4278 or email at www.dlrc.saic.edu. DLRC
staff will review your disability documentation and work with you to determine
reasonable accommodations. They will then provide you with a letter outlining the
approved accommodations for you to deliver to all of your instructors.

Undergraduate Course Requirements and Grading:

Students must complete all of the course components in order to receive a passing grade.

Participation (10%)

Students are required to do all required reading and be able to critically

address the texts during lecture. Many of the qualifications for a passing
grade detailed here are executed in lecture and discussion. It is in your
best interest to show up to class prepared and ready to participate. On this
note, perfect attendance with minimal participation does not qualify as “A”
level participation. This means you are expected to critically engage in the
readings, activities, and discussions we have in class.

Weekly 1-page analytical outlines (due every Sunday by 11:59 pm via Canvas) (20%)

Each class for every reading assignment, students will turn in a one-page typed
analysis. These assignments are due at the beginning of every class and late
analyses will not be accepted. Their purpose is to help everyone prepare to talk
about the material. I do not “grade” these in the same way I would a research
paper, but rather will be assigning grades of either “credit” or “no credit,” using
the latter for both missing and unsatisfactory work.

Each outline will adhere to the following structure:

1) In the first section, state the thesis of the article. If there is more than
one thesis, choose the thesis that you consider most significant.

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 2) In the second section, trace point-by-point how the author attempts to prove
this thesis. This analysis of the argument should show the author’s thinking,
and it should be devoid any of the author’s digressions or asides.
3) In the third section, state your reactions to the essay. I am especially
interested in what you think about the issues and stances but also whatever
you perceive to be brilliance, flaws, wrong-headedness, or errors on the
writer’s part.

30 Details Response on 1968-era work from the museum. Due February 12th. (10%)

For this assignment, you will write a response to one work, made between 1965 and
1975, currently on view at the Art Institute that you think engages pressing
social, political, or cultural issues that still face us today.

The title of your paper should be:

Artist name, Title, Year, Medium. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Your response should have two parts:

1. Selfie with the artwork.

2. 30 details. List 30 details that you can see in the work that are not
primarily content-based (e.g. “transparent red wash in upper left corner” not
“cow”).

Expanded Critical Response to object from paper #1, drawing on readings from the
class. Due March 19th. (20%)

For this assignment, you will expand on your initial response to an object from the
museum. Now that you've read and heard more on the period, you will compose a 3-4
page paper (600-800 words) that argues for its significance to the legacy of 1968
by using at least one of the readings assigned for class.

Your paper should:

- Identify and describe the object in narrative form. Include enough details
that a person could picture it without seeing it, but not so many that it is
a list of 30 things.
- Answer the following question: "What does this object tell us about the
creative world of 1968?" Make a case for its relevance to the larger history
of 1968 by discussing it in reference to one or more of the readings for
class. The object might support arguments from the texts, or put them into
question. Either way, convince your reader of your position.
- The paper should be organized with a title and introduction that clearly
identifies the object and the argument you'll make about its significance,

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 with paragraphs that follow supporting these points. Use details from your
initial observation of the object to explore how this specific object relates
to broader themes of the class.
- All sources for this paper should be cited using Chicago style, including
readings from the class.

Satellite VAP program responses (10%)

Four VAP lectures are required for this class (see below). After each
lecture, bring 2 questions or comments for discussion in section.

Emory Douglas
Tuesday, March 5, 6:00 p.m.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium
230 S. Columbus Dr.

Rodney McMillian: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series

Wednesday, April 3, 6:00 p.m.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium
230 S. Columbus Dr.
Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of Alumni Relations

Newton Harrison
Tuesday, April 9, 6:00 p.m.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium
230 S. Columbus Dr.
Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Conversations on Art & Science Series

Martha Rosler
Tuesday, April 16, 6:00 p.m.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium
230 S. Columbus Dr.
Presented in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago

Research paper (2000 words). Topic proposals (due Week 10) to be approved by
instructor. Due in May 10th. (30%)

The final assignment in this class is a research paper based on an artwork or

event of the 1968 era (actual date may be up to a decade before/after, but
you must argue that it is connected in some way to the period of upheaval).
You will propose topics in the 10th week of class (April 9) and present the
material for feedback from classmates in the final week (May 7).

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 The paper of 2000 words should identify a historical work/series of works, or
event that you see as a representative of the themes proposed by scholars and
artists of the period.

Week One INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

Jan 29 2019 Group lecture: Icons of ‘68

Section meetings

READINGS:
Mitchell Abidore, (Opinion), “What the Non-Revolution of May ‘68 Taught
Us” New York Times (5 May 2018), SR4.
Jill Lepore, “What 2018 Looked Like Fifty Years Ago,” December 31, 2018.
Week Two TOPIC TWO
JENNIFER LEE
Red Media: The Cultural Revolution

Primary texts
Feb 5 “Decision of CPC Central Committee Concerning the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution (Adopted on August 8, 1966),” in Peking Review, Vol.
9, No. 33 (April 12, 1966): pp. 6-11.

Mao Tse-tung [Mao Zedong], “Statement Supporting the American Negroes in

Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by US Imperialism,” in
Peking Review, Vol. 9, No. 33 (August 12, 1966): pp. 12-13.

Secondary text
Andrew G. Walder, “The Red Guards” & “Red Terror,” in Fractured
Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (Harvard UP, 2009), 1-8.

GRADS - additional secondary text

Yiching Wu, “The Unthinkable Revolution,” in The Cultural Revolution at
the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis (Harvard UP, 2014): pp. 1-13.

In-class viewing
dazibao (big character posters)

The Red Detachment of Women (yangbanxi / model-opera ballet: https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHTPcs3lQPU)
Week Three TOPIC THREE
SAMPADA ARANKE
All Black Everything - Black Power

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 Feb 12 Frantz Fanon, translated by Richard Philcox, The Wretched of the Earth.
Grove Pr, 2004. Print. Pp. 1-11; 145-163.

Philip Foner, The Black Panthers Speak. (New York: Da Capo Press, 2002),
ix-xviii; 16-17.

GRADS

Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the

African American Freedom Struggle, (University of North Carolina Press,
2011), 1-27.

Week Four TOPIC FOUR

BESS WILLIAMSON
Designing Demographics: Countercultures and Mainstreams

Feb 19
ALL:
Dorothy Jackson, “The Black Experience in Graphic Design,“ Print 1968
(reprinted in Print Summer 2018).

“Ten in Search of a Nation,” Black World, October 1970, 80-86 (Reprinted

in color as Jeff Donaldson, “AFRICOBRA Manifesto?” Journal of
Contemporary African Art, 2012)

Victor J Papanek, Introduction, Design for the Real World; Human Ecology
and Social Change (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972).

GRADS: Alison J. Clarke,. “Victor Papanek and the Emergence of Humane

Design.” The Routledge Companion to Design Studies, 2016.

In Class: Millie Goldsholl, Up is Down, 1968

Week Five TOPIC FIVE

DAVID RASKIN
Art and Protest

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 Feb 26 Matthew Israel, Kill for Peace: American Artists Against the Vietnam War
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013), ch. 5 (“1968,” pp.102-127).

Abigail Satinsky, “Movement Building for Beginners,” Art Journal 74 (Fall

2015): 50-66.

Graduate extra reading: Art Workers’ Coalition primary information: “Open

Hearing” and “Documents 1”: http://www.primaryinformation.org/art-
workers-coalition/

Week Six TOPIC SIX

BESS WILLIAMSON
Hippie Modernists and Modernist Hippies

March 5 “Sun Dome,” Popular Science, 1966

Buckminster Fuller, “Spaceship Earth,” 1968
Greg Castillo, “Counterculture Terroir: California’s Hippie Enterprise
Zone,” from Andrew Blauvelt, ed., Hippie Modernism : The Struggle for
Utopia. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2015.
VAP: EMORY
DOUGLAS
GRADS: Fred Turner, “A Technocrat for the Counterculture,” in New Views
on R. Buckminster Fuller, ed. Hsiao Yun-Chu and Robert G. Trujillo (Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press, 2009), 146-160

In class: Dennis Hopper, dir., Easy Rider (1969)

Week Seven TOPIC SEVEN

SAMPADA ARANKE
Dropouts, Cults, Underground
March 12 Dan Berger, Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics
of Solidarity, (Oakland: AK Press 2006. Print), 153-162; 175-181.

Stephen Kent, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious

Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, (Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse Univ.
Press, 2001), 1-24.

GRADS:

Timothy Miller, "The Evolution of American Spiritual Communities,

1965-2009," Nova Religio. 13.3 (2010): 14-26.
Week Eight TOPIC EIGHT
JENNIFER LEE
Lost Causes

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 March 19 Primary texts
“We Also Have a Pair of Hands And Do Not Want to Lead an Idle Life in the
City!” in Peking Review no. 52 (December 27, 1968): pp. 6-7.

“A Splendid Work of Art Born of The Great Proletarian Cultural

Revolution--The Large Oil Painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan,” in
Peking Review, no. 29 (July 19, 1968): cover + p. 1 + pp. 7-9.

Scroll through propaganda posters

https://chineseposters.net/themes/up-to-the-mountains.php

Secondary text
Thomas P. Bernstein, “Urban Youth in the Countryside: Problems of
Adaptation and Remedies,” The China Quarterly, No. 69 (March 1977): pp.
75-91. [the article is longer; you may read on as time allows]

GRADS - additional secondary text

Alain Badiou and Bruno Bosteels. "The Cultural Revolution: The Last
Revolution?" positions: asia cultures critique 13, no. 3 (2005): 481-514.

MARCH 26 CRIT WEEK - NO CLASS

Week Nine TOPIC NINE

DAVID RASKIN
Monuments & Memory

April 2 Karal Ann Marling and Robert Silberman, “The Statue near the Wall,”
☙ Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 (Spring 1987): 4-29.

“A Questionnaire on Monuments: 49 Responses,” October no. 165, (summer

2018): selections

Graduate extra reading: James Tatum, “Memorials of the American War in

Vietnam” Critical Inquiry 22 (Summer 1996): 634-678.

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 Week Ten TOPIC TEN
SAMPADA ARANKE
State Repression and the Prison Industrial Complex
April 9 Screening: COINTELPRO 101 (58 min)

Angela Y. Davis, "Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia,"

Critical Inquiry. 21.1 (1994): 37-45.

Gopnik, Adam. “Learning from the Slaughter in Attica.” The New Yorker
(August 29, 2016): 1-7.

GRADS:

Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, (New York: Seven Stories Press,
2010), Excerpts.

Week Eleven TOPIC ELEVEN

JENNIFER LEE
Maoism in Hong Kong

April 16 Readings
☙ Gary Ka-wai Cheung, “Finale to the Hong Kong Style Cultural Revolution” &
“Impact of the 1967 Riots,” in Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots
(HKUP, 2009), 121-142.

Maynard Parker, “Reports: Hong Kong,” The Atlantic Monthly (November

1967): https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/67nov/hk1167.htm

GRADS
Christine Loh, “The Chinese Communist Party Tools of Co-optation and
Persuasion,” in Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong
Kong (HKUP, 2010), pp. 27-43.

In-class screening, excerpts:

Connie Yan-wai Lo, dir., Vanished Archives (2017) [documentary]

Recommended reading
Lawrence Cheun-yin Wong, “The 1967 Riots: A Legitimacy Crisis?” In Robert
Bickers and Ray Yep, eds., May Days in Hong Kong: Riot and Emergency in
1967 (HKUP, 2009), 37-52.

Alan Smart and Tai-lok Lui, “Learning from Civil Unrest: State/Society
Relations in Hong Kong Before and After the 1967 Disturbances.” In
Bickers and Yep, eds., May Days in Hong Kong, 145-159.

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 Week Twelve TOPIC TWELVE
BESS WILLIAMSON
1968 and the End of Modernism in Design?
April 23 ALL:
Peter Allen, “The End of Modernism?,” Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 70, no. 3 (September 2011): 354–74.
Phil Draper “It’s Accessible, It’s Electric, It’s Fascinating,” from
Going Where You Wheel on Telegraph Avenue (1984)

GRADS: Richard W. Hayes, “Learning, Building: Charles W. Moore and the

First-Year Building Project,” The Yale Building Project: The First 40
Years (Yale School of Architecture, 2007).

Week TOPIC THIRTEEN

Thirteen DAVID RASKIN
What was 1968?
and
Panel Discussion

April 30 Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, “The Politics of Interventionist Art: The

☙ Situationist International, Artist Placement Group, and Art Workers’
Coalition,” Rethinking Marxism 21 (January 2009): 34-49.

“1968 Now,” Bookforum (Summer 2018): selections

Panelists:
Simon Anderson, SAIC
Romi Crawford, SAIC
James Elkins, SAIC
Michelle Nickerson, Loyola University

Week
Fourteen

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 May 7 Final Project presentations/discussions

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