• Week 1: The Historical Background:  Greenwich Village Bohemia1850-1940 ;;The political climate of the sixties and the making of the counterculture – the battles for civil rights, for personal freedom, for feminism and gay rights, against the Vietnam War, against censorship.

• Week 2:         The Old Avant-Garde: The Forties and Fifties: Abstract Expressionism, the Beats, the birth of Underground Cinema. Harry Smith, Maya Deren, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Edgard Varèse, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg.

• Week 3:       The Folk Music Revival: Politics and Folk Music - Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, the folk club scene, Sing Out!, the Newport Folk Festivals

• Week 4:          Less is More: minimalism in the arts and music –La Monte Young, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, Phil Niblock, Sol LeWitt, Jasper Johns, Robert Morris, Donald Judd

• Week 5:       Free Jazz– Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra

• Week 6: Underground Cinema – Harry Smith, Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith, Ron Rice, Ken Jacobs, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas

• Week 7 : Happenings, Fluxus and Conceptual Art – Allan Kaprow, George Maciunas, George Brecht, Philip Corner, Jonas Mekas, Harry Smith, la Monte Young, Henry Flynt, Yoko Ono
• Week 8: Poetry in Action – the mimeograph revolution and the work of Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Piero Heliczer, Ed Sanders and the Fugs.                      

• Week 9: Pop Art and Art Rock – Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, The Fugs

• Week 10: The ongoing influence of the Sixties        

• Week 11: Class presentations of creative/research projects.

• Week 12: Class presentations of creative/research projects.

1. Critical analysis (1500 words)                                40%          Learning Objectives: 1,2
2. Creative/research project class presentation         10%           Learning Objectives: 3,4
3. Creative project final submission                           50%           Learning Objectives: 3,4

1. A critical analysis of a significant work of literature, poetry, music, visual art, performance art or other art form, relevant to this course. It is recommended that this critical analysis focus on an in-depth study of a single work (e.g. a poem by Ted Berrigan, a song by Bob Dylan, a film by Ken Jacobs), rather than a superficial analysis of a larger work (e.g. an entire album by Bob Dylan, a poetry collection by John Ashbery). An exception might be made when a series of works is closely related (e.g. painting of soup cans by Andy Warhol.) (1500 words)

2.    A creative project (e.g. musical work, film, poetry, interdisciplinary art, visual art, conceptual art) on a relevant theme, accompanied by an exegesis of c. 1500 words; the details of the project are to be negotiated with the course co-ordinator. The exegesis must contain a description of the sources of inspiration for the work, frame of reference, structural or formal considerations, and methodology.

      OR: A research project in an area relevant to this course: Essay: 3000 words.

All student creative and research projects must be presented in class in Weeks 11- 12. The work may be presented in a draft or incomplete form at this stage.