This course examines the growth and life of an oppositional counterculture in the 1950s and 60s that bridged artistic avant-gardes and popular demands for cultural transformation. How do you stand against an erasing dominant culture to enact a process of change? We will look at shifts in American culture and how growing unrest in the U.S. joined with international rebellions—from Prague to Paris and Mexico City to sub-Saharan Africa—to challenge existing cultural orthodoxies. The course focuses on the impact of countercultural movements and the ways in which they drew from strategies of the civil rights struggle and the artistic avant-garde to move from marginalized to mainstream demand for change. We’ll follow the energy of a rebellious youth culture in artistic and popular movements from Beat to Black Arts and from established scenes in NYC and London to expanding communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles that further defined and amplified the call for a cultural revolution. The course decenters traditional understandings of the historical avant-garde to highlight the impact of previously overlooked artists and cultures. Resources include primary texts from cultural observers such as James Baldwin and Joan Didion, critical essays, and cultural expressions across the visual arts, music and performance.