INST 3503 - Countercultural Capital: 20th Century Literary and Musical Movements

Hours: 4
How does the minimalism of the ‘60s relate to the early days of Off-Off Broadway theater, to the New York School of poets, and to the films of Jack Smith? How does the New German Cinema of the ‘70s work with the theater of Franz Xaver Kroetz and against the “Krautrock” music of the same time? What manifesto does the Brazilian Tropicalia movement advance across poems, plays, and albums? How does British punk grow out of Situationism and become queered in the films of Derek Jarman or polemicized in the tunes of Scritti Politti? What kinds of insights can we make about the function of art, and the power of innovation, by looking at these culture-making movements? This course examines such global countercultures from the last century, looking at the literary and musical factions that grew out of them. Toward the goal of writing our own essays and reflections, we will examine the relationship between artists in these different modes, and consider how each took their shared impulses to sometimes common, sometimes unique, ends. In addition to the usual countercultures such as the hippie and Beat milieus, we will also look into ones running counter to them, i.e., the deeper impulses swirling around in the collective consciousness, waiting to emerge. If protest music and films deliver one kind of message and impact—a phenomenon you will encounter in the Spring counterpart of this dyad course—what dents in the culture can these experimental novelists, filmmakers, musicians, poets, and designers make? (Paired with INST 4003 to fulfill the dyad requirement.)

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INST 3503 - Countercultural Capital: 20th Century Literary and Musical Movements