The politics of space: student communes, political counterculture, and the Columbia University protest of 1968

This thesis examines the Columbia University protest of April 1968 through the lens of space. It concludes that the student communes established in occupied campus buildings were free spaces that facilitated the protestors' reconciliation of political and social difference, and introduced Columbia students to the practical possibilities of democratic participation and student autonomy. This thesis begins by analyzing the roots of the disparate organizations and issues involved in the protest, including SDS, SAS, and the Columbia School of Architecture. Next it argues that the practice of participatory democracy and maintenance of student autonomy within the political counterculture of the communes awakened new political sensibilities among Columbia students. Finally, this thesis illustrates the simultaneous growth and factionalization of the protest community following the police raid on the communes and argues that these developments support the overall claim that the free space of the communes was of fundamental importance to the protest

Living the movement: Liberation News Service, Montague Farm, and the New Left, 1967-1981

This dissertation uses the Liberation News Service (LNS)--the Associated Press of New Left underground media--and Montague Farm--a commune created by former LNS staffers--as a lens through which to trace the evolution of the American New Left after 1968. The establishments of underground newspapers--often organized as work collectives--and communes were two of the most ubiquitous and emblematic gestures of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For this reason, LNS and Montague Farm serve as ideal subjects to reveal how institutions founded on the ideals of late-1960s activism adapted their politics to survive in the adverse political culture of the 1970s. By tracking these two groups, this dissertation grounds the events of the 1970s in the legacies of the 1960s. Along the way it explores the divergent aspirations of the communal counterculture, the evolution and demise of the New Left, and the quotidian challenges of living the Movement. Both groups drew from their political worldviews in order to shape their daily lives, creating new divisions of labor, new social arrangements, and new personal politics. With these trends in mind, this dissertation extends the chronological breadth of the Sixties, rethinks the relationship between political and cultural radicalism, and explores the relationship between diverse social movements. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that living the movement--through emphases on personal liberation and egalitarianism--became a central institutional survival strategy amid the demise of the New Left and the emergence of an adversarial national political culture. LNS accomplished this goal by continually revising its collective work structure; Montague Farm did so through communal living, antinuclear activism, and alternative energy organizing. This entwined institutional history suggests that the New Left's endgame was significantly more drawn out and complicated than defeatist New Leftists and triumphalist conservatives would have us believe. Indeed, both LNS and Montague Farm maintained a broad vision of Movement activism through the dusk of the 1970s

The Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s

In the decade after 1965, radicals responded to the alienating features of America’s technocratic society by developing alternative cultures that emphasized authenticity, individualism, and community. The counterculture emerged from a handful of 1950s bohemian enclaves, most notably the Beat subcultures in the Bay Area and Greenwich Village. But new influences shaped an eclectic and decentralized counterculture after 1965, first in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, then in urban areas and college towns, and, by the 1970s, on communes and in myriad counter-institutions. The psychedelic drug cultures around Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey gave rise to a mystical bent in some branches of the counterculture and influenced counterculture style in countless ways: acid rock redefined popular music; tie dye, long hair, repurposed clothes, and hip argot established a new style; and sexual mores loosened. Yet the counterculture’s reactionary elements were strong. In many counterculture communities, gender roles mirrored those of mainstream society, and aggressive male sexuality inhibited feminist spins on the sexual revolution. Entrepreneurs and corporate America refashioned the counterculture aesthetic into a marketable commodity, ignoring the counterculture’s incisive critique of capitalism. Yet the counterculture became the basis of authentic “right livelihoods” for others. Meanwhile, the politics of the counterculture defy ready categorization. The popular imagination often conflates hippies with radical peace activists. But New Leftists frequently excoriated the counterculture for rejecting political engagement in favor of hedonistic escapism or libertarian individualism. Both views miss the most important political aspects of the counterculture, which centered on the embodiment of a decentralized anarchist bent, expressed in the formation of counter-institutions like underground newspapers, urban and rural communes, head shops, and food co-ops. As the counterculture faded after 1975, its legacies became apparent in the redefinition of the American family, the advent of the personal computer, an increasing ecological and culinary consciousness, and the marijuana legalization movement.</p