Sex, drugs and rock n' roll, it is not.
But Paul Sawyer's English course, "The Culture of the 1960s," couldn't be more popular if was a city park sit-in on a sunny day during the Summer of Love.
Students tune in, turn on and sign up for an academic blast from the near past in numbers that consistently exceed average attendance figures for English classes such as ... well, Victorian literature -- which is Sawyer's specialty.
Sawyer, a professor of English, got his Ph.D in English from Columbia University in 1967 and arrived at Cornell in 1975. Although he came of age in the '60s, he wasn't a player on the explosive political scene of the time.
"There's a saying that goes 'If you remember the '60s, you probably weren't there.' That's not true for me," said Sawyer. "I was there, but on the sidelines. I guess I missed it the first time so I had to go back and teach it."
Sixties courses were booming before Sawyer first offered his in 1990, and there was a concern the subject was about to go bust. Not so: 250 students preregistered for his first class.
The average size of a Cornell English class is small compared to lectures in chemistry and physics, and a course with 60 or 70 students is considered substantial. Upwards of 350 students have pre-registered in previous years for "The Culture of the 1960s." Such is the enduring mystique of the '60s -- and it's paradoxical relationship with the 1990s.
Jimi Hendrix, acid rock icon of the '60s, once pondered in song what the cosmic implications would be "If 6 Were 9." Sawyer, sans wah-wah pedal and a stack of Marshall amps, mused along similar lines when he shaped his curriculum.
Today it is not a question of "If 6 were 9." Six is nine, if you dig.
Sawyer explores the paradox in his syllabus:
"'The '60s' when inverted becomes 'the '90s.' The '60s is 'now' in a double sense: First, (it) ... denotes both a decade and a set of ideas and assumptions about that decade that change with time; second, because the '60s also denotes a set of ideas and concerns that remain with us today and to some extent have already shaped the generations that have come after."
To throw a '90s spin on the '60s theme, Sawyer developed a multimedia curriculum. In addition to required reading -- which includes novels, journalism and political speeches -- he added music, films and guest lecturers. And sometimes a writer or poet, or a political activist.
The course is a prerequisite for the American Studies major and Sawyer demands personal commitment from students. Weekly section meetings and reading responses are mandatory. Miss a few sections and failure looms.
In January there was a viewing and discussion of the movie "Dr. Strangelove." A few weeks ago, students wrapped up a reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, then dived into the freewheeling prose of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. This past month there were the feminist manifestoes followed by the songs of Bob Dylan. In April, the Vietnam War gets a going over. Sawyer said he is keen not to let Vietnam dominate the course.
In February Sawyer's students filled a Goldwin Smith auditorium for a lecture on Malcolm X and black culture given by Professor James Turner, director of the Africana Studies and Research Center.
Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll may have drawn some to the class. But for many, the '60s fascination transcends race, politics, gender and war. It's about family. Sawyer's students are the sons and daughters of the Woodstock Generation -- those roomier seated, salt and peppered baby boomers of today.
"My parents were hippies," said junior in economics Kate Kristin Keifer. "They went to Grateful Dead concerts, had long hair, wore bell bottoms and were caught up in world peace and just being yourself more than in making money and advancing themselves in a capitalist society. (Although) I have a feel for what happened in the '60s, there is a lot I don't know about or fully understand ... (so I took this class) to get a better idea of what really happened."
Consider Lucy Morehouse's situation. Freshman Morehouse grew up on a veggie commune in Vancouver. She's been steeped in the Aquarian ethos and would like to know what "normal" life was like.
"My uncle went to Vancouver to escape the draft, my parents were hippies and went there to join him," said Morehouse, who, dressed in a long denim skirt and a vibrant yellow '70s-era jacket, was something of a visual flashback. "They still have a farm and I've worked there growing organic vegetables ... The counter culture got played up in this media circus and what was normal stayed in the background -- you don't have a sense of what normal people were doing. I'd like to know."
Sophomore Kevin Knox, a physics major, said he is inspired by the "fervor and dedication to change some people had back then. I feel like America is a much more cynical place and people are far less inclined to fight for what they believe in."
Knox said he is deeply influenced by '60s culture and by what his parents, children of the era, have related to him.
"A lot of the music I listen to and books that I read come from that period," he said. "And I feel like my definition of what a college experience is, or should be, is based a lot on what my parents tell me was their college experience."
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