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Understanding
Baby Boomers
Newswise — Baby boomers changed American society by breaking
down barriers and challenging the attitudes
and prejudices of their parents’ generation.
Yet as baby boomers approach retirement age,
many of their sons and daughters know little
of the true impact the generation has had on
American culture.
American University professor Leonard Steinhorn is working to
bridge that knowledge gap with a course
titled, Talking About My Parents’
Generation: Understanding Baby Boomers and
How They’ve Shaped Us.
Steinhorn’s class covers the people, events, literature and
media that shaped a generation and looks at
how that generation continues to influence
American culture today.
By analyzing the seminal experiences of this generation --
from the turbulent Sixties to Vietnam and
the Me Decade to navigating a new economy
and raising this new generation of young
people -- students approach our recent
history from the perspective of their
parents and consider how their own lives
have been influenced.
Students are immersed in the culture of the 1960’s and early
1970’s with screenings of popular and
influential movies and TV shows.
Screenings include: “Rebel Without a Cause,” “The Graduate,”
“Alice’s Restaurant,” and current
documentaries on the period, “The U.S. vs.
John Lennon” and “The War at Home.” They are
also asked to read some of the same works
the baby boomers were moved by, including
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Tom
Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities
and many essays and articles by Norman
Mailer, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others.
Steinhorn, the author of the critically acclaimed book The
Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby
Boom Legacy, brings students one step
closer to truly identifying with their baby
boomer parents with a “Time Machine” paper,
which calls on students to imagine
themselves traveling back in time to
participate in an event, be a part of a
movement, or spend time with an individual
from that era.
The assignment is one of three papers that allow students to
put themselves in the shoes of their parents
and consider how baby boomers helped America
move from the conformity of the 1950’s to
the society we have today.
Steinhorn, a professor in the School of Communication, is not
new to this kind of innovative approach to
teaching. His groundbreaking course,
Presidential Campaign 2000: Inside the War
Room and the Newsroom, was featured every
week on CNN. He is also the author of By the
Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of
Integration and the Reality of Race, and
writes frequently about politics, race
relations, social movements, American
history, youth issues, mass media and trends
in popular culture.
American University’s School of Communication is a laboratory
for professional education, communication
research and innovative production across
the fields of journalism, film and media
arts, and public communication. Patrick
Butler, vice president of The Washington
Post Company; Susan Zirinsky, executive
producer for CBS’s “48 Hours Investigates”;
and Tony Perkins, morning anchor for WTTG
Fox 5 and former meteorologist for ABC’s
“Good Morning America” are among the School
of Communication’s alumni who maintain close
relationships with the school.
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