Event Title

Living In the '80s: From Memory to History

Location

Hart 116

Start Time

12-5-2016 11:25 AM

End Time

12-5-2016 11:40 AM

Description

Zubaz pants and Members Only jackets. Michael J. Fox and Michael Jackson. Shoulder pads and Hands Across America. The 1980’s resonate today because of their iconic cultural legacy. But as a U.S. historian, I struggle to understand the decade in its own right, while most of the world has its own personal memory of those years. I examine this dilemma by focusing on my study of the 1980’s antinuclear movement, which was supported by a CARS FLRG. The movement left a mixed legacy: it brought together civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, religion, and pacifism to challenge the conservative dominance of the 1980s, but little nuclear disarmament was achieved, and the years since have seen conservatism grow even more entrenched. I will discuss my research and my experience teaching the 1980’s to begin making sense of the decade while also exploring how historians handle the transition of the present into the past.

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Moderator: Martina Arndt

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May 12th, 11:25 AM May 12th, 11:40 AM

Living In the '80s: From Memory to History

Hart 116

Zubaz pants and Members Only jackets. Michael J. Fox and Michael Jackson. Shoulder pads and Hands Across America. The 1980’s resonate today because of their iconic cultural legacy. But as a U.S. historian, I struggle to understand the decade in its own right, while most of the world has its own personal memory of those years. I examine this dilemma by focusing on my study of the 1980’s antinuclear movement, which was supported by a CARS FLRG. The movement left a mixed legacy: it brought together civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, religion, and pacifism to challenge the conservative dominance of the 1980s, but little nuclear disarmament was achieved, and the years since have seen conservatism grow even more entrenched. I will discuss my research and my experience teaching the 1980’s to begin making sense of the decade while also exploring how historians handle the transition of the present into the past.