1968 was a year of seismic social and political change across the globe.
Now, 50 years later, Tarleton State University and the humanities division of Tarrant County College have come together to co-host a history symposium focusing on 1968 and its continued importance and impact on the world five decades later.
The symposium is set for Feb. 22-23 and will feature four sessions led by academics and a lunchtime session led by Fort Worth community leaders. There will also be a lecture by historian Bruce Schulman.
Schulman kicks off the event Thursday evening with a lecture entitled, “The Sixties at 50: 1968 and the New American Cultural Politics.” He talk is part of the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program.
The lecture begins at 7:15 p.m. on the Trinity River Campus of Tarrant County College, 300 Trinity Campus Circle—ACTION A in the TRTR Building—in downtown Fort Worth.
Schulman is the William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University and author of From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt (1991), Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism (1994), and The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Politics, and Society (2001)—named one of the New York Times’ notable books of the year.
He is also the editor of Making the American Century: Essays on the Political Culture of Twentieth-Century America (2014), and a coeditor of Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s (2008), Recapturing the Oval Office: New Historical Approaches to the American Presidency (2015), and Faithful Republic: Religion and Politics in Modern America (2015).
Schulman contributes frequently to newspapers and online publications, has appeared as an expert commentator on numerous television and radio programs, and has consulted on productions by the History Channel, PBS and ABC News. He has won the American Historical Association’s Nancy Lyman Roelker Award for graduate mentorship and has been named the United Methodist Scholar/Teacher of the Year. In 2015, he was a national semifinalist for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers.
The presentations and lecture are free and open to the public, and will be presented as follows:
Thursday, Feb. 22, Lecture
Lecture 1
7:15 p.m. –Â
ACTION A (TRTR Building)
“The Sixties at 50: 1968 and the New American Cultural Politics.”
Friday, Feb. 23, Sessions
Session 1
9-10:15 a.m.
TRTR Energy Auditorium (Room 4008)
“Inspiration and Hope through Speech and Protest”
Session 2
10:30-11:45 a.m.
TRTR Energy Auditorium (Room 4008)
“Political Assassination of the 1960s”
Session 3
Noon – 1:45 p.m.
ACTION A (TRTR Building)
“Fort Worth in the 1960s”
Session 4
2:15-3:30 p.m.
TRTR Energy Auditorium (Room 4008)
“Women’s Liberation in 1968”
Session 5
3:45-5 p.m.
TRTR Energy Auditorium (Room 4008)
“American Politics, Law, and Society.”