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Past Event
Seminar

Grunt Free Press: Countercultural Movements and Contested Masculinities during the Vietnam War

Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Speaker: Addison Jensen, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, a wave of social and racial justice movements swept the United States, capturing the attention of American citizens both at home and abroad, including men and women serving in the Vietnam War. Two of these countercultural campaigns—the antiwar and women's liberation movements—issued a direct challenge to martial masculinity, a central pillar in the United States' battle against communism in Vietnam. In its place, the movements offered up their own alternative notions of masculinity. This presentation explores American servicemen's responses to this "crisis of masculinity" through the lens of Grunt Free Press—a GI-centered, underground-styled magazine that circulated among the troops in Vietnam between 1968 and 1972. Within the pages of Grunt Free Press, the GIs wrestled with evolving conceptions of masculinity, formulated their responses to the challenge, and found themselves increasingly open to countercultural ideas.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

Date: Time: - Location: Room 350
GIs take time out to read newspapers and magazines above and below their sandbagged bunker in a base camp set up in a jungle clearing in South Vietnam near the Cambodian border, Nov. 28, 1966.

About

Speaker: Addison Jensen, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, a wave of social and racial justice movements swept the United States, capturing the attention of American citizens both at home and abroad, including men and women serving in the Vietnam War. Two of these countercultural campaigns—the antiwar and women's liberation movements—issued a direct challenge to martial masculinity, a central pillar in the United States' battle against communism in Vietnam. In its place, the movements offered up their own alternative notions of masculinity. This presentation explores American servicemen's responses to this "crisis of masculinity" through the lens of Grunt Free Press—a GI-centered, underground-styled magazine that circulated among the troops in Vietnam between 1968 and 1972. Within the pages of Grunt Free Press, the GIs wrestled with evolving conceptions of masculinity, formulated their responses to the challenge, and found themselves increasingly open to countercultural ideas.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee & Tea Provided.

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