Understanding Baby Boomers

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.

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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