UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday. March 1. 1996
5A
Dig this beatnik class; it's like cool, Daddy-O
The Associated Press
WICHITA - Can you dig it? Wichita's counterculture of the 1950s and early 1960s is cool again as a college course.
Wichita State University anthropology department officials weren't sure what response they would get when they arranged with local scholar and musician Pat O'Connor to teach the class.
"Of course, I don't think the kids today are missing out on anything by not living in the '60s. You can make your own life now," O'Connor said. "But the same impulses are still out there, and it's good to know how people dealt with them before."
An unexpectedly large number of students seem to agree, judging from enrollment in the two credit-hour course. When the first class is held tomorrow at the university's downtown location, about 50 students are expected. That's more than the planned limit of 35, and far beyond the expectations of university officials.
"You never know, really, but we had hoped there would be a lot of people in this community who would be interested," said Clay Robachek, head of the anthropology department. "As it turned out, there were."
O'Connor and Robachek don't feel any need to apologize to traditionalists for a course they admit is somewhat off the beaten academic track. Robachek, whose department has
"Ofcourse, I don't think the kids today are missing out on anything by not living in the '60s."
Pat O'Connor instructor of beatnik class
absorbed what is left of the former American studies program, said O'Connor's credentials for the course go well beyond his bachelor's degree in communications and master's degree in American studies.
"I've known P.J. for years. We're both big blues fans, and I had spoken with him about the possibility of a class putting the blues into a cultural context. That fit within the concerns of both the anthropology department and its American studies variant. We put that together, did it a couple of years off-campus, and it was very well received," Robachek said.
O'Connor also has written a number of papers on the blues and popular culture in Wichita and in Kansas, and he is a recognized authority on the subject, Robachek said.
Not only is O'Connor's class a respectable scholarly pursuit, Robachek said, "It also fits with the university's mission to interrelate more with the concerns of the local community."
O'Connor is a product of the brief transitional period between the beatniks and the hippies and a veteran of such underground newspapers as Wichita's The Free Press. He is also a longtime performer of blues and traditional Irish music. He has befriended nonconformists ranging in age from pre-beat to post-grunge.
It was the traditional academic track, however, that led O'Connor to his latest project.
"The first thing I did after getting out of graduate school, where they make you write a lot of papers, was to think that it's now my turn to write about something I could research with pleasure." O'Connor said.
O'Connor will ask other eyewitnesses to share their recollections of the scene. Among those who will speak are a drug counselor, an artist, a writer, a yoga instructor and a woman who was good friends with several famous rock stars.
In addition, students will be required to read former Wichitan Charles Plymell's novel Last of the Moccasins from the beat publishing house City Lights.
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