2014-15 CASBS fellow Fred Turner: "Media Against Fascism: From World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties"

In January, 1967, tens of thousands of hippies and their friends gathered in Golden Gate Park for a festival of love, dancing and psychedelia called the Human Be-In. Many have argued that the Be-In marked the start of the American counterculture, but Fred Turner reveals that the Be-In was actually the endpoint of an American assault on Fascism that began with World War II.

Turner tracks this surprising trajectory through the work of Margaret Mead, John Cage and the refugee artists of the Bauhaus. He reveals the long-forgotten history of anti-fascist multimedia in America – and with it, an essential historical context for understanding our current digital age.