Alan C. Petigny, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida
Author of The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965 (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Drawing from a chapter in a book he is writing titled The Crisis of Authority and the Rise of Moral Relativism: America: 1936-1980, Professor Petigny will show how the rise of black militancy, during the latter half of the sixties, helped facilitate the acceptance of revolutionary violence among groups ranging from the Weather Underground and the Berrigan Brothers (Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan and the New Catholic Left that they led) to leading advocates of Chicano Power.

Alan Cecil Petigny is Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 2003.  He was a 2010-11 Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program.  He has held a fellowship at Rutgers University and, on two occasions, has been a visiting Professor at Korea University.  Before becoming an academic, he worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. He was also an award-winning reporter for a public radio station based in Tampa, Florida, contributing material to both Florida Public Radio and National Public Radio. He is the author of The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. He has written articles and review essays for such publications as the Journal of Social History, the Mailer Review, Reviews in American History, American Heritage Magazine, Historically Speaking, The Woodson Review, and The Canadian Review of American Studies. He holds an M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in U.S. History from Brown University.

Co-Sponsored by:

The Program in American Studies