I am currently an associate professor of U.S. history at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. I teach a broad range of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. I specialize in U.S. foreign policy, the Vietnam War, the U.S. since World War II and the Sixties. My first book, Inventing Vietnam, is an analysis of the failed nation building effort undertaken by the United States in Vietnam and how that failure led to the war. In related research, I have also written on privatization of war and war profiteering, using the invasion of Iraq as a case study.
My more recent research focuses on the Sixties in the U.S. and specifically the counterculture and advent of rock music culture, with a particular emphasis on the role of the college campus. Based on that research, I published an article, “Campus Rock: Rock Music Culture on the College Campus during the Counterculture Sixties, 1967-8,” The Journal of Popular Music Studies 32, issue 3 (September 2020): 51-72. Additional details can be found in “research tidbits.”
Because the story was much more expansive and national in scope, I expanded this research while also highlighting two case studies: Stonybrook (Long Island, NY) and Drew Universities (Madison, NJ). The resulting book, Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower: Rock Music on Campus in the Sixties is now available from Rutgers University Press. (download coupon here)
Contact: jcarter1@drew.edu
