Seth Offenbach
I earned my PhD from Stony Brook University in December 2010. I am interested in modern American social and political movements. My dissertation emphasizes the response of the conservative movement to the Vietnam War and analyzes how the war altered the movement's philosophy.
I was born in New York City and earned my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill I found my passion for studying modern American history. After my undergraduate work, I was admitted to Stony Brook's doctoral program, which has enabled me to expand my horizons as a professional and academic.
While working on my dissertation, I taught over twenty classes at Stony Brook University, City College of New York, Lehman College, and Yeshiva University. In Fall 2011, I am scheduled to begin working as a Substitute Assistant Professor of History at Bronx Community College. This means I will be a full time faculty at BCC, teaching five world and US history classes per semester while advising students and contributing to the department culture and life. This is a wonderful opportunity for me since I enjoy teaching modern history courses as I use my classes to explore various themes with students, such as social, intellectual and cultural movements. In my US history classes, I frequently talk to my students about what it means to be an American during different historical periods, and how that answer has shaped society, culture, and minority rights. I also utilize various technologies, including the Internet, in my classes to help make them more accessible to the students. I also try to bring music, documents, photos, and videos into the classroom to help the students learn through primary sources. With my assignments, I emphasize real-world skills by focusing on writing and analytic abilities. This often requires assigning longer written essays, so that students can expand on their thesis and articulate their responses.
I am currently working on converting my dissertation into my first book. My dissertation was a close inspection of the conservative movement's response to the Vietnam War. It explores why the right supported the war, and more importantly, how that support for the (unpopular) war altered conservative movement identity. This comes to a central area of intellectual inquiry for myself; how and why do movements develop their identity. What effects can external factors play? This is explored within my work and will be present within my future work as well.
Supervisors: Michael Barnhart
I was born in New York City and earned my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill I found my passion for studying modern American history. After my undergraduate work, I was admitted to Stony Brook's doctoral program, which has enabled me to expand my horizons as a professional and academic.
While working on my dissertation, I taught over twenty classes at Stony Brook University, City College of New York, Lehman College, and Yeshiva University. In Fall 2011, I am scheduled to begin working as a Substitute Assistant Professor of History at Bronx Community College. This means I will be a full time faculty at BCC, teaching five world and US history classes per semester while advising students and contributing to the department culture and life. This is a wonderful opportunity for me since I enjoy teaching modern history courses as I use my classes to explore various themes with students, such as social, intellectual and cultural movements. In my US history classes, I frequently talk to my students about what it means to be an American during different historical periods, and how that answer has shaped society, culture, and minority rights. I also utilize various technologies, including the Internet, in my classes to help make them more accessible to the students. I also try to bring music, documents, photos, and videos into the classroom to help the students learn through primary sources. With my assignments, I emphasize real-world skills by focusing on writing and analytic abilities. This often requires assigning longer written essays, so that students can expand on their thesis and articulate their responses.
I am currently working on converting my dissertation into my first book. My dissertation was a close inspection of the conservative movement's response to the Vietnam War. It explores why the right supported the war, and more importantly, how that support for the (unpopular) war altered conservative movement identity. This comes to a central area of intellectual inquiry for myself; how and why do movements develop their identity. What effects can external factors play? This is explored within my work and will be present within my future work as well.
Supervisors: Michael Barnhart
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Rather than adamantly endorsing the war during the early years, most conservatives had serious reservations regarding the war. For instance, in a September 1964 National Review editorial the magazine admits that victory in Vietnam is unlikely to come quickly – if at all. It also derisively called President Johnson and his military officials “the world's most self-deluded observers.” This came on the heels of several months worth of apprehension within the conservative movement over the nature and viability of the war. In short, conservative were not convinced that the war in Vietnam was the right war in the right place.
Conservatives were some of the most deeply anti-communist Americans at the time, yet they disapproved of a war against communists until early-1965. This complexity is rarely discussed in the historiography largely because the movement eventually became some of the most adamant defenders of the war later on, but in the early years there was a lot of hesitation regarding the war. The reasons for this were wide ranging and included: the foreign policy belief that Vietnam was not strategically important enough, the political argument that Johnson was an incompetent military commander, and because there was no strong anti-communist South Vietnamese leadership to aid the American effort. All of those accounts contributed to a movement hesitant to support the Vietnam War.
The contemporary historiography about the start of the Vietnam War focuses on Johnson’s decisions for expanding the war and the domestic political pressure he felt to stand up to communism. This presentation seeks to complicate that narrative by incorporating the Right’s various beliefs about the war into the historiography. Combined with my dissertation, this will help provide historians with a more complete interpretation of the start of America’s largest Cold War proxy-battle.
While completing my dissertation on the conservative movement and the Vietnam War, I noticed that the historiography did not fully account for the divisions within the grassroots. This presentation is an attempt to bring the grassroots into the conversation regarding the birth of the New Right. Specifically, it questions whether grassroots disputes over the Vietnam War helped to force the conservative movement to evolve and form the New Right. This paper argues that many of the internal disputes within YAF and the grassroots in the late-1960s and early-1970s helps explain the movement’s ideological shift in the late-1970s with the rise of the New Right.
The shift within YAF during the Vietnam War is important is because of the role YAF, and grassroots youth activists played in Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Many historians have noted the role youths played in Goldwater’s nomination and presidential campaign, but many of those youths were libertarians who would later oppose the Vietnam War. This presentation seeks to blend that narrative with the greater historiography of the birth of modern conservatism and the New Right.
By giving the grassroots agency, this presentation will help integrate an important group into the movement. Much of the literature currently focuses on the role of new campaign techniques and methods. While conceding those changes, I seek to incorporate the grassroots into the greater historiography of the birth of the New Right.
Rather than adamantly endorsing the war during the early years, most conservatives had serious reservations regarding the war. For instance, in a September 1964 National Review editorial the magazine admits that victory in Vietnam is unlikely to come quickly – if at all. It also derisively called President Johnson and his military officials “the world's most self-deluded observers.” This came on the heels of several months worth of apprehension within the conservative movement over the nature and viability of the war. In short, conservative were not convinced that the war in Vietnam was the right war in the right place.
Conservatives were some of the most deeply anti-communist Americans at the time, yet they disapproved of a war against communists until early-1965. This complexity is rarely discussed in the historiography largely because the movement eventually became some of the most adamant defenders of the war later on, but in the early years there was a lot of hesitation regarding the war. The reasons for this were wide ranging and included: the foreign policy belief that Vietnam was not strategically important enough, the political argument that Johnson was an incompetent military commander, and because there was no strong anti-communist South Vietnamese leadership to aid the American effort. All of those accounts contributed to a movement hesitant to support the Vietnam War.
The contemporary historiography about the start of the Vietnam War focuses on Johnson’s decisions for expanding the war and the domestic political pressure he felt to stand up to communism. This presentation seeks to complicate that narrative by incorporating the Right’s various beliefs about the war into the historiography. Combined with my dissertation, this will help provide historians with a more complete interpretation of the start of America’s largest Cold War proxy-battle.
While completing my dissertation on the conservative movement and the Vietnam War, I noticed that the historiography did not fully account for the divisions within the grassroots. This presentation is an attempt to bring the grassroots into the conversation regarding the birth of the New Right. Specifically, it questions whether grassroots disputes over the Vietnam War helped to force the conservative movement to evolve and form the New Right. This paper argues that many of the internal disputes within YAF and the grassroots in the late-1960s and early-1970s helps explain the movement’s ideological shift in the late-1970s with the rise of the New Right.
The shift within YAF during the Vietnam War is important is because of the role YAF, and grassroots youth activists played in Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Many historians have noted the role youths played in Goldwater’s nomination and presidential campaign, but many of those youths were libertarians who would later oppose the Vietnam War. This presentation seeks to blend that narrative with the greater historiography of the birth of modern conservatism and the New Right.
By giving the grassroots agency, this presentation will help integrate an important group into the movement. Much of the literature currently focuses on the role of new campaign techniques and methods. While conceding those changes, I seek to incorporate the grassroots into the greater historiography of the birth of the New Right.