Unsettled 1968: Origins – Myth – Impact [international workshop, Tübingen, Jun 14-16 2018] (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Questions of 1968: Background, Context and Retrospect
2018
The fiftieth anniversary of the May 1968 events in Paris, and of their less spectacular analogies elsewhere in the West, has attracted worldwide comment and re-evaluation. Much less is said about 1968 in the erstwhile communist world. That part of the story was, admittedly, confined in the main to one country, and came to a more brutal end than anything on the other side of the iron curtain. But closer examinations of the Western 1960s and their sequel have increasingly stressed the limits, illusions and paradoxes of these historical experiences. The protest movements were short-lived; if they had an impact, it was of a very different nature than what they had aspired to, and variations from country to country were much more important than they seemed at the time; neither protagonists nor interpreters came anywhere near an adequate grasp of the world-changing processes at work in the wider environment. Explaining the differences of cultural memory in East and West in terms of relati...
2018
“A long march through the institutions”1 was shouted in marches in Germany, “all power to the imagination”2 was chanted in Paris, “USA=SA=SS”3 was graffitied in the walls of Berlin, and “We are all German Jews”4 was heard in France and Italy. What these triumphant mottos represent is what is commonly referred to as ‘the revolution of 1968’, a cluster of rebellions mainly carried out by students in cities around the world that marched against antidemocratic and authoritarian regimes, hierarchical bureaucracies, communist totalitarianism, consumer society and, in general, contemporary culture. It is the culmination of diverse social and cultural processes and changes throughout the 60s. The degree of wide-ranging impact of 1968 is debated, some even argue that it is the “greatest and most dramatic, rapid and universal social transformation in human history”5. Nevertheless, what is most intriguing about 1968 is the intersection of its global, transnational and local components, which produce different experiences – and frustrating results – worldwide, topics we will study in the present essay.
Call for Papers: Unsettled 1968, Origins—Myth—Impact
The Slavic Department at University of Tübingen is pleased to announce “Unsettled 1968”, an interdisciplinary international workshop for graduate students. In 2018, we will have the 50th anniversary of “1968” - the year in which the world saw simultaneous revolts, protests, and turmoils all over the world. Not to mention Paris May Revolution and the Prague Spring, or the series of student protests in the United States and elsewhere, we faced the burgeoning of new generations coming into play, and the ending of old hegemonies. Since then, 1968 has not only produced myths that had attracted various authors but also a firm research topic that sociologists, historians, and literary theorists had been investigating. We will take this time of commemoration as the opportunity for opening our discussion on 1968, once again, in order to reevaluate its impact to this day. We will collect opinions from different generations, and revisit the boundary of experiences, testimonies, and reflections in an interdisciplinary manner. The workshop will consist of 3 keynote speeches 4 presentation panels, and a short-tour on the sight of 1968 in Tuebingen, as the city has also its solid memory of the 68 protest. Combining scholarly conversations with a site-specific knowledge, we wish to enhance international cooperation and build the basis for mutual understanding of our recent past in common. Keynote speakers: Irena Grudzinska Gross (Princeton University; Polish Academy of Science) Victoria Harms (the Herder Institute; Leibniz Graduate School) Michał Mrugalski (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)
How 1968 Changed the World: Movements Making History, History Making Movements
1968: A Global Approach, 2020
As activists in social movements, we live in the shadow of the "long 1968", the wave of struggles that shook the world from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. This is as true in Prague or Derry, with their very different movement histories, as it is in Paris or Chicago, in Bologna or in Mexico City. How we challenge power today, what movements we ally with, how we think about possible futures and how we organise ourselves still depends on the decisive historical moment that was 1968. This article does not seek to celebrate (or condemn) 1968, but to understand a legacy which shapes our own movement landscapes-in order to be better able to think forward to another, more successful attempt at transformation.
Revisting the global and local upheavals of 1968
Counterfutures, 2018
1968 was a year of momentous global revolt against elites in both East and West. This article argues that 1968 is noteworthy not so much for the events of 1968 in themselves, but for helping spawn or revive a broad variety of movements which continue to have wide-ranging repercussions today. This was particularly the case in Aotearoa where, by global standards, events in 1968 were tranquil, yet a prolonged spike in dissent developed afterwards during the long 1970s. Some contend that 1968 was an individualist and cultural revolt that sowed the seeds for neoliberalism. This article argues that such an interpretation neglects the strong collective, socialist, working class, and anti-colonial dimensions of 1968 and beyond. Neoliberalism was more of a reaction to 1968 than its product.