1968: Global Resistance and Local Knowledge
Graduate Student Conference

Modern History and Literature Program, Casperson School of Graduate Studies
Drew University, Madison New Jersey
November 3-4, 2006
Email: 68hist_at_drew.edu
Website: http://groups.drew.edu/68hist

Within the emergent field of 1960s studies, there is a widespread consensus concerning the global significance of 1968. Scholarly interest in this year stems foremost from its many revolutionary eruptions and repercussions, including the radical urban uprisings of French and German youth; the revolt-induced invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet forces; the activist phase of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; and other uprisings in Mexico City and Tokyo. Other events of historic magnitude include the Tet offensive, violence at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the student takeover of Columbia University, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

Recent academic discussions of 1968 have focused upon the question of its systemic significance. Were the wide-ranging instances of social unrest that erupted throughout this year the manifestations of a global zeitgeist, conditioned or at least influenced by macro-economic and geopolitical forces? Contrarily, were these phenomena the outgrowth of primarily local and unrelated conditions? Or does a satisfying conclusion require a partial synthesis of both these possibilities?

The Drew University Modern History and Literature Program Graduate Student Conference on 1968 will attempt to explore this question from a number of different angles. Areas of interest include:

• Geographies of Protest: rebel energies in Western and Eastern Europe, North and Latin America, China and Southeast Asia.
• Gender Trouble: radical transformations in gender relations and sexual identity; the women's movement; gay and lesbian rights activism.
• Protest and Print Culture: pamphlets, manifestoes, plays, the underground press, literature, posters, graphic novels, and “comix.”
• Popular Culture and the Media Massage: cross-referential/interdisciplinary investigations into film, music, television, advertising, fashion, and “pop-art.”
• Political Ideologies: Marxism, Maoism, anarchism, the Frankfurt School, Situationism, internationalism, anti-colonialism, liberalism, the roots of contemporary conservatism.
• Theoretical Explorations: the rise and fall of Marxism, the universal vs. the local intellectual, post-structuralist stirrings, anticipations of globalization.
• Counter-cultures: hippies, Yippies, Diggers, Provos , communards, enragés, happenings, undergrounds, scenes.
• Technology: Future Shock; cybernetics and informatics; from Haight-Ashbury to Silicon Valley; the birth of the digital revolution.
• Religion: liberation theology; priests, pastors, and protest; journeys East and West; origins of New Age religion; the roots of contemporary fundamentalisms.

The papers need not be limited to the areas and topics listed above, nor the year 1968 as such. Rather, we encourage the creative combination of two or more areas of interest, as well as attempts to theorize the connection between various events, logics, and genres.

Those submitting paper proposals should be graduate students, post-docs, or very recent Ph.D.'s. Please submit a one-page abstract of your paper with your affiliation and contact information by snail mail or email to:

Cheryl Oestreicher, Conference Chair
Drew-CM 1124
36 Madison Avenue
Madison , NJ 07940
68hist_at_drew.edu

Keynote Speaker: Jeremy Suri, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin â€" Madison. Author of Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Harvard) and The Global Revolutions of 1968 (Norton, forthcoming).

Special Presenter: Mark Rudd, leader of the 1968 Columbia University strike and occupation; National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society; co-founder of the Weather Underground.

Faculty Sponsor: Jeremy Varon, Professor of History, Drew University. Author of Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (California ).

Drew University is located in Madison New Jersey, thirty miles from New York City . A commuter train runs from Madison to Penn Station in less than an hour.

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Received on Mon Jan 16 2006 - 14:39:58 EST