Since 1968

a 40th anniversary conference at the
Center for 21st Century Studies
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

October 23-25, 2008

conference organizers
Jasmine Alinder, Aneesh Aneesh, Kumkum Sangari, Daniel J. Sherman, and Ruud van Dijk

conference coordinator
Kate Kramer

If what historians might call a long 1968–the period from the mid-1960s to the early '70s–gave rise to new epicenters of theory, including original Marxist and feminist paradigms; artistic experimentation and new cultural forms, in music, visual art, and literature; and explosive protest movements around the world, the reaction to these developments arguably had as great a transformative impact on the right as on the left. 1968 has remained a touchstone for activists, artists, and theorists of all stripes, and has taken on new significance at the present moment, which bears certain uncanny resemblances to the earlier time. "Since 1968" especially seeks to explore the uses, in several senses of the term, of 1968 today.

Thus the conference asks: what are the parallels between the international situation in 1968 and 2008? What versions of 1968 have artists, theorists, and activists made use of in the decades since? To what extent are theoretical paradigms, political and social movements, and artistic practices that emerged or were tested in the fulcrum of 1968 taking on new life now, and how are they adapting to the physical and virtual spaces of the twenty-first century? Discussions of these and related questions will, we hope, lead to reflection on the larger process of recuperation of historical events, cultural production, and theoretical paradigms in various domains.

keynotes

James Ferguson (Anthropology, Stanford)
"Invisible Humanism: An African 1968 and its Afterlives"
Carolee Schneemann (multidisciplinary artist)
How the events of 1968 function as a starting point from which we can assess our current loss of community and how sexuality is being confabulated as a political diversion.

conference speakers

Martin Berger (History of Art and Visual Culture, UC-Santa Cruz)
"Black Power, White Power and the 1968 Olympics Protests"
Jacqueline Bixler (Latin American Literature and Culture, Virginia Tech)
"October 2, 1968 and the Plaza de Tlateloco: From Fact to Film"
Judit Bodnar (History, Sociology, and Social Anthropology, Central European University)
"What's Left of the Right to the City?"
Julian Bourg (History, Bucknell)
"Tempered Nostalgia in Recent Films on Les Années 1968"
Rose Brewer (African American and African Studies, Minnesota)
"68 and the Black Radical Tradition"
Bernard Gendron (Philosophy-Emeritus, UWM)
Foucault and 1968
Yoshikuni Igarashi (History and East Asian Studies, Vanderbilt)
"Japan's Long 1968: Dreaming of Class Warfare in the Age of Mass Consumption"
Michelle Kuo (Artforum International)
Art and technology in the 1960s and ramifications for our present moment
Tamara Levitz (Musicology, UCLA)
"The Effervescent Body in the Cyberage"
Kent Minturn (Art History, Emory)
"Asphyxiating Architecture: Jean Dubuffet in 1968 and After"
Simon Prince (History, Lady Margaret Hall-Oxford)
"'We have seen these people at work lately all over the globe': Northern Ireland in 1968"
Ann Reynolds (Art and Art History, Texas)
"Artistic Practice and New York Film Culture, 1945-1970: Toward a New Historiography of Radical Art"
Robert Self (History, Brown)
"Bodies Count: 1968 and the Body in American Politics"
Dina Mahnz Siddiqi (Independent scholar)
Bangladesh and nationalism since 1968
Carol Siegel (English, Washington State University Vancouver)
"Recovering Connections Between Sex, Radicalism, and the Left: Fighting Fascism on Film in 1968 and Today"
Jeremi Suri (History, UW-Madison)
Political and policy parallels between 1968 and 2008, specifically how politics have remained mired in debates between a recycled New Left and New Right
Mark Tribe (Modern Culture and Media, Brown)
About the Port Huron Project
Fred Turner (Communication, Stanford)
How the back-to-land movement and the Whole Earth Catalog (first published in 1968) ultimately shaped the peer-to-peer ethos that surrounds the emergence of the Internet in the 1990s
Kath Weston (Anthropology, Studies in Women and Gender, Virginia) "Previously on '1968': Operation Breadbasket and Iconographic Memory in Class/Race Politics"





A volume of essays growing out of the conference will be prepared for the Center’s book series 21st Century Studies with Indiana University Press.

Sponsored by the Center for 21st Century Studies (College of Letters and Science, with support from the Graduate School); co-sponsored by the William F. Vilas Trust and an anonymous donor

Center for 21st Century Studies

Daniel J. Sherman, Director

(in pdf format)