Recent scholarship on 1968 has focused on its particular eruptions and reactions, but also on the question of their systemic connection. Were the wide-ranging instances of social unrest the manifestations of a global zeitgeist, conditioned or at least influenced by broad macro-economic and geopolitical forces? Or were these phenomena the outgrowth of primarily local and unrelated conditions? Does a satisfying analysis require a partial synthesis of both these possibilities, as well as a frame for thinking both similarities and differences?

The conference “1968: Global Resistance/Local Knowledge” will explore the 1960s in their many facets and these questions from a number of 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.