Winthrop-King's "Global Afterlives of May '68" Conference

Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Art Tenley Bick will be presenting her paper Wu Ming’s Postcoloniality: Collectivism and Countercultural Aesthetics for Contemporary Italy at the Winthrop-King “Global Afterlives of May ’68” Conference.

The Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies at Florida State University would like to take this opportunity to evaluate the extent to which May’68 was indeed a harbinger, whether for good or for ill, of social and cultural change. The orientation of our conference is thus not primarily toward the events of May’68 in themselves. Rather we wish to analyze the ramifications this historical moment has had for contemporary society. Did May’68 really engender a transnational, global movement? What has been its lasting societal and cultural impact on today’s world? To what extent has May’68 been used/abused by the Right or the Left? How are social and political movements today, like “Occupy Wall Street,” “Black Lives Matter,” or the “Arab Spring,” inspired by the events fifty years ago? Or, looking forward rather than backward, which of the aspects and ideas that inspired May’68 may serve as models for future activism?