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Conclusion From modernity to postmodernity

Margaret Atack

in May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation

The book has discussed the idea that given the current dominance of theories of postmodernity, and the frequency with which its paradigms are used to investigate a wide historical range of material, ... More

The book has discussed the idea that given the current dominance of theories of postmodernity, and the frequency with which its paradigms are used to investigate a wide historical range of material, it is not a surprise that May 1968 has been analysed with reference to such theories. Gilles Bousquet has also pointed out that for some, the failure of the revolutionary project of May, implicitly drawing on the Enlightenment discourse of change and progress towards ever greatly equality and justice, is in fact a step on the road to postmodern individualism. The book concludes that May is the opposite of a postmodern reading, since the books thematic of subjectivity and autobiography, with its concomitant values of authenticity and immediacy is contrasting with the postmodern. The book also states that May is a dazzling source of reflection on modernity and its metanarratives, including postmodernity, on the relations of the everyday and of history, of contestation and recuperation.Less

Intellectual fictions

Julia Kristeva

in May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation

The chapter states that Les Samourais, the first novel written by Julia Kristeva, was a ‘roman-a-clef’ novel relating to the trajectories of the structuralist group of intellectuals from the ... More

The chapter states that Les Samourais, the first novel written by Julia Kristeva, was a ‘roman-a-clef’ novel relating to the trajectories of the structuralist group of intellectuals from the mid-1960s onwards, which lead it to take a particular position in relation to the interminably vexed question of 1968 and epistemology. May 1968 was a fiercely intellectual moment: unless we recognize the crucial role played by ideas, it would be impossible to make sense of this period. This period was an occasion of an extraordinary explosion of interests in the nature and definitions of knowledge that was partly due to the importance of the rebellion within universities and intense debates on knowledge, disciplines, and institutional structures which critique of the university entailed. The critique of society involved readings in political and cultural literatures that did not feature humanities or social science programmes and was considered de facto by the university’s constitution of knowledge. It was to another critique, from outside of itself, as it were. The chapter also discusses different novels by different authors and how these affected the movement.Less

Music and May '68

Eric Drott

in Music and the Elusive Revolution: Cultural Politics and Political Culture in France, 1968-1981

This chapter examines the curious place music and musicians occupied in the May uprising. Here as elsewhere, a principal concern is the reciprocal relation that exists between musical practices and ... More

This chapter examines the curious place music and musicians occupied in the May uprising. Here as elsewhere, a principal concern is the reciprocal relation that exists between musical practices and social identity. The chapter explores how traditions were mobilized and used as a resource in individuals' self-fashioning as political actors, but emphasizes the heterogeneity of traditions that were available to individuals during May and June of 1968. It was in large part the multiplicity of available political identities that led to conflicts within the musical field, and within the larger social movement which emerged during May '68. Three traditions stand out in particular: those of working-class culture, as embodied in the students' embrace of “The Internationale” and other tokens of the French revolutionary heritage; the historical avant-garde, evinced in the utopian calls of “cultural agitators” to radically reconfigure the artistic sphere, leading ultimately to its reintegration with everyday life; and what might best be referred to as trade union culture, which acted as a critical resource in enabling the musicians' participation in the strike movement. As these three instances make clear, the symbolic repertoires that individuals could draw upon went beyond the purely musical plane and embraced a range of extra- or para-musical practices.Less

Introduction L’imaginaire de mai

Margaret Atack

in May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation

The month of May in the year 1968 was truly an exceptional episode in French history thanks to the violence of street battles with the police, the level of popular support for the protesters, the ... More

The month of May in the year 1968 was truly an exceptional episode in French history thanks to the violence of street battles with the police, the level of popular support for the protesters, the size of the demonstrations, the millions on strike, and the endless discussion all around. It felt like a revolution, with the old order being torn apart and notions of spontaneity and immediacy being connoted all around. May was an object of historical knowledge before it even began to be over, with articles for the newspaper Combat turned into a tract and pinned on trees; while subversive journals and large amounts of newsprint were being devoted to the events. Contemporary newsreels shadowed the story of May from university crisis to national crisis as the May riots and strikes gained progressively in prominence. May is a monstrous library, as well as an unsolvable puzzle, or so it seems. May was the crossroads through which history, social change, social and political theorizations of the individual and society, have all passed.Less

Nanterre-la-Folie

Robert Merle

in May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation

This chapter states that on April 2, 1968, a meeting was held in the ‘grand amphitheatre B2’ at the Nanterre campus that brought together about 1,500 students. The meeting was addressed by speakers ... More

This chapter states that on April 2, 1968, a meeting was held in the ‘grand amphitheatre B2’ at the Nanterre campus that brought together about 1,500 students. The meeting was addressed by speakers representing the SDS (West German Socialist Students Federation), communists, the situationists, anarcho-syndicalists, and revolutionary communists. Maoists, trotskyists, marxist-leninists, and various combinations of all the above formed a bewildering proliferation of political groups; and ‘les enrages’ was the favoured term used, adopted from a ministerial insult for the ‘communistes revolutionnaires, anarchistes, situationnistes, “antiautoritaires” comme on dit en Allemagne’, which were some, but not all of the groups that were active at Nanterre and in May. Nanterre is where it began, and there have been many accounts of the time leading up to May and beyond. On May 2, a day when the campus was in a state of high alert over the possibility of an attack by extreme-right-wing commandos, the Dean of Nanterre decided to close the campus, and that’s when it all moved to Paris.Less

Introduction: ‘Nous autres grecs’ 1

Miriam Leonard

in Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the Political in Post-War French Thought

How did the Greeks come to be at the centre of a debate about the role of ‘the political’ in French structuralist and post-structuralist thought? This introductory chapter investigates how the major ... More

How did the Greeks come to be at the centre of a debate about the role of ‘the political’ in French structuralist and post-structuralist thought? This introductory chapter investigates how the major figures of French Hellenism and the most prominent exponents of French philosophy both turned to the Greeks to voice their involvement in contemporary politics. It takes as its focus the events of May 1968, and asks how the debate about the role of political engagement in the wake of the student uprising led these writers to revisit the ideological struggles of Classical Athens.Less

Michel Houellebecq: ideological challenge and precipitating crisis

Ruth Cruickshank

in Fin de millénaire French Fiction: The Aesthetics of Crisis

This chapter turns to Houellebecq, France's most famous — and controversial — living writer; the affaire Houellebecq; Extension du domaine de la lutte; and Les Particules élémentaires. It discusses ... More

This chapter turns to Houellebecq, France's most famous — and controversial — living writer; the affaire Houellebecq; Extension du domaine de la lutte; and Les Particules élémentaires. It discusses Houellebecq's representations of an extension of American‐style neoliberal competition from the material to the sexual economy, attributed to the generation of May 1968 and legitimized by French thinkers, psychoanalysis, and the media. Literary commitment is identified in representations of the struggle of the writer and narrative strategies are assessed, including ‘factual’ injections, autobiographical detail, and tropes from science fiction and marketing. The texts' provocative elements are discussed as both ideological challenges to dominant discourses, and as sleights of hand perpetuating misogynist, sexual, and racial prejudices. Houellebecq's fictions are described as seeking to expose, harness, and question both their own sense‐making narratives and contradictory fin de millénaire crisis discourses, simultaneously foregrounding the notion of the potential, and the need for change.Less

Genre and Musical Representations of May

Eric Drott

in Music and the Elusive Revolution: Cultural Politics and Political Culture in France, 1968-1981

The uses ascribed to music during May and the après-mai period varied not only across musical and political formations, but also from one musical genre to another. This chapter examines this topic in ... More

The uses ascribed to music during May and the après-mai period varied not only across musical and political formations, but also from one musical genre to another. This chapter examines this topic in detail and provides a framework for understanding how genre mediates political expression. The norms, ideologies, and discourses that govern different genres play a decisive role in determining what can or cannot be said through music, what uses a song can or cannot afford. Of particular importance is the correlation of genre and identity, inasmuch as the political agency imputed to a given social group conditions what functions will be attributed to the music(s) associated with this group. To flesh out this thesis, the chapter examines how the events of May were represented in different types of popular song. By examining songs drawn from the genres of the literary chanson (Léo Ferré's “L'été 68”), the revolutionary chanson (Dominique Grange's “Les nouveaux partisans”), and contemporary French pop music (Evariste's “La révolution”), it is shown how the conventions governing subject matter, rhetoric, imagery, and musical style in each influenced their depictions of May '68.Less

The Far Side of Fear: Political Disillusionment (May 1968)

Christophe Bident

in Maurice Blanchot: A Critical Biography

This chapter recounts Blanchot’s significant involvement in the events of May 1968, both in the protests and as part of a committee involving students and intellectuals. It details how this grew out ... More

This chapter recounts Blanchot’s significant involvement in the events of May 1968, both in the protests and as part of a committee involving students and intellectuals. It details how this grew out of his previous political activities in the 1960s, as well as being linked to his aesthetic experimentations with the forms of the dialogue and the fragment.Less

May ’68, “Arab Perversion,” and Anti-Arab Racism

Todd Shepard

in Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979

This chapter explores the continued development of anti-Arab racism in the aftermath of the Algerian independence, focusing on gender themes in the events of and leading up to May ’68. Acting as a ... More

This chapter explores the continued development of anti-Arab racism in the aftermath of the Algerian independence, focusing on gender themes in the events of and leading up to May ’68. Acting as a counterpoint observance of the 10-year anniversary of May ’58, during which Charles de Gaulle returned to power, May ’68 was a leftist demonstration for radical political change. With an increasingly visible queer population in France alongside the already-notorious Arabs, one of the biggest questions during this period was whether the outcome of the Algerian War was due to the effeminate nature of the French or the alleged hypermasculinity of the Arabs. In political newsletters, student activism, public reaction to entertainment at venues like the Odéon Theater, and other sources, this chapter demonstrates that even during the time, there was no consensus on this matter, significant as it was in political and social influence.Less

Before Les Femmes s’entêtent: The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of French Feminism?

Siân Reynolds

in Making Waves: French Feminisms and their Legacies 1975-2015

This chapter explores the connections between feminist thought and activism in the years following the end of the Second World War, and the feminism that emerged in the mid-1970s. Whereas the ... More

This chapter explores the connections between feminist thought and activism in the years following the end of the Second World War, and the feminism that emerged in the mid-1970s. Whereas the emergence of the 1970s French women’s movement is often linked to the student protest movement of May 1968, this chapter draws on the work of historians of French feminism to argue both that many of the women involved were of an earlier generation, and that earlier twentieth-century feminist activists and intellectuals, including Simone de Beauvoir, continued to be influential. Thus, while some French feminists in the 1970s presented their feminist activism as new and revolutionary, and rejected the mores and ideologies of earlier generations, there remained key lines of influence linking their approach - to issues such as women’s right to control their fertility- to earlier feminist campaigns and writings.Less

Lea Lublin’s Exercises in Denaturalisation

Catherine Spencer

in Beyond the Happening: Performance art and the politics of communication

Chapter 4 extends the focus on feminist analyses of communication in relation to Lea Lublin’s work in France and Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s. During May 1968, in the midst of the protests, ... More

Chapter 4 extends the focus on feminist analyses of communication in relation to Lea Lublin’s work in France and Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s. During May 1968, in the midst of the protests, strikes and sit-ins that brought Paris to a halt, Lublin exhibited herself with her baby during the Salon de Mai. This sparked multiple actions that sought to denaturalise received social processes, images and ideologies, particularly the sedimentation of communicative habits. Lublin’s interests parallel those of the Collectif d’art sociologique in France, and were contextualised within the transnational cybernetic and sociological frameworks for performance and conceptual art devised by the Buenos Aires-based Centro de Arte y Comunicación. However, Lublin’s denaturalisation exercises diverged from these organisations because of their strongly feminist commitments and engagement with the gendered politics of socialisation.Less

The Communism of Thought: Reviews and Revolution in the 1960S with Blanchot and Mascolo

Adrian May

in From Bataille to Badiou: Lignes, the Preservation of Radical French Thought, 1987-2017

Several important Lignes dossiers in the 1990s retraced the political activities of Robert Antelme, Dionys Mascolo and Maurice Blanchot in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter restores the narrative of ... More

Several important Lignes dossiers in the 1990s retraced the political activities of Robert Antelme, Dionys Mascolo and Maurice Blanchot in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter restores the narrative of intellectual engagement traced by these significant collections and demonstrates the influence of these figures on the cultural politics and intellectual community of Lignes. Following their radicalisation during the French resistance, Antelme and Mascolo joined the French Communist Party after World War Two, participated in anti-colonial initiatives, recruited Maurice Blanchot to protest the return of Charles de Gaulle to power and the continuing Algerian War, and participated in the events of May 1968. Between Blanchot and Mascolo, two differing vectors of intellectual engagement, one more theoretical and literary and the other more stridently Marxist and materialist, are expounded. Lastly, the influence of Mascolo’s Le 14 Juillet, Blanchot’s Revue internationale and Philippe Sollers’ Tel Quel on Lignes is examined, and Michel Surya’s theorisation of the relationship between literature and politics is described with reference to Bernard Noël.Less

American Internationalists in France and the Politics of Travel Control in the Era of Vietnam

Moshik Temkin

in Outside In: The Transnational Circuitry of US History

This essay focuses on American travelers and residents in France and the ways in which they drew acute French governmental attention in the wake of growing political turbulence around the Vietnam ... More

This essay focuses on American travelers and residents in France and the ways in which they drew acute French governmental attention in the wake of growing political turbulence around the Vietnam War. As the antiwar movement grew, many members of this community became more radical. American and French authorities increased surveillance and control of these activists, in a number of cases deporting activists from the country. For the French government, the “import” of supposedly American issues like civil rights and the Vietnam War was a threat to its sense of public order, and it considered such events as the antiwar riots of April 1967 and the student revolt of May 1968 the results of foreign interference. Their response was to enforce a policy of separation between nationals and foreigners, with the idea that French matters should be kept apart from international (particularly American) matters.Less

What’s left of the ‘red suburb’? Hervé Le Roux’s Reprise as case study

Guillaume Soulez

in Screening the Paris suburbs: From the silent era to the 1990s

On 10 June 1968, in front of the Wonder battery factories in Saint-Ouen, an outraged young woman refuses to return to work despite the trade union’s vote to end the strike. Filmed by an anonymous ... More

On 10 June 1968, in front of the Wonder battery factories in Saint-Ouen, an outraged young woman refuses to return to work despite the trade union’s vote to end the strike. Filmed by an anonymous camera operator, the altercation gives rise to the fabled ten-minute direct film Reprise du travail aux usines Wonder. Tracking down this same woman twenty-five years later, French documentarian Hervé Le Roux makes another film, the aptly titled Reprise (1995), which charts the evolution since 1968 of the working class in the former ‘red belt’ around Paris. His investigation, which results from a negotiation between a place, its inhabitants and a film crew, aims to reconstruct, trace by trace, the relevant places and their social makeup. Arguing for Reprise as a film de banlieue in the strongest possible sense, the author shows how Le Roux weaves working-class left activism back into the site in Saint-Ouen, letting himself be swept along in his depiction by neighbourhood dynamics and popular memory. Rather than trying to revive a more or less faded ‘red suburb’, the film works with the place as it is, providing stark contrast in tone and purpose to its virtual screen contemporary, La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995).Less

The Erotics of Algerian Difference, 1979/2016

Todd Shepard

in Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, French people grappled with what contemporaries named the sexual revolution, which upended potent presumptions about how sex, sexuality, and gender should be organized ... More

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, French people grappled with what contemporaries named the sexual revolution, which upended potent presumptions about how sex, sexuality, and gender should be organized and lived. In their attempts to make sense of these changes, many activists and commentators consistently invoked Algerian histories and spoke of Arab men, and they did so from widely varied perspectives. The Algerian revolution had forced the image of the heroic Algerian man into French discussions, and post-May ’68 interest in the category of the “immigrant worker” and the promise of “the Arab revolution” gave this model new life through the 1970s. Across these years, references to the Algerian revolution had offered tools to French left-wing radicals, approaches and arguments that had already defeated the same powerful, imperialist, and capitalist state and system that they aspired to change. The heroic Algerian man, the newest incarnation of revolutionary resistance, had embodied that post-decolonization vision.Less

The Consumed Community

Jean-Luc Nancy

in The Disavowed Community

In the fourth chapter, Nancy extends the exchange with Blanchot with references to literature, in this case to Marguerite Duras’s The Malady of Death, a text that Blanchot reads in light of Emmanuel ... More

In the fourth chapter, Nancy extends the exchange with Blanchot with references to literature, in this case to Marguerite Duras’s The Malady of Death, a text that Blanchot reads in light of Emmanuel Levinas and the question of an ethical relation. He refers to the events of May ’68 in terms of rethinking questions of community and the relation of such a community to other political forms. Nancy discusses Blanchot’s proposal for an “unsociable sociality” or “anti-social society,” which Nancy relates to the concept of the people, who at once dissolves and reinvents the bond of the law and of the relation. The argument also opens toward the religious references in Blanchot’s The Unavowable Community (including the Eucharist): the proposal to think “a community of lovers,” and to the various female figures that emerge in Blanchot’s textLess

Back to the Land: Rural Utopias in 1970s France

Sarah Farmer

in Rural Inventions: The French Countryside after 1945

In the wake of May 1968, thousands of young people, mostly from urban areas, turned to regions blighted by the rural exodus in order to implement revolutionary change in their own lives. They planned ... More

In the wake of May 1968, thousands of young people, mostly from urban areas, turned to regions blighted by the rural exodus in order to implement revolutionary change in their own lives. They planned to survive by undertaking subsistence farming of the kind that had sustained peasants in the past. Their utopian aim was to build a self-sufficient existence for the future, outside and beyond bourgeois conventions, capitalist society, and the state. This wave of urban migration to the countryside came to be commonly referred to as le retour à la terre (“the return to the land”). The first wave of countercultural youth created rural communes, most of which did not last more than a few years. Some stayed on to farm and were joined by others who shared their aim of making a living in agriculture. Former commune members and other newcomers who settled for the long term became known as néo-ruraux.Less

Epilogue: A Cosmic No Exit

Yoav Di-Capua

in No Exit: Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization

This concluding section reflects on the legacy of Arab existentialism in light of May 1968 in Paris and considers some of the implications of Sartre’s political betrayal.