Abstract
This volume draws together papers from an international conference held at the University of Leeds in 2008, the 40th anniversary of the wave of student and worker protest that erupted around the globe in 1968. The conference focused on the multiple memories of 1968 in different national contexts, and the papers in this volume represent an interdisciplinary effort to analyze individual, collective and cultural memories of the late 1960s in countries across the world, although the focus is on Western Europe. Although there has been considerable scholarly interest in the “long 1968” in recent years, the memory of this tumultuous moment in contemporary history remains largely overlooked by scholars, and as such, this volume marks an important contribution to what will likely be, in coming years, a new avenue of interest for those interested in collective memory. In addition, because the volume incorporates the work of historians, political scientists, and scholars of literature and film, it will be of interest to those in a number of disciplines and will appeal to a wide range of readers.
The volume begins with an introduction by co-editor Sarah Waters, and is then divided into five thematic sections. The first of these, “Memories and Places,” is the largest section. It opens with the only transnational study in the volume, Martin Klimke’s “Revisiting the Revolution: 1968 in Transnational Cultural Memory,” which uses secondary historical literature to give a useful overview of shared aspects of the memory of 1968 that transcend national borders, and charts the ways in which this memory has developed over time, considering the political, cultural, and economic developments that shaped the “cultural memory”’ (Klimke borrows the term from Jan Assmann) of 1968 at a transnational level. The other chapters in this section are case studies of specific national contexts: Daniel A. Gordon gives an overview of how the events of May–June 1968 are represented in French film, literature, and politics; Wolfgang Kraushaar focuses on recent controversies concerning the relationship between student protesters in West Germany and the Nazi past; John Foot considers the tensions between private and public memories of 1968 in Italy and analyzes public monuments to those killed in the protest movements of the period; Timothy S. Brown examines the gaps in American cultural memory of the late 1960s; and Claire Brewster looks at the ways in which the Mexican student movement has been remembered and commemorated in Mexico over the last 40 years. The second section, “Personal Testimonies,” contains a single essay by the late Daniel Bensaïd, one of the leaders of the May ’68 events in France. The third section, “Marginal Voices,” contains contributions by Susanne Rinner on representations of 1968 in the novels of Turkish–German writers, namely, Stuart Hilwig on the oral history of nonparticipants in Italy’s 1968, and Lan Yang on Internet-based reassessments of the legacies of China’s Cultural Revolution. In the fourth section, entitled “Fictional Imaginaries,” Ingo Cornils explores recent German writings that deal with the issue of 1968 and memory, Irene Fenoglio-Limón considers literature pertaining to Mexico’s 1968, and Chris Homewood analyzes aspects of memory in the recent German film “The Edukators.” The final section, “Decentring 1968,” contains a single chapter by Sofia Serenelli-Messenger on the concept of the family in oral history pertaining to 1968 in the provincial Italian town of Macerata.
Scholars of memory studies will not find much here that is novel in terms of theory: the authors in this volume have largely sought to provide overviews of particular national situations, drawing on and utilizing the well-known theories of figures such as Jan Assmann, Pierre Nora, and Maurice Halbwachs. Nor do the bulk of the essays presented here use novel methodologies; for the most part, the methods employed echo those typically found in much of contemporary “memory studies” literature (analyzing political speeches, museums and memorials, novels and films), although special mention should be made of the three chapters in the “Marginal Voices” section: Suzanne Rinner’s focus on Turkish–German authors, Stuart Hilwig’s oral history work with “non-participants” (school teachers, police, lawyers and others), and Lan Yang’s creative use of Internet-based writings all represent original and compelling alternative means of unpicking “other” memories of 1968, memories that sometimes reinforce and sometimes contradict dominant interpretations of the importance and the legacies of the late 1960s. Sofia Serenelli-Messenger’s essay on memories of the 1960s and 1970s in the small Italian town of Macerata also offers an original approach: by focusing on a town at the geographical margins of Italy’s 1968, Serenelli-Messenger aptly demonstrates how local cultural contexts can interact with broader popular representations to complicate individual and small group memories of daily life in an activist organization (here, a local branch of the national extra-parliamentary left organization Il Manifesto).
The collection also falls somewhat short of achieving its own stated aims. In her introduction, Sarah Waters asks why the events of 1968 have been “reinscribed within national boundaries and harnessed towards the interests of national culture. [ … ] To what extent is there a shared collective memory of 1968 and can this memory cross national boundaries?” This is a very timely question, but one that a volume consisting overwhelmingly of national case studies cannot answer. Without a broader attempt to link together the specific findings of the diverse essays presented here, a closing chapter, for example, the reader is largely left to draw his or her own conclusions about the nature of transnational memories of 1968. Indeed, in focusing on a series of national examples, the essays in this volume perpetuate rather than subvert the “national” approach so often adopted by memory scholars (the exception is Martin Klimke’s consciously transnational analysis). Nonetheless, this book is still very much to be welcomed by those interested in the 1960s and 1970s: as scholars of collective memory are only just beginning to analyze the complex public, official and vernacular memories of 1968, this volume marks an important contribution to an emerging field of inquiry. For historians, scholars of literature and film, and others, it provides an accessible introduction to a wide range of national contexts, and it will, one hopes, spur further research into this fascinating area.