In the wake of the new far-right populisms, the fragmentation of global narratives of progress, and the dismantling of economic globalization, there are signs that neoliberalism is beginning to enter its death throes or at least starting to fundamentally mutate. This provides us with a roughly fifty-year cycle with which to re-assess the rise and potential fall of neoliberalism. Using 1968 as one of the inaugural moments of this history, this interdisciplinary collection seeks to reassess the significance and legacy of the global 1968 uprisings from today's vantage point. While these uprisings arguably helped bring an end to a number of forms of oppression, the period following them also saw the re-entrenchment of class power to a level not seen since the 1920s. Without drawing any simple or direct lines of causation, the sequence of the past fifty years reflects what could be termed a double bind or "lose-lose" scenario. Yet, particularly given the present-day indicators of a crisis of neoliberal hegemony, this volume argues that returning to 1968 today may offer critical and comparative resources for thinking a way out of our current impasse.
Guillaume Collett is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Critical Thought at the University of Kent. Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Malta, a Visiting Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and a Research Fellow with the Centre for Critical Thought at the University of Kent. Iain MacKenzie is a Reader in Politics at the University of Kent, and Co-Director of the Centre for Critical Thought.
Introduction: 1968 Now, Guillaume Collett, Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, and Iain MacKenzie 1. 1968-2021: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (?), Jose Rosales 2. Deleuze and Human Rights: The Pessimism and Optimism of '68, Christos Marneros 3. Postcolonial Genealogies of May '68: Deleuze, Badiou and the Question of Decolonisation, Andrew Stones 4. Workers and Capitalists: Two Different Worlds? Immanence and Antagonism in Marx's Capital, Daniel Fraser 5. Repression After '68: Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari on Neoliberalism and Subjectivation, Guillaume Collett 6. Two Kinds of Critical Pragmatism, Iain MacKenzie 7. 68 and Sexuality: Disentangling the Double Binds, Blanche Plaquevent 8. The Italian Paradox, Franco Manni 9. May '68: An Institutional Event, Gabriela Hernandez De La Fuente 10. Chaos and the Riot: Affective Politics in the Streets, Aylon Cohen 11. Community, Theatre and Political Labour: Unworking the Socialist Legacy of 1968, Ben Dunn 12. On Ludic Servitude, Natasha Lushetich Conclusion: The Future(s) of Neoliberalism, Guillaume Collett, Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, and Iain MacKenzie
