May 68: Rethinking France's Last Revolution

An accessible collection of essays about one of the most dramatic moment in France's modern history: the 'event' of 1968. Often seen purely as a student revolution, the events of 1968 in fact impacted on almost every aspect of French society - theatre, film, gender relations, sexuality, race and immigration, farmers, workers. This volume of essays, written by young researchers and established scholars from France, Britain and the United States is the only book in English to explore the full diversity of this extraordinary upheaval. It takes us out of Paris to the regions of France, out of the student Latin Quarter into the factories, and shows how the events of 1968 continued to reverberate throughout the next decade, and how their legacy is still highly contested in France today.

Table of Contents:
Illustrations Preface Contributors Acronyms PART I: RETHINKING THE EVENTS Rethinking May 68; J.Jackson The Moral History of 1968; J.Bourg Exploitation, Alienation and the Social Division of Labour in the May-June Movement in France; B.Gobille Beyond Tradition: the Strikes of May-June 1968; X.Vigna Inventing a Memory on the Extreme Left: the Example of the Maoists after 1968; P.Buton Algerian Reveries on the Far Right: Thinking About Algeria to Change France in 1968; T.Shepard Reaching out to Immigrants in May 68: specific or universal appeals?; D.Gordon The Arab Workers' Movement (1970-1976): Sociology of a New Political Generation; A.Hajjat 'And what then about 'our' problem?' - Gay Liberation in the Occupied Sorbonne in May 1968; M.Sibalis The 1970s Moment in Sexual Politics; M.Prearo May 68 and the Changes in Private Life: a 'sexual liberation'?; A-C.Rebreyend PART II: DECENTRING THE EVENTS Decentring the Events; A-L.Milne The Local, Regional and National in May-June 1968; M.Zancarini-Fournel Factory Disputes in the French Provinces in the '1968 Years': Brittany as a Case-Study; V.Porhel Peasant Insurgency in the '1968 Years' (1961-1981); J-P.Martin 'In Marseilles we remained calm': The Myths and Realities of Marseilles's May 68; A-L.Ollivier The Grand Tour of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the Europeanism of 1968; R. I.Jobs From Dream to Reality: the Birth of 'Vincennes'; C.Dormoy-Rajramanan Artists and Architects in May 1968: An Aesthetics of Disappearance; J-L.Violeau PART III: PERFORMING THE EVENTS Performing the Revolution; J.S.Williams L'Entree libre a l'ex-theatre de France: the Occupation of the Odeon and the Revolutionary Culture of the French Stage; K.Bredeson The Politics of Theatre and the Theatre of Politics: from Paris to Avignon via Villeurbanne, May-July 1968; E.Loyer Malle e/on mai: Louis Malle's Takes on May 68; R.Panchasi Falling on Deaf Ears, Again: Herve Le Roux's Reprise (1997); N.Rachlin Sex Power: Bernadette Lafont and the Sexual Revolution in French Cinema circa 1968; R-F.Lack Orgasm Without Limits: May 68 and the History of Sex Education in Modern France; T.Chaplin Epilogue The Day My Father Fell Silent [Le Jour oA' mon pere s'est tu] [Extracts]; V.Linhart General Bibliography Select Filmography

About the Author :
JULIAN JACKSON is Professor of Modern French History at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. He has written extensively on aspects of twentieth century history. His most recent books are France: the Dark Years (2001), The Fall of France (2003), Living in Arcadia: Homosexuality, Morality and Politics in France from the Liberation to Aids (2010), La Grande Illusion (2010). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and Commandeur dans les Palmes Academiques. ANNA-LOUISE MILNE is Senior Lecturer at the University of London Institute in Paris, France, and author of a monograph on Jean Paulhan, The Extreme In-Between (2006) and a critical edition of Paulhan letters (2005). She edited a collection on the Nouvelle Revue Francaise (2008) and is currently completing a Cambridge Companion to Paris and Literature and a book entitled Centrality and the City. JAMES S. WILLIAMS is Professor of Modern French Literature and Film at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is the author of monographs on Marguerite Duras, Albert Camus and Jean Cocteau, and has co-edited Gay Signatures: gay and lesbian theory, fiction and film in France, 1945-1995 (1998) and Gender and French Cinema (2001), as well as volumes on Jean-Luc Godard including The Cinema Alone (2000), For Ever Godard (2004), and Jean-Luc Godard: Documents (2006). He is currently completing a book entitled Space and Being in Contemporary French Cinema for Manchester University Press.

Review :
'...a valuable resource for any scholar looking to consider an extraordinary period of modern French history in new, 'rethought' contexts.' - Matthew Ahluwalia, University of Sheffield, French History