THIS IS AN ARCHIVE PAGE OF THE 1968 CONFERENCE

A number of the contributions from the conference were published as 1968 in Retrospect: History, Theory, Alterity.

The British Sociological Association's Theory Study Group hosted a conference on the events of May 1968 in collaboration with the Birkbeck Institute of Social Research. The conference was timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of May 1968 and sought to provide a forum for reflecting back on the events of that time as well as thinking about their implications for current and future endeavours – theoretical and political.

Conference Programme

Abstracts

Keynote Speakers:

Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, and 100th President of the American Sociological Association (2008-09)  PAPER: Freedom Now! 1968 as a Turning Point for Black American Student Activism
Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professor in Social Theory, LSE, author of Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack and The Black Atlantic PAPER: 1968 and Postcolonial England: Enoch Powell, Martin Luther King, Rivers of Blood and ‘Fanon's New Man’
Juliet Mitchell, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies, University of Cambridge, author of Siblings: Sex and Violence and Mad Men and Medusas PAPER: Women's Liberation; Feminism; Gender Studies - 1968 Lives On
William Outhwaite, Professor of Sociology, University of Newcastle, author of Social Theory and Postcommunism (with Larry Ray) and contributor to The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties PAPER: When Did 1968 End?
Ken Plummer, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, author of Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues and Documents of Life -2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism PAPER: Outsiders, Deviants and Countercultures: Subterranean Tribes and Queer Imaginations in 1968 Full paper available here:
Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies, Birkbeck College, author of Making Trouble and Why Feminism? Gender, Psychology, Politics PAPER: She’s Leaving Home! Repositioning Women in Narratives of the Sixties

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Thanks to the Departments of Sociology at Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester, Newcastle, and Warwick Universities
for supporting the conference and, in particular, for sponsoring Professor Collins's participation in the event

Thanks also to Birkbeck College for hosting the event

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Conference Team

Ipek Demir (Leicester)
Helen Gregory (Exeter)
Steve Kemp (Edinburgh)
Maki Kimura (Open University)
Sasha Roseneil (Birkbeck)
Gurminder K. Bhambra (Warwick)

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