May 1968 in Africa: Revolt in Dakar

As in a number of other continents, Africa experienced a wave of student and union protests in May 1968. One of its epicenters was in Senegal, based at the University of Dakar, also known as the “eighteenth French university,” where students from France and almost all Francophone Africa were directed. The events of May 1968 in Senegal were primarily caused by local factors, although similarities with the global youth protest movement can also be found. Initially ignited by a student revolt over the conditions of scholarships, the movement spread to high school students and workers’ unions, gaining the support of the working classes, while the party-state relied on the army’s loyalty as well as the support of marabouts, the Muslim leaders. This in turn expanded the crisis, first from Dakar to other parts of the country, then from Senegal to the native countries of the students who had been arrested and expelled after the university campus had been stormed by the police. At the crossroads between an escalating student strike, a student movement infiltrated by political opposition or foreign influence, a rebellion against neocolonialism, as well as a sense of weariness due to difficult social and economic circumstances, May 1968 in Senegal resembled a protest against the personal power of President Senghor as well as a demonstration led by young people who, like their counterparts abroad, wanted to change the world. The national crisis, in a context of international turmoil and in interaction with global issues, ended on September 26, when the four-month high school strikes satisfactory ended.

GENERALS DE GAULLE, DUMITRESCU AND HERUVIM, GRADUATES OF SAINT-CYR

A very important Romanian historical event took place on 14 May 1968 when General Charles de Gaulle, the president of The French Fifth Republic, visited Bucharest, an initiative stemming from this visionary head of state’s idea of a unified Europe stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals’. Have you heard of Romanian generals Polihron Dumitrescu and Ioan Heruvim? Charles de Gaulle’s visit proved quite difficult to manage for the communist regime, one of the difficulties being the French general’s meeting with these two generals, former classmates from the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr. His itinerary included the cities of Craiova and Târgoviște because of these expectedly emotional meetings with Dumitrescu and Heruvim, the former having been de Gaulle’s class president, and the latter one of its most brilliant students, and the city of Cetatea Băniei where the French general performed an official military salute.

The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma (1968-1973)

The uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country's most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal's work over the next five years. With a Marxist orientation inspired by the thinking of Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes, the "red years" of Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was formative for the establishment of film studies as an academic discipline in the 1970s, and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape. It was also the seminal experience for a generation of critics who have dedicated the following half-century to the task of critically responding to the cinema. The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives a historical overview of this period in the journal's history, combining biographical accounts of the critics who were involved with Cahiers in the post-1968 and theoretical explorations of the text they wrote. Volume I focuses on the relationship of film with the spheres of ideology and politics.

The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma (1968-1973)

The uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country's most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal's work over the next five years. With a Marxist orientation inspired by the thinking of Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes, the "red years" of Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was formative for the establishment of film studies as an academic discipline in the 1970s, and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape. It was also the seminal experience for a generation of critics who have dedicated the following half-century to the task of critically responding to the cinema. The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives a historical overview of this period in the journal's history, combining biographical accounts of the critics who were involved with Cahiers in the post-1968 and theoretical explorations of the text they wrote.

Feminist psychogeography long after May 1968: Whatever Happened to My Revolution

Whatever Happened to My Revolution offers a French feminist perspective on the impact today of the uprising by the left in Paris in May 1968. The continuing appeal of the events of ‘68 are considered to be in decline, yet the film suggests that the energy of 50 years ago continues to mobilize cultural politics through cinematic appeals that amount to the radical recuperation of some of the ambitions of the day, a continuation of the past in the present. Whatever Happened to My Revolution is explored with reference to Guy Debord's concept of psychogeography, which suggested new phases of discovery in social life for remaking urban life, cross-referencing aspects of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical approach that appear in the film, especially the concept of desire, informing its feminist psychogeography. The challenges facing the current generation can be described as a desire by the French left, in this film defined and described by women, for the realization of May ‘68s cultural transformations in public and private culture.