One panelist who was sick last night and cannot make it, unfortunately. We are going to go in the order that we are sitting and 10 minutes each for a short presentation. This is a roundtable. And then we open up to discussion with you guys and the four of us. Ok. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me . Like this . Ok. Not in a creepy way . Better . Ok. I want to thank everyone for coming today. Im currently working on a book manuscript about egypt, the modern history of egypt. And it operates from apprentice that the egyptian people are a people that protest. And that has been well documented over since the early 19th century. We have this notion of continuity in student protests over the long history of egypts modern history. However, the reason for protests often is different. And so, what i hope to talk about today is the student and worker protests of 1968 and really what i am interested in in egypt is the conservative term which takes hold in 1967. A lot of historians or political scientists really see the conservative turn in egypt as happening in the 1970s. There is a lot of cultural evidence that would support that it happened much earlier. Today, what im going to talk to about is a couple of things. Egypt and film. Egyptian film. Music. And the siding and the sighting of the virgin mary in 1968 which is an interesting art of the story. In egypt, relations with israel and britain were sour in the 1950s after the suez crisis. The u. N. Troops were placed between the two nations after israel, france attacked egypt. I just want to give us some context. 1960sout the 1950s and nasser, his tone and stance towards israel became increasingly hostile as he mounted allies in syria who for a short time were part of the united arab republic and jordan. In 1967, he received intelligence from the soviets that israel was planning to attack syria. With mounting pressure from the palestinians, the saudis and the jordanians ordered that the straits be closed and the red sea. Israels only way to get out into the red sea. , the only access access israel had to the red sea. Basically, he was taunting them into war. , on theounting tension sixth of june, Israel Attacked and within a day they had attacked and egyptian town. By 10 june, noster resigned in shame as it is really forces occupied golan heights, and the west bank. He had built his political career on panera biz of that focused on the removal of israel from the middle east. It had shamed egypt as well as jordan and syria. His campaign against western economic and imperial domination, zionism had failed miserably. After egypts defeat in six days. Shortly thereafter, amidst protests about his resignation, he returned to power and began a war of attrition against israel resulting in another war in 1973 understood. 242t accepted resolution which i will talk about in a minute which recognized the state of his the state of israel under the terms of land for peace. Israel would return the sinai to egypt but not the west bank or the goal line or the palestinian territories. This defeat was not only a military defeat but also ideological. This was a particular kind of leftism that no longer seemed to be a viable solution to stave off western encroachment and did not successfully combat israel. Egypt no longer sat at the helm of middle eastern politics. In 1967, coupled with the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, began an ideological shift in the region that would culminate dramatically during the iranian revolution of 1979. In february 1968, Industrial Workers in the in and egyptian delta city took to the streets and protested the leniency of the sentences handed down to the Egyptian Air Force generals who lost the war against israel in 1967. Partiallyereafter, and marxist solidarity, students polytechnic all faculty of Alexandria University also protested the decision of the government to give lacks sentences to the men that shamed the nation. Egypt, there is a long history of protests but when you have real action and power is when you see labor and students take to the streets. Similarly to 2011. Student led protests begin in egypt in 1966 largely as a result of elite students that traveled and lived in paris. The intellectual culture of students of protests was carried by the students. First66 delegation was a among the elite students in the Academic Community to politically organize and engage the noster regime. Signifiedry protests the loosening of his grip on the masses and not the organizational power of the at least in body. While many in egypt a threat the arab world still put their faith in him, egypts Political Landscape was shifting ideologically. The organization of student protests europe did in november, 1968. Unlike the february protests, these are directed as part of student dissatisfaction with the educational reforms. Some students claimed that the reforms targeted the egyptian workingclass body that needed more time. Privileged the rich and hindered social mobility. The protest turned violent at the university of alexandria. The governor of the province was taken hostage. The military drove out the students. A number ofre were protests led by students and Industrial Workers and there was also a massive cultural production centering on the loss against israel in 1967. Poetk singer and another began criticizing nasser and subsequent regimes through music that perry date that parry parodied. At thebsequent film chronicled erratic lifestyle of a group of archetypal exceptions. Drug use,yle included sexual promiscuity, and frequent partners. Film werewomen in the the archetype the film was released in 1971 and was immediately banned. On a coffeetered shop with the same name. It was released in 1975 directly attacking nassers oppressive regime, the failure of 1967 and illustrated graphic into irrigation is. Art, critique focused on a theme of centrality and void. It left the door open for religion to recenter the political, cultural, and social space. I will talk about the virgin mary. 1968 was the year that social unrest in protest plagued many parts of the globe. Rioting and radical leftist political ideologies clashed with western governments. While protests dominated with students also appeared in the middle east and the third world, the ideological divide did not exist in the same way. Eastogues in the middle did not carry the same baggage with marxism and communism as did the u. S. And its allies. Marxism was not inherently inular nor did it manifest monolithic understanding of the soviet union as the center of leftist gravity. Andhe middle east, marxism its manifestations emerged to combat sectarianism in various forms. And as a rejection to western imperialism. Capitalism dictated and uneven power relationship in which middle eastern nations remained economically dependent on the west as postcolonial subjects. As a west continued to plunder them economically and support their greatest enemy. Manynoster is some began to look at other forms of political resistance to the west, mostly religion. In the same year that students protested and Industrial Workers rallied against the government, the virgin mary appeared on the outskirts of cairo. He first witness believed saw a young woman who was about to commit suicide. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the church and witnessed the event including nasser and other government officials. People reported being healed by the virgin and some heard her speak. She appeared as herself based in light. And people witnessed her appearance from 1968 until 1971. Newspapers covered the event from around the world. The multiple versions of her began in 1968. Garnered a myriad of interpretations from secular and religious communities. Although many disagreed about the authenticity of the apparition, most agreed that it civilized a significant shift. The intellectual Community Length ands at great there was a lot of assessment as to why this happened. A side note. It is the only recognized apparition outside of the west by the catholic church. What i want to leave you with is that one of the things that was associated with the virgin mary was that supposedly she said you can come here and see me in egypt because you can no longer see me in jerusalem. It appeared that the virgin mary had taken a stance on the war in 1967. Coming tohat her egypt at that moment illustrates that something was changing. Leftism hadser and failed the egyptian people and they needed in some way to reclaim who they once were but in moregion complicated ways. The virgin marys appearance repositioned cairo as a Religious Center for christians and provided a legitimate space for muslims to openly worship. On the operation to articulate their interpretation of the event. Some articulated that she had come to save egypt, particularly the youth. The questions i would like to address in the questionandanswer. Is how do we understand 1968 . In egypt, it is a time when a lot of things are possible. When we have different forms of leftism, leftist activism. What well so have the beginnings of islam as a viable political alternative. Thathistorians have placed much later. That it does not happen until the 1970s. That is largely influenced by the larger global cold war and an american and in america centric understanding of the. Iddle east i would like to really flesh out those ideas and think about Student Movement and protests as being part of something much larger than just leftist politics. T why. You. [applause] before i begin, i would like for putting together and the presentations that are rolling from this morning through tomorrow. Her row a quarter. Work. Oic i will talk a little today about my work and my angle on this question. Argument in my first book, was that an approach to postwar and 1960s history that began with attention to small groups of playful and radicalized artists would allow us to see otherwise familiar touchstones of the postwar era in a new and different light. It would identify political contention at the level of everyday life and the complex relationship of art and politics to such contentions. That is the approach i am continuing in in writing my second book, the art of revolution. I will be talking from that work today. Taking new work, i am and intensified interest in the question of a global 1968 as part of a global 1960s. I wish to offering argument about how there can be diverse participation and local particularity within the phenomenon that is nonetheless global. That means a claim that goes 1968d noticing that it is everywhere across the planet at the same time like people get a calendar with the your circle. Rather, it is a strong claim that there is a politics in 1960 that might be glimpsed a diverse phenomena. Part of my approach to comparability turns on the question not of what might typify a time but rather on dissent, and on the untimely. Something that doesnt seem to progresse narrative of and redemption. And as it turns out, on the question of the political, of the eventful, it is bound up with such issues. Of a film was shot from june through september of 1968 and was an attempt to give cinematic form to the dense mix of politics, sex, theory and history coming together in an explosive combination of tokyo. Over snippets of political speeches and gunfire, the opening sequence displays the 24hour world clock times in eventful locations around the world. The 3 00 rented standard time, 10 00 p. M. In your, 11 00 in then asnd beijing, and the title turns to announce japans standard time, we see a wall clock. Rocklass is smashed with a in the hands are stolen. The film begins by framing the president as a moment of urgent simultaneity as a moment to be seized and rewritten. Ofpoint in the beginning this film moment is to highlight the way in which people at the time, 1960 eight read as a moment of profound immediacy and of profound interconnectedness. Instead of a globe separated by , there was aances perception of a shared and even help presence to which all might lay claim to political agency. The tables had been turned by colonial struggles including the third world and africa as sites of foam and with profound connections for everywhere else. And i suspect favia will have something to stay about something to say about the status of maoism and china. It is this connection to engage in Political Action was to as some parteself of this transformative energy. Defined ones daily life replete with eventful miss and potential and to see new possibilities from the loosens from the loosened grasp of the social determinations. They worked to make visible the limitations and strictures of the normative categories of social life. The usual forms of belonging were found to be wanting for indeed, to be connected to andgs, both near at hand distant, and the vietnam war was a major figure for that realization including a places like mexico where the connection was far from obvious. Politicization was simultaneously intensely local and global at the same moment. It was also multidirectional aratchik and disk in 20 and discontinuous and its political solidarity. In japan, moved by such concerns, socalled ordinary people, typical students, citizens, the nonpolitical, all found cause to engage in activism and sought new understandings of the moment. They offered a flexible, horizontal coalition. Could adopt the principles of peace in vietnam and opposition to the japanese governments complicity in the vietnam war. Each group would be responsible for their own policies and communicating across the network. Groups like this formed the basis for the explosive spread of the nonsectarian all caps is joint structure joint campus committees. In these groups emerged 1968. Proliferated across hundreds of university campuses. More than 67 campus seizures. It was in kyoto they called for their own self negation. Two and its furtherance of domination. This 1968, in the sense of a Global Movement truly begins in the space of restraint policing and daily eventful miss, diminished state legitimacy and intensified concern to the wrongs such legitimacy perfectly concealed your and far. This politics inaugurated new personalts with reflections to bring forth new actions and collective identification. At this level, i think we should consider the questions of comparability of how such politics become thinkable and of the proper approach to address the nature of this politics. Thatld finally argue grasping such a phenomenon requires particular care with our analytical categories. We could talk further about these problems. First, if the phenomenon in question is typified by what kristin ross has described as a flight from social determinations, then, as she cautions, if we reinstall it back within normative social categories like students, workers, and the like, we will effectively erase its essence. Demonstrations, which it typified this era, are often treated descriptively and on the basis of numbers. I think analytically there are a lot of people on the street, it must be politics. We need to go further if we are going to think about what it is that mightve led people to Political Action. How yout another way, go from an empty street to a full tree. To a full street. My research has led me to argue for the importance of small groups. As well as the dialectic of force, violence, and legitimacy the joint and agents of the state. Since the beginning of the Political Action involved if from normal social roles, we might pay particular attention to language, to the representation of violence and groups,ity, to abject media panics and the like for formsgns of such nascent of new perceptions irrespective of numbers. Finally, and conversely, we might set aside the usual narrative traps for aligning this politics, particularly in the figure of a declension is to argument that involves a handful of people whether it involved manson or the red army that somehow concludes or ends political possibility. Good morning, everyone. It is an honor for me to be her. Think those who thoseould like to thank who organized this series of panels. I feel honored to participate. To think about, to remember, to project 1968 specifically as we are marching into 2018. To my fellow panelists, to those of you coming to listen this early morning, i thank you. We are talking on this panel about 1968 as a local and global event. How do we as historians negotiate 1968 as a global and local event particularly on its a 50th Year Anniversary . In this time and place . We all know what is happening in this time and place. The best way to negotiate 1968 from the prevailing global perspective of the American Mind, and i should say that a lot of my work deals with intellectual history, so i think the best way to negotiate 1968 from the prevailing liberal perspective of the American Mind which is this a their prevailing global perspective of the white American Mind, which is to say the prevailing global preset up of the racist American Mind, is to recollect the blockbuster film that was released early youre going to be politically in contrast to those arguing we are pro experience, racist progress over the last 60 years. In your mind you are only seeing progress that exploded in the and continues to this day. Briefly, how ery ctivists remember what strategies worked in the 60s. Determinedre largery as the strategies that they use today. Any american activists of many strides believe that marches in the 60s were effective at change. G about social and so that is why marches are so popular today. Actually believe it actually led to change 60s. Entally in the i dont have much to add a ept that i remember when frances ago when president was elected, part of ending aign was about 68. T was an entire thing about ending 68. One could make it 68 and he was just being an idiot. Is i think a problem of not simply 68, mbering or evaluating but how to remember and how to way thats not simply as they were saying days when or the old progress was made and how we can way. Progress in the same dentifying specific, you know, specific quests maybe for certain sense, specific problems. Im actually kind of surprised surprised, but interested. Stephanie pointed out 68 as a of turning to the right. Yeah. Moment at which the opposite we think of 68 sort of cuts out. About it, you think is not particularly surprising. We dont think about. I think the problem is pecifically, especially maybe now, especially, i dont know. Long trajectory and pecific moments to think what kind of politics was embodied in of 68. Lection what failed, what didnt work . Withoutlexities, again, nostalgia specifically. Directly aboutis