Curating Feminist Legacies: Italian Feminisms and the Now You Can Go Programme

The talk was given as part of a panel on curating at the one-day interdisciplinary conference 'Unveiling Hidden Discourses: 1968 Fifty Years Later.'

2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, when social unrest and desire to change the status quo struck the world, the conference looks at this year and to evaluate its lasting consequences, in both negative and positive senses. The conference’s aim is twofold. First, the conference will demonstrate what happens when unacceptable discourses refuse to remain unacceptable on a global scale and social implications that follow accordingly. Second, the conference will analyse 1968’s legacy and how social movements were manifested in different expressions, such as cultural production, policy and ontological understanding. Examples of such expressions were illustrated through theatre, the Civil Rights Act and pro-feminist demonstrations. It will also consider failures of 1968 movements and how this allowed for the establishment of extreme right-wing parties, such as the Front National in France following “mai 68.” Critical questions include: How can this year’s impact be considered through a transnational lens? Has this global movement been translated into social developments? Do different disciplines demonstrate ways social movements can inspire change? The conference intends to showcase how social movements associated with 1968 impacted citizens’ lives on a transnational level.

This conference seeks to create a new understanding of 1968, highlighting common themes that emerge by analysing intersections of various academic disciplines and presenting global perspectives of this year, which is mostly viewed as a European phenomenon. It entails collaborations with scholars from diverse fields, such as History, Theatre Studies, Visual Art, Curating, and Modern Languages, in order to deepen the comprehension of this key date. The motive of the organisers is to commemorate the anniversary of 1968 as well as to connect with other researchers to identify cultural, social and political implications that have developed in response to events in 1968. This project’s originality lies in its use of a transnational and interdisciplinary lens to view this year’s historic impact, thus providing a new framework to consider the resonance of 1968 and the first fifty years afterwards.
The conference’s aim is twofold:
 To demonstrate what happens when unacceptable discourses refuse to remain unacceptable on a global scale and social implications that follow accordingly.
 To analyse 1968’s legacy and how social movements were manifested in different expressions, such as cultural production, policy and ontological understanding. Examples of such expressions were illustrated through theatre, the Civil Rights Act and pro-feminist demonstrations.

Keynote speakers:
Professor Anne Etienne (UCC) and Professor Maud Anne Bracke (University of Glasgow)

Programme:
9.30 – 10.00 AM
Registration
10.00 -- 10.10 AM
Introduction
10.10 – 11.10 AM
Keynote 1: Anne Etienne, University College Cork,
‘1968 and all that: the end of theatre censorship?’

11.10 – 12.25 PM
Session 1:
Panel A: Projecting Performances of 1968
Ilaria Favretto, Kingston University: Irony, playfulness and protest before and after 1968
Beatrice Dema, University of Turin: The revolutionary poetry and the “Sessantotto” in Italy
Clare Finburgh, Goldmiths: “To broaden the non-mediocre portion of life”: The Legacies of 1968 and the Situationist International in Contemporary Performance
Panel B: Unrest in Francophone Territories
Alex Corcos, University of Warwick: Vivre sans temps mort et jouir sans entraves: Mustapha Khayati, The Situationist International and the build up to May '68 in the universities
Daniel A. Gordon, Edge Hill University: France's Hidden 1968: The Role of Immigrant Workers
Oliver Davis, University of Warwick: Managing (in)security in Paris in Mai '68
12.25 – 1.15 PM
Lunch
1.15 – 2.30 PM
Session 2:
Panel A: Contested Spaces:
Axel Elías, Kings College London: Boycotting Mexico? Emotional communities during the XIX Olympiad in Mexico city, 1963-1968
Albert Grundlingh, Stellenbosch University: The riddle of Rosalind Ballingall: Poster girl for hippie counterculture in Cape Town in the late 1960s
Avery Morrow, University of Tokyo: Japanese Christian activism during and after Tokyo's university occupations
Panel B: National Movements of 1968
Ozgur Mutlu Ulus, Acıbadem Mehmet Ali Aydınlar University, Istanbul-Turkey: Summer of 1968 in Turkey: Fifty Years Later
Juho Saksholm, University of Jyväskylä: The Nordic 1968: Petit-bourgeois imitation of global radicalism?
Przemysław Pazik, University of Warsaw: The unexpected return of the catholic nationalism in Poland: the 1968 and the catholic-national discourse.
2.30 – 2.45 PM
Tea & Coffee
2.45 – 4.00 PM
Session 3:
Panel A: Pushing the Boundaries
Tobias Haimin Wung-Sung, University of Southern Denmark (SDU): ‘The Schleswig-Holstein Question’ and ‘1968’
Una Blagojevic, Central European University in Budapest: Praxis 1968: Prague, Korčula, Paris, and a Turning Point for the Left?
Marge Käsper and Raili Marling, University of Tartu, Estonia: To say without saying: 1968 slogans in Soviet Estonia and France
Panel B: Remembering ’68
Giulia Sbaffi, New York University: Dissolving fathers - the transmission of the memory of 1968 in present Italy
Anna Frisone, Sorbonne : A gendered narrative of 1968 legacies: feminist critical perspectives on education
Javier Campo, University of the Center of the Province of Buenos Aires: The Hour of the Furnaces: a film that marked with fire the 68
4.00 – 5.00 PM
Keynote 2: Maud Anne Bracke, University of Glasgow:
‘Women’s 1968 is not yet over’ The capture of speech and the gendering of 1968
5.00 – 5.45 PM
Roundtable: Curating 1968
Helena Reckitt, Goldsmiths, co-curator of Now You Can Go
Liz Wood, Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick
5.45 – 6.15 PM
Wine Reception