The contributions of this volume explore the political, social, and cultural legacies of May ‘68 revolt in France and similar protest movements in other nations around the globe. These events share a global utopian imaginary which found expression in a variety of artistic productions.

The year 2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of May ’68, a startling, by now almost mythic event which combined seriousness, courage, humor and theatrics. The contributions of this volume—based on papers presented the conference Does “la lutte continue”? The Global Afterlife of May ’68 at Florida State University in March 2019—explore the ramifications of that springtime protest in the contemporary world. What has widely become known as the movement of ‘68 consisted, in fact, of many synchronous movements in different nations that promoted a great variety of political, social, and cultural agendas. While it is impossible to write a global history of ’68, this volume presents a kaleidoscope of different perceptions, reflections, and receptions of protest in France, Italy, and other nations that share in common a global utopian imaginary as expressed, for example, in the slogan: “All power to the imagination!” The contributions of this collection show that, while all social struggles are political, many lasting changes in individual mentalities and social structures originated from utopian ideas that were realized first in artistic productions and their aesthetic reception. In this respect the various protests of May ’68 continue.

Introduction, William Cloonan, Barry Faulk, Martin Munro, and Christian Weber

Chapter 1: 1968—Past, Present, Models of Art and Activism in Jannis Kounellis’s Senza Titolo (1969), Chris Bennett

Chapter 2: The Quebec Spring, A New May 68? Timo Obergöker

Chapter 3: Ghosts for the Present: Countercultural Aesthetics and Postcoloniality for Contemporary Italy. The Work of Wu Ming 2 and Fare Ala, Tenley Bick

Chapter 4: La fac ’68: The CentreUniversitaire Expérimental de Vincennes and the Afterlife of a Revolutionary Moment, Paul Cohen

Chapter 5: Class Struggle: Ascanio Celestini, Nanni Balestrini and the Living Legacy of the Italian 68, Giuseppina Mecchia

Chapter 6: Recalibrating Memories: the Divergent Afterlife of Northern Ireland’s 1968, Chris Reynolds

Chapter 7: Conflicts of Class, Race and Sexuality in Two Novels by the French-Moroccan Feminist, Leila Slimani, Valerie Orlando

Chapter 8: Effects of May 68 on Men and Women in the Work of Michel Houellebecq, Alexis Chauchois and Gilles Glacet

Chapter 9: A Timeless Spirit: Revolutionary Aesthetics in Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet, Augustus O’Neill