Conference: The Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion, and Utopia / Washington D.C. / November 6-7 2008 The year 2008 marks the anniversary of 40 years since the tumultuous months of 1968, which radically influenced the social, political, and cultural landscape of Euro-Atlantic world. The Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies (under the directorship of Prof. Vladimir Tismaneanu) at the University of Maryland (College Park) in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute would like to put forward an academic event that will discuss and revisit the complex aspects implied by the shocks and transformations brought about by the '68 phenomenon. The conference is part of a multi-year project (started in 2007), envisaged by Prof. Tismaneanu to provide, by means of reflecting on watershed moments of post-1945 history, an overview of the global dynamics characteristic for the 20th century and its lessons and impact upon the 21st.
The present conference puts forth a discussion of 1968 as both a global event and a local moment of crisis. The main directions we aim to pursue are: the crisis of 'really existing socialism' and the failure of 'socialism with a human face'; the critique of (neo)Stalinism and the reactions of Leninist bureaucracies (role of critical intellectuals, crises with the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet invasion and its implications); the end of revisionism and the birth of the dissident (human rights) movements; Western utopia and the rediscovery of radicalism; the re-thinking of the political and the re-definition of modernity (e.g., the critique of liberal democracy in the West and of Leninism in the East).
Last but not least, the conveners of the event (H.-R. Patapievici, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute, Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland, and Christian Ostermann, Cold War International History Program) aim to bring a most significant and often neglected factor into the discussion, by introducing the Romanian case.
The event is organized by: The Romanian Cultural Institute
The Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, Government and Politics Department, University of Maryland
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars - Cold War International History Program
Embassy of Romania to the United States of America (Washington D.C.)
The Center for Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European Studies (CERES), Georgetown University
More details, as well as the conference program and brochure are available here.
THU, November 6, 9am - 4:30pm EMBASSY OF ROMANIA
1607 23rd Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20008
FRI, November 7, 9am - 5pm
WOODROW WILSON CENTER - Auditorium
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20004
RSVP required here