1968 in an Expanded Field: The Frankfurt School and the Uneven Course of History

ABSTRACT No longer capable of serving as a nodal point of a single coherent narrative or as a marker for parallel events across national borders, “1968” is best understood in a tense relation to “1967”. Juxtaposed rather than reconciled, they can only be brought together in a dynamic field of conflicting forces still in play even after a half century has passed. Such an approach alerts us to the relativization of what seems to be a punctual moment in a single historical space–time continuum. To understand the role of the Frankfurt School in the German “1968” is therefore to situate its history in the expanded field that includes the very different events of “1967”, which resist incorporation into a unified narrative. It is to register the importance of 1967 in generating its negative relationship to aspects of the German 1968, and in colouring its attitude towards post-colonial struggles and the discourse they have spawned. By expanding the field in this way, we will avoid turning 1968 into an isolated monument on a pedestal that masks its connection to the multiple historical contexts that can set it into motion and help us understand its importance today.