24. Paris, May 1968
• Massive confrontations
between police and
students brought workers
out on a general strike
and brought the
government to the point
of collapse
• Clashes followed
between police and
students on countries all
around the world, and
would have a lasting
political impact
32. On the 9th of November, 1989, the Border
separating Western from Eastern Germany was
effectively opened.
33. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980)
• Being and Nothingness
(1943)
• Existentialism
• Existence precedes
essence
• That is, you are a
material body before
you are a thinking,
feeling person
34. Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908 – 2009)
• Structuralism
• The human mind is
structured according to
binary oppositions like
male/female, high/low,
raw/cooked
• The members of the binary
are defined in terms of
each other
• All of these binaries for a
structure, each part of
which is defined in terms
of every other part
35. Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
• Critiqued Enlightenment
concepts of freedom,
liberation, self-determination
as socially constructed rather than
natural
• Focused on the ways in which
such constructs can foster
cultural hegemony, violence
and exclusion
• That is, those in power get to
determine what human nature
is and who gets to be
classified as “human” (as well
as who does not)
36. Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004)
• Deconstruction
• The binary oppositions of
structuralism are inherently
instable
• The privileged pole of the
binary requires the
devalued pole of the binary
for its own definition
• The devalued pole of the
binary presents a constant
threat to the centrality of
the privileged pole
37. The Civil Rights Movement
Resisted oppression on the basis of RACE
41. I dreamt that I was to start school but arrived late.
Everyone in the room wore white masks on their faces.
It was impossibe to know which was the teacher.
Tomas Tranströmer
“Grief Gondola #2”
