Module 6: The Global 1960s
The years 1968-79 in Italy saw sustained, creative and sometimes violent revolutionary activity, supported by theoretical and practical breakthroughs that began in the early 1960s. The experience of Italy's "long '68" provided key concepts for self-organization in the 1990s and 2000s, particularly among the counter-globalization movement that burst into view with the five-day uprising in Seattle in 1999. The texts for this session include a short statement of the "strategy of refusal" by the Communist Party theorist Mario Tronti, as well as a more extensive narrative from the mid-1970s by Franco "Bifo" Berardi on the Autonomia movement, which left the party and the factory behind in an attempt to revolutionize daily life in the metropolis. An additional text from the early 2000s, by Maurizio Lazzarato, focuses on the role of art and media in the creation of worlds of possibility, whether by corporations for the management of behavior, or by self-organized groups seeking a wider liberation. The lecture focuses on the evolution of Italian radical action and thought over the period 1968-79, with closing observations on the re-emergence of the Italian experience in the wider frame of the global activism at the century's turn.
Required Readings:
“The Struggle Against Work,” Mario Tronti, 1966
“The Anatomy of Autonomy,” Franco “Bifo” Berardi
Recommended:
“Struggle, Event, Media,” Maurizio Lazzarato