The 1980s are often described as the deathbed of Utopia. The totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century were defeated or crumbling, and the neoliberalism of Margaret “There Is No Alternative” Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and the “conservative turn” under Helmut Kohl took the oxygen out of the remnants of the ideals of the generation of 1968, many of whom had settled down after a march through the institutions with a handy bank account.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the proclaimed end of the Cold War provoked fantasies about “the end of history,” not as apocalypse but as the final victory of Capitalist liberal democracy. The next Cold War Spaces guest, the young Yale historian Jennifer Allen, turns this verdict around. She wrote a book about grassroots utopian thought in Germany before and after 1989. Joes Segal will speak with her about top-down blueprints vs bottom-up ideals, utopias on the left and on the right, and German and American alternative realities past and present.
Wednesday, January 27, 12 p.m. Pacific Time: Jennifer Allen – Grassroots Space: German Utopias Before and After the Wende
RSVP link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1216083192414/WN_QbiOkqfWTW6Jp-adhUeVJQ
To view earlier recorded episodes: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1216083192414/WN_QbiOkqfWTW6Jp-adhUeVJQ
A selection of Cold War Spaces interviews will also be made available in podcast format.
Be the first to comment