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Feminist psychogeography long after May 1968

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Marcus Breen provides a French feminist perspective on the enduring impact of the May 1968 uprising in Paris.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 13, 2024

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This video video discusses the significance of the historical context of May 1968 in France, particularly its impact on contemporary French society and political thought. It highlights the film "Whatever Happened to My Revolution," which reflects on the events of that era, underscoring the collaboration between students, union members, and feminist movements in challenging the authoritarian state.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of the May 1968 uprisings in reshaping relationships between individuals and the state, advocating for social and educational reforms, women's rights, and the consolidation of leftist politics, including the Socialist and Communist parties in France. The events are positioned as a catalyst for ongoing political activism and cultural change.

Additionally, the text explores the concept of psychogeography, introduced by Guy Debord, as a framework for analyzing how urban environments affect human emotions and behaviors. It also briefly touches on Lacanian psychoanalysis and its relevance to desires that drive social movements, particularly within the feminist movement.

The film serves as a reminder of the lasting influence of May 1968, encouraging viewers to reflect on historical reference points that inform current social and political landscapes. Overall, it calls for a recognition of the ongoing relevance of leftist ideologies and the role of cultural studies in understanding and engaging with these transformations in society.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The historical context is very important

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because May, 1968 from Paris, which this film,

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whatever happened to My Revolution, depicts

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and if you like, remembers as a

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powerful influence on contemporary Fre French.

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And one could think also of generally, left

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or progressive thinking, particularly in areas

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of the academy, is, really the context setting event

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of what we might think of as French modernism,

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but certainly of political activism.

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So the events of May, 1968 were really events that

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brought together students

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and union members who aligned with the students

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around the need to change the fundamental relationship

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that students and working people had with the state.

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The state had been extremely author authoritarian,

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and this is the French state.

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And students really had very little opportunity to do much.

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And so we compare that to students today.

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Many of us, many students have in universities, have

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enormous freedom and offered different

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subjects and different opportunities.

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Maybe this is less the case in some

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of the harder sciences like engineering and physics,

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but generally speaking, the idea that you had

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to do certain things and we're deeply constrained, then,

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if you like, spilled over into society at general

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on the, at the same time, the women's movement was going

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through, I suppose you'd call it a second wave.

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And the women's movement in France was in a, in a situation

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or a context itself, which was a very heteronormative,

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masculinist, environment

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that didn't give women much space

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for anything at all, no voice.

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And they're expected to, as a classic phrase, goes,

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you know, be home barefoot

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and pregnant, serving the interests

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of the breadwinner who were men.

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This did not sit well and with women.

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And so the, there were three groups, if you like,

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that formed this conjuncture, this historical moment

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around May, 1968.

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And the, the, initially there was enormous suppression

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of the demands of students

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and the trade unionists who joined the students

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and feminists to mobilize,

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and they just took to the streets,

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and they were extremely effective in changing

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Charles de Gaul, president Charles de GA's Mind,

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and the conservative French government's mind at the time

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about how universities should be organized about access

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to education, about the role of women in society, about

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what trade unions could

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Do, do indeed, it consolidated these, these,

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if you like, revolts

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or uprisings consolidated the role of the Socialist Party

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and the Communist Party in French public life.

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And they're still very active in French public life,

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all these parties and have made a significant contribution

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to French culture, which of course

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for us in the United States

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and for people around the world, there's this sort of notion

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of French France and,

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and Frenchness as being the ideal, you know, who wants to,

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what do you wanna do in your summer holidays?

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Well, of course, for many people it's the ideal is

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go to Paris, right?

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Go to France. How does that happen?

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How did that mentality happen?

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Well, the mentality generally speaking is that these,

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the uprising created this sense that the city, that the,

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that the ideal of, of the culture in that part

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of Western Europe produces a kind of

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Aristotelian human flourishing.

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And this is the ideal. So the, so the events

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of May, 1968 were seen and,

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and are seen as, an effort

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to change the social relations, if you like,

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within the society, improve them for everybody,

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and bring people into the decision making

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of the state in a way

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that perhaps they'd been locked out before.

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And this was, significant and still resonates today,

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and it resonates in this film.

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Now, just before I finish this point, the film

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is noteworthy and was noteworthy

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because there had been many people,

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and I'll show you for example, someone like this,

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a a a very active French, feminist, Helene Sue, who

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argued, for example, I'll show you,

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sometime in the eighties.

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She said, I think that the, the impact made

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by the events may of,

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may 68 is on the verge of disappearance.

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The the remains are all in the writing

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and thinking those have helped those who breathe freely,

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thanks to the opening of May 68.

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So, Helene Sue has made the point that in some ways,

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the French film, this French film made,

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and that Judith Davis, the producer, writer, director,

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or writer director made, which is, no, we haven't forgot it,

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we're still alive, we're still here.

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And we're still thinking about how the,

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this particular conjuncture,

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this particular historical event of this uprising

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and changes in French society took place.

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And we still use it as a reference point.

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All of us use reference points, historical reference points,

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and this particular reference point is not completely lost.

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And so the film makes a very

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important point in recuperating, as we say, recuperating

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what might be a lost memory.

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I would encourage a viewers not only film scholars,

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but viewers, across the spectrum to look at this film,

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to find it, it is available on various platforms,

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and to watch it with this sort of, of historical mind

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or remaking of history and recuperating

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or claiming back history,

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because it's really informative about not only

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what was happening in terms of being on the streets

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and producing change,

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and this is a long history of change that

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of course also connected with other, movements

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of the left, the political left from the 1960s

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and seventies in the United States, especially in opposition

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to the Vietnam War.

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But in the, in the French configuration of this event,

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the importance of the, references

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to people who

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provided, again, the key intellectual frameworks

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for criticism of the state, criticism of the society,

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and for seeking a progressive

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and left,

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restructuring a reconfiguration can't be left outta the

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picture, which is why I refer to

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and make use of gda board's notion of, of Psychogeography.

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Now, GBO was a founder

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of a movement called the Situationists,

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and he was also a Marxist,

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and he was also deeply committed to producing

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and thinking about the way that the city

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and society could be remade in such a way

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that it would be more, if you like, livable the world,

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the city would be more livable.

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And so I've got a, in the, in the article,

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that appears in the Journal of French Cultural Studies about

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the film, I have a quote from the board, which,

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and he describes Psychogeography in this way,

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psychogeography sets for itself the study

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of the precise laws

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and specific effects of the geographical environment,

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whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions

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and behavior of individuals.

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The charmingly vague adjective, psycho geographical,

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can be applied to the findings apply, arrived at

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by this type of investigation

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to the influence on human beings

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and more generally, to any situational conduct that seems

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to reflect the same spirit of discovery.

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The idea of freeing oneself from the constraints

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that bear down upon us that are made out of, frankly, bricks

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and mortar, that then determine in many ways how we live.

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And of course, one of the great appeals of Paris is

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that it is, it was redesigned by Napoleon as, as a way

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for people to live in a more congenial atmosphere.

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Vast amounts of Paris were demolished and rearchitected,

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and then rebuilt by Napoleon as a way of thinking about

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what will be an ideal city to live in.

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Now, this wasn't of course, anything to do with,

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progressive or left politics,

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but it was something to do with aesthetics,

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and it was something to do with a particular

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Way of living as a French person.

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The board takes this, if you like, this notion

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of designing a city and historicizes it as well.

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And what he says is, we can firstly recognize how buildings

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and the physical environment is created.

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And then from our left, progressive

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and Marxist perspective, say, this really matters

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because we are literally constrained

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by the way the world is constructed

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by us ourselves as humans.

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This is a long, this opens a long discussion,

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which I'm not going to enter into,

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but a long discussion about urban planning,

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about architecture, about design, about design thinking,

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and about the whole, the entire spectrum of how we interact

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with each other in the environments in which we live.

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And there are, you know, tremendous examples

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of different kinds

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of thinking about designing the urban environment

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that can be connected to this critique

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and this intervention by, and the situationists.

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Now, as the film, whatever happened

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to my revolution points out, this was a particular moment

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where in the 1950s

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and sixties, the French left wanted to think about

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how they could be in charge of French society.

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And this is a moment, particularly

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before the crises within the French Communist Party

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of 1956, and then 19 in then through the sixties.

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And their relationship with the Soviet Union

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produced a particular kind of problem, set

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of problems in terms of what to do about the organization

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of communism and, and the advances of socialism.

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But that's another story. However, it did have an impact.

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Those events did have an impact on the fact that

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the Situationists and the French left persisted,

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certainly within the French Communist Party,

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and certainly within the women's movement to make a claim,

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right, to organizing French society better

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and literally reorganizing the city in a way

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that could be livable, totally, truly livable.

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And moving towards socialistic ambitions

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might be interesting for people

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to think about if they haven't been to China,

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to think about some of the redesign of Chinese cities

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and some of the public spaces

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and very wide open spaces that are part of Chinese thinking,

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contemporary Chinese thinking about the

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way people live in cities.

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Never gonna be ideal, but it's worth thinking about.

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And I just put that forward as a prompt for people

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who haven't thought about Chinese design thinking in

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relation to larger projects associated

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with socialist thinking and socialist thought.

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There are many themes I could go on with here.

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gda board presents this psychogeography

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as a way of entertaining, right?

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Radical deconstruction of the city, of the landscape,

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of what constrains us as human beings.

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The question then goes on to ask about not only the board

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and the situationists

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and his influence on, if you like, left radicals

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and radical thinking,

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but also Jacque lacan psychoanalysis.

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And I'm not a psycho-analysis analyst,

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nor am I, a acknowledged specialist in psychoanalysis.

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But lacans thinking,

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particularly in this generation, was profound.

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When I say this generation, I mean, again, the generation

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of the, of May 68 in France, Lecan was a psycho ana analyst

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and a, a brilliant thinker about

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post Freudian, if you like, or Freudian psychoanalysis.

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And what he offered was a way of thinking about desire,

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but all sorts of other aspects of our subconscious

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and what desire means when we want something.

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And his argument was largely that as human beings,

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our entire lives are defined by our desires.

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This isn't only sexual desire, it's desire for living.

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It's a desire for comfort.

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It's a desire for meaningful social relations.

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It's a desire, of course,

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for the ultimate thing, which is love.

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And he talked about this, and his seminars are all available

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online and all available in the many books that he wrote.

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Well, what I do is to suggest that Lacan

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and Gita board, who were moving in the same circles, of,

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of French, left critical thinking,

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can be brought together to suggest that the desire

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for a better life, a better way of living, is as it were,

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a theme within the film.

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Whatever happened to my revolution,

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because the main character whose name is Angela,

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is working in and wanting to be a city planner,

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and she is, is trying to imagine how she, as a city planner,

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like her parents, can reimagine the city so

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that it's a better place to live

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in the current context of today.

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And so the film has this wonderful kind of cross-referencing

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of the past of Situationists without mentioning them, of,

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without mentioning them, of desire for a better way

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of living a la lahan that can't be, denied.

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And that I try to unpack

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and explain how do we desire to live.

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You know, it's a really important question.

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And of course, for Marxists, for the left, maybe

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for everybody in political theory, desire is what they want.

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They want a perfect, or at least some sort of utopian ideal,

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which they can attain by taking over the government,

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taking over the forces or the power of the state,

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and reorganizing it in the case of Marxism for the large,

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majority of people, the masses,

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and so that they can live a dignified and productive life.

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And this is a longstanding debate, of course,

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within the academy and elsewhere.

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Let me also say that the importance of thinking about May 68

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feminism, situation as Gboard

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and Lacan brings me to, of course, the importance

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of Marxism within the critique of French society,

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but in with the, within the critique

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of thinking about the design of cities and the way we live.

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And the reference to Marxism, of course, has to do

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with the fact that many of these people in France, in the,

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in the lead up to May 68 and

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after it, were directly meeting with each other, interacting

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with each other, and influencing each other.

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In particular, people like, Louis Altair,

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Michelle Fuco, Lacan, they were all going

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to lacan seminars.

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Uh, they were attending each other's work.

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Uh, and this makes a very important point about the role

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that these people then saw in the women's movement, not just

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Reid, for example, something that's in a readily available,

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video on YouTube.

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Uh, it's called Louis Altair, the Crisis of Marxism,

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and it's from 1980.

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And he says this,

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and this is the point about the importance of desire,

16:21.595 --> 16:22.815
but from a women's perspective

16:22.835 --> 16:26.335
and from a French feminist perspective, Lacan says, quote,

16:26.335 --> 16:28.015
everything has come to me through women,

16:28.555 --> 16:30.255
and this is the reason why I,

16:30.615 --> 16:33.975
I attribute a very important role, a predominant role

16:34.035 --> 16:35.215
to the women's movement.

16:35.625 --> 16:38.775
Women don't know their capacity, the possibility,

16:38.945 --> 16:40.855
their capability to do politics.

16:41.115 --> 16:44.135
End quote. Now the patronizing tone aside about

16:44.135 --> 16:45.335
women not knowing what they want.

16:45.675 --> 16:49.615
Um, this, no, this again identifies the importance of women

16:49.835 --> 16:52.415
as being the driver in the desire

16:52.515 --> 16:54.175
for a better way of life, right?

16:54.395 --> 16:55.895
Cities have been designed by men,

16:56.195 --> 16:58.015
cities have been very masculinist,

16:58.225 --> 16:59.775
aggressive, competitive spaces.

17:00.355 --> 17:03.655
So the film also offers these kinds of possibilities

17:03.795 --> 17:07.015
for thinking about this kind of thing, from, as a,

17:07.075 --> 17:10.695
as I say, the perspective of,

17:10.995 --> 17:13.015
the board from the perspective of the calm

17:13.195 --> 17:14.935
and perspective of the left.

17:16.015 --> 17:17.235
So I hope that's a little bit helpful,

17:17.455 --> 17:20.915
and I would certainly invite people to read the,

17:20.945 --> 17:23.795
read my article in the Journal of French Cultural Studies

17:24.255 --> 17:25.915
as a way of,

17:26.125 --> 17:28.595
maybe addressing these things in more detail.

17:31.065 --> 17:33.205
Uh, the title of the film, the title of the article,

17:33.225 --> 17:35.565
the full title in French cultural Studies under my name

17:35.565 --> 17:38.005
Marcus Bre, is Feminist Psychogeography.

17:38.035 --> 17:41.885
Long after May, 1968, whatever happened to my revolution,

17:43.365 --> 17:45.825
and it is in the

17:47.095 --> 17:48.685
issue of, it's

17:48.785 --> 17:52.725
One 11, but it was certainly, in the last, couple

17:52.725 --> 17:54.885
of years, the suggestions

17:54.885 --> 17:58.125
that May 60, 19 68 no longer has an influence.

17:58.505 --> 18:01.645
The suggestions that we have moved beyond the influence

18:01.645 --> 18:04.245
of Marxism, the influence that the Communist Party

18:04.245 --> 18:06.085
or the French Communist Party is, is over.

18:06.345 --> 18:09.245
All this has now proven and shown to be not the case.

18:09.635 --> 18:13.305
It's been recuperated both within the French,

18:13.545 --> 18:16.705
feminist movement by these filmmakers, certainly

18:17.685 --> 18:19.905
by Judas Davis and the people who made the film.

18:20.325 --> 18:22.305
But it's also been evident

18:22.445 --> 18:26.745
before us, significant rise in movements of,

18:26.745 --> 18:29.345
protest, of claiming the streets.

18:29.705 --> 18:30.865
I mean, I think just last week

18:30.865 --> 18:33.425
and this week, hundreds, thousands of,

18:33.425 --> 18:35.745
French farmers are protesting on the streets in Paris,

18:36.885 --> 18:40.305
and there have been large protests all over the world,

18:40.305 --> 18:43.705
particularly given rise to a reconsideration

18:44.245 --> 18:46.585
of left politics, of Marxism

18:46.885 --> 18:48.785
and of its appropriation,

18:49.055 --> 18:50.745
into the contemporary situation.

18:51.245 --> 18:53.185
Uh, let me also say one last point,

18:53.185 --> 18:56.425
and that is that it also has relevance to the development

18:56.425 --> 18:58.585
of this, of this area called cultural studies.

18:59.165 --> 19:02.585
Uh, it's been a very successful innovation

19:03.245 --> 19:04.265
for the last 30

19:04.365 --> 19:08.345
or 40 years, firstly, in the United Kingdom or Britain.

19:08.695 --> 19:11.265
I'll also say that the importance of this film

19:12.495 --> 19:14.275
is its contribution to cultural studies.

19:14.745 --> 19:18.995
That is the idea that culture is a dynamic moving,

19:19.545 --> 19:22.035
live experience that people have,

19:22.375 --> 19:25.435
and that, you know, has many manifestations,

19:26.215 --> 19:31.045
and it involves, deep and rich thought

19:31.465 --> 19:34.885
and, but also, academic research and activism.

19:34.905 --> 19:38.405
And it connects with what this film seeks to do, which is

19:38.405 --> 19:40.645
to say, what's happening in the culture, right?

19:41.025 --> 19:42.645
Or what's going on, right?

19:42.705 --> 19:45.405
As, as the, the, I think it was Marvin gave,

19:45.405 --> 19:46.525
saying, right, what's going on?

19:46.615 --> 19:48.125
Right? What's going on in the culture?

19:48.225 --> 19:50.365
What's changing, what's being transformed?

19:50.365 --> 19:51.965
And of course, nothing. Uh,

19:52.635 --> 19:55.405
there's nothing quite like the transformations in the

19:55.405 --> 19:57.645
culture that are happening around us in the world.

19:57.645 --> 19:59.925
Some, for the va, for the majority of us,

20:00.525 --> 20:02.605
I think it's fair to say that many of these

20:04.145 --> 20:07.025
cultural shifts are not proving to be very progressive,

20:07.175 --> 20:10.265
even though there have been significant uprisings

20:10.925 --> 20:13.345
and, mobilizations by the left.

20:13.605 --> 20:18.145
Uh, this still, is a, an open set of possibilities about

20:18.145 --> 20:20.425
what happens in culture and the idea

20:20.445 --> 20:22.105
of an open horizon for culture.

20:22.605 --> 20:25.105
Uh, the contributions from the left,

20:25.125 --> 20:28.345
the contributions from Marxist theory and Marxist Marxists

20:28.445 --> 20:30.945
and, researchers in the, tradition

20:31.045 --> 20:35.025
of left opening emancipatory spaces, will continue.

20:35.045 --> 20:38.145
And this film suggests that this is what's happening

20:38.565 --> 20:41.385
and that, we should pay attention to it, not only

20:41.405 --> 20:44.105
as researchers, but as people who care about the world

20:44.105 --> 20:45.865
around us and who can make a contribution

20:46.525 --> 20:48.905
inside the universities and outside the university.

00:00 - The historical context is very important because May, 1968 from Paris, which this film, whatever happened to My Revolution, depicts and if you like, remembers as a powerful influence on contemporary Fre French. And one could think also of generally, left

00:24 - or progressive thinking, particularly in areas of the academy, is, really the context setting event of what we might think of as French modernism, but certainly of political activism. So the events of May, 1968 were really events that brought together students and union members who aligned with the students around the need to change the fundamental relationship that students and working people had with the state. The state had been extremely author authoritarian,

01:04 - and this is the French state. And students really had very little opportunity to do much. And so we compare that to students today. Many of us, many students have in universities, have enormous freedom and offered different subjects and different opportunities. Maybe this is less the case in some of the harder sciences like engineering and physics, but generally speaking, the idea that you had to do certain things and we're deeply constrained, then,

01:35 - if you like, spilled over into society at general on the, at the same time, the women's movement was going through, I suppose you'd call it a second wave. And the women's movement in France was in a, in a situation or a context itself, which was a very heteronormative, masculinist, environment that didn't give women much space for anything at all, no voice. And they're expected to, as a classic phrase, goes, you know, be home barefoot

02:06 - and pregnant, serving the interests of the breadwinner who were men. This did not sit well and with women. And so the, there were three groups, if you like, that formed this conjuncture, this historical moment around May, 1968. And the, the, initially there was enormous suppression of the demands of students and the trade unionists who joined the students and feminists to mobilize,

02:37 - and they just took to the streets, and they were extremely effective in changing Charles de Gaul, president Charles de GA's Mind, and the conservative French government's mind at the time about how universities should be organized about access to education, about the role of women in society, about what trade unions could Do, do indeed, it consolidated these, these, if you like, revolts or uprisings consolidated the role of the Socialist Party

03:08 - and the Communist Party in French public life. And they're still very active in French public life, all these parties and have made a significant contribution to French culture, which of course for us in the United States and for people around the world, there's this sort of notion of French France and, and Frenchness as being the ideal, you know, who wants to, what do you wanna do in your summer holidays? Well, of course, for many people it's the ideal is

03:33 - go to Paris, right? Go to France. How does that happen? How did that mentality happen? Well, the mentality generally speaking is that these, the uprising created this sense that the city, that the, that the ideal of, of the culture in that part of Western Europe produces a kind of Aristotelian human flourishing. And this is the ideal. So the, so the events of May, 1968 were seen and,

04:00 - and are seen as, an effort to change the social relations, if you like, within the society, improve them for everybody, and bring people into the decision making of the state in a way that perhaps they'd been locked out before. And this was, significant and still resonates today, and it resonates in this film. Now, just before I finish this point, the film is noteworthy and was noteworthy

04:27 - because there had been many people, and I'll show you for example, someone like this, a a a very active French, feminist, Helene Sue, who argued, for example, I'll show you, sometime in the eighties. She said, I think that the, the impact made by the events may of, may 68 is on the verge of disappearance. The the remains are all in the writing and thinking those have helped those who breathe freely,

04:57 - thanks to the opening of May 68. So, Helene Sue has made the point that in some ways, the French film, this French film made, and that Judith Davis, the producer, writer, director, or writer director made, which is, no, we haven't forgot it, we're still alive, we're still here. And we're still thinking about how the, this particular conjuncture, this particular historical event of this uprising and changes in French society took place.

05:26 - And we still use it as a reference point. All of us use reference points, historical reference points, and this particular reference point is not completely lost. And so the film makes a very important point in recuperating, as we say, recuperating what might be a lost memory. I would encourage a viewers not only film scholars, but viewers, across the spectrum to look at this film, to find it, it is available on various platforms, and to watch it with this sort of, of historical mind

05:58 - or remaking of history and recuperating or claiming back history, because it's really informative about not only what was happening in terms of being on the streets and producing change, and this is a long history of change that of course also connected with other, movements of the left, the political left from the 1960s and seventies in the United States, especially in opposition to the Vietnam War.

06:26 - But in the, in the French configuration of this event, the importance of the, references to people who provided, again, the key intellectual frameworks for criticism of the state, criticism of the society, and for seeking a progressive and left, restructuring a reconfiguration can't be left outta the picture, which is why I refer to and make use of gda board's notion of, of Psychogeography.

06:59 - Now, GBO was a founder of a movement called the Situationists, and he was also a Marxist, and he was also deeply committed to producing and thinking about the way that the city and society could be remade in such a way that it would be more, if you like, livable the world, the city would be more livable. And so I've got a, in the, in the article, that appears in the Journal of French Cultural Studies about

07:27 - the film, I have a quote from the board, which, and he describes Psychogeography in this way, psychogeography sets for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. The charmingly vague adjective, psycho geographical, can be applied to the findings apply, arrived at by this type of investigation

07:58 - to the influence on human beings and more generally, to any situational conduct that seems to reflect the same spirit of discovery. The idea of freeing oneself from the constraints that bear down upon us that are made out of, frankly, bricks and mortar, that then determine in many ways how we live. And of course, one of the great appeals of Paris is that it is, it was redesigned by Napoleon as, as a way for people to live in a more congenial atmosphere. Vast amounts of Paris were demolished and rearchitected,

08:39 - and then rebuilt by Napoleon as a way of thinking about what will be an ideal city to live in. Now, this wasn't of course, anything to do with, progressive or left politics, but it was something to do with aesthetics, and it was something to do with a particular Way of living as a French person. The board takes this, if you like, this notion of designing a city and historicizes it as well. And what he says is, we can firstly recognize how buildings

09:08 - and the physical environment is created. And then from our left, progressive and Marxist perspective, say, this really matters because we are literally constrained by the way the world is constructed by us ourselves as humans. This is a long, this opens a long discussion, which I'm not going to enter into, but a long discussion about urban planning, about architecture, about design, about design thinking,

09:37 - and about the whole, the entire spectrum of how we interact with each other in the environments in which we live. And there are, you know, tremendous examples of different kinds of thinking about designing the urban environment that can be connected to this critique and this intervention by, and the situationists. Now, as the film, whatever happened to my revolution points out, this was a particular moment where in the 1950s

10:11 - and sixties, the French left wanted to think about how they could be in charge of French society. And this is a moment, particularly before the crises within the French Communist Party of 1956, and then 19 in then through the sixties. And their relationship with the Soviet Union produced a particular kind of problem, set of problems in terms of what to do about the organization of communism and, and the advances of socialism. But that's another story. However, it did have an impact.

10:41 - Those events did have an impact on the fact that the Situationists and the French left persisted, certainly within the French Communist Party, and certainly within the women's movement to make a claim, right, to organizing French society better and literally reorganizing the city in a way that could be livable, totally, truly livable. And moving towards socialistic ambitions might be interesting for people to think about if they haven't been to China,

11:13 - to think about some of the redesign of Chinese cities and some of the public spaces and very wide open spaces that are part of Chinese thinking, contemporary Chinese thinking about the way people live in cities. Never gonna be ideal, but it's worth thinking about. And I just put that forward as a prompt for people who haven't thought about Chinese design thinking in relation to larger projects associated with socialist thinking and socialist thought.

11:40 - There are many themes I could go on with here. gda board presents this psychogeography as a way of entertaining, right? Radical deconstruction of the city, of the landscape, of what constrains us as human beings. The question then goes on to ask about not only the board and the situationists and his influence on, if you like, left radicals and radical thinking, but also Jacque lacan psychoanalysis.

12:16 - And I'm not a psycho-analysis analyst, nor am I, a acknowledged specialist in psychoanalysis. But lacans thinking, particularly in this generation, was profound. When I say this generation, I mean, again, the generation of the, of May 68 in France, Lecan was a psycho ana analyst and a, a brilliant thinker about post Freudian, if you like, or Freudian psychoanalysis. And what he offered was a way of thinking about desire, but all sorts of other aspects of our subconscious

12:55 - and what desire means when we want something. And his argument was largely that as human beings, our entire lives are defined by our desires. This isn't only sexual desire, it's desire for living. It's a desire for comfort. It's a desire for meaningful social relations. It's a desire, of course, for the ultimate thing, which is love. And he talked about this, and his seminars are all available online and all available in the many books that he wrote.

13:26 - Well, what I do is to suggest that Lacan and Gita board, who were moving in the same circles, of, of French, left critical thinking, can be brought together to suggest that the desire for a better life, a better way of living, is as it were, a theme within the film. Whatever happened to my revolution, because the main character whose name is Angela, is working in and wanting to be a city planner, and she is, is trying to imagine how she, as a city planner,

14:01 - like her parents, can reimagine the city so that it's a better place to live in the current context of today. And so the film has this wonderful kind of cross-referencing of the past of Situationists without mentioning them, of, without mentioning them, of desire for a better way of living a la lahan that can't be, denied. And that I try to unpack and explain how do we desire to live. You know, it's a really important question.

14:31 - And of course, for Marxists, for the left, maybe for everybody in political theory, desire is what they want. They want a perfect, or at least some sort of utopian ideal, which they can attain by taking over the government, taking over the forces or the power of the state, and reorganizing it in the case of Marxism for the large, majority of people, the masses, and so that they can live a dignified and productive life. And this is a longstanding debate, of course, within the academy and elsewhere.

15:06 - Let me also say that the importance of thinking about May 68 feminism, situation as Gboard and Lacan brings me to, of course, the importance of Marxism within the critique of French society, but in with the, within the critique of thinking about the design of cities and the way we live. And the reference to Marxism, of course, has to do with the fact that many of these people in France, in the, in the lead up to May 68 and after it, were directly meeting with each other, interacting

15:40 - with each other, and influencing each other. In particular, people like, Louis Altair, Michelle Fuco, Lacan, they were all going to lacan seminars. they were attending each other's work. and this makes a very important point about the role that these people then saw in the women's movement, not just Reid, for example, something that's in a readily available, video on YouTube. it's called Louis Altair, the Crisis of Marxism,

16:14 - and it's from 1980. And he says this, and this is the point about the importance of desire, but from a women's perspective and from a French feminist perspective, Lacan says, quote, everything has come to me through women, and this is the reason why I, I attribute a very important role, a predominant role to the women's movement. Women don't know their capacity, the possibility,

16:38 - their capability to do politics. End quote. Now the patronizing tone aside about women not knowing what they want. this, no, this again identifies the importance of women as being the driver in the desire for a better way of life, right? Cities have been designed by men, cities have been very masculinist, aggressive, competitive spaces. So the film also offers these kinds of possibilities

17:03 - for thinking about this kind of thing, from, as a, as I say, the perspective of, the board from the perspective of the calm and perspective of the left. So I hope that's a little bit helpful, and I would certainly invite people to read the, read my article in the Journal of French Cultural Studies as a way of, maybe addressing these things in more detail. the title of the film, the title of the article,

17:33 - the full title in French cultural Studies under my name Marcus Bre, is Feminist Psychogeography. Long after May, 1968, whatever happened to my revolution, and it is in the issue of, it's One 11, but it was certainly, in the last, couple of years, the suggestions that May 60, 19 68 no longer has an influence. The suggestions that we have moved beyond the influence of Marxism, the influence that the Communist Party

18:04 - or the French Communist Party is, is over. All this has now proven and shown to be not the case. It's been recuperated both within the French, feminist movement by these filmmakers, certainly by Judas Davis and the people who made the film. But it's also been evident before us, significant rise in movements of, protest, of claiming the streets. I mean, I think just last week and this week, hundreds, thousands of,

18:33 - French farmers are protesting on the streets in Paris, and there have been large protests all over the world, particularly given rise to a reconsideration of left politics, of Marxism and of its appropriation, into the contemporary situation. let me also say one last point, and that is that it also has relevance to the development of this, of this area called cultural studies. it's been a very successful innovation

19:03 - for the last 30 or 40 years, firstly, in the United Kingdom or Britain. I'll also say that the importance of this film is its contribution to cultural studies. That is the idea that culture is a dynamic moving, live experience that people have, and that, you know, has many manifestations, and it involves, deep and rich thought and, but also, academic research and activism. And it connects with what this film seeks to do, which is

19:38 - to say, what's happening in the culture, right? Or what's going on, right? As, as the, the, I think it was Marvin gave, saying, right, what's going on? Right? What's going on in the culture? What's changing, what's being transformed? And of course, nothing. there's nothing quite like the transformations in the culture that are happening around us in the world. Some, for the va, for the majority of us,

20:00 - I think it's fair to say that many of these cultural shifts are not proving to be very progressive, even though there have been significant uprisings and, mobilizations by the left. this still, is a, an open set of possibilities about what happens in culture and the idea of an open horizon for culture. the contributions from the left, the contributions from Marxist theory and Marxist Marxists and, researchers in the, tradition

20:31 - of left opening emancipatory spaces, will continue. And this film suggests that this is what's happening and that, we should pay attention to it, not only as researchers, but as people who care about the world around us and who can make a contribution inside the universities and outside the university.

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