Leading scholars and thinkers in different disciplines from around the world met over three days from March 13-15 at NYU Shanghai to explore the global perspectives and legacies of the 1960s. The conference, titled “Revisiting 1968 and the Global Sixties” is sponsored by the NYU Provost’s Global Research Initiatives and the Office of the Provost of NYU Shanghai. The conference will reconvene in Abu Dhabi and then New York later in the year.

Joanna Waley-Cohen, Provost of NYU Shanghai and a noted scholar on China, said, “Participants discussed such issues as whether the Sixties marked a culminating point or an inaugural moment; the nature of interactions and mutual influences among participants in global movements; politics, economics, and cultural revolution; and much more.”

Because existing scholarship tends to concentrate on the Sixties in the U.S. and Western Europe, the initiative is focusing on Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

“I am particularly glad to see that both NYU Shanghai faculty colleagues and students attended the conference. This is most exciting and most encouraging”, said Chen Jian, NYU Distinguished Global Professor of History at NYU Shanghai, commenting on the participation of younger professors and graduate students from inside and outside the global network.

The 20th century, according to Chen Jian, was probably the most transformative time in human history. Few decades or years had stood more outstandingly than the long 1960s — especially the year 1968 — in shaping and reshaping the world in political, geostrategic, economic, social and cultural senses.

Chen Jian added, “This is the true grand ‘intellectual festival’ that every scholar dreams of. For me, being a part of the project is a great learning experience in both intellectual and academic senses.”