Abstrakt
The year of 2008 marked the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring, the French May events, as well as numerous other protest movements which attempted to bring about domestic change and transform the geopolitical confines of the Cold War. Due to this occasion, the Marie-Curie-Conference and Training Courses on “European Protest Movements since 1945” invited applications for an international summer school in Prague on European peace and protest cultures from 1945-1989.
The anniversary and the historical location as took an opportunity to discuss the contributions of protest movements to processes of political participation and transformations of culture and value systems in European societies from an interdisciplinary perspective. The goal was to examine the variety of political, social, cultural and aesthetical forms of protest and social dissent by including all sides of the political spectrum.
Particular emphasis has been laid on the impact of peace and protest cultures for the development of a European transnational civil society and for the international diffusion of alternative lifestyles and cultural practices. Though mainly focusing on the years of the Cold War, the aim was also to analyze the influence of longer historical trajectories reaching into the first half of the century, as well as to make the connection to more recent forms of social dissent and protest phenomena in the era of the internet.
By bringing together innovative approaches to phenomena of social change, protest movements and cultures of dissent in Europe during the Cold War from a variety of disciplines, the summer school offered a more comprehensive view of historical and cultural transformations in the 20th century.