13229

WiSe 20/21: Youth and Global Political Activism in the 20th Century

Nazan Maksudyan Ilicak

Information for students

Please note that this class will be held online. You will receive all necessary information prior to the first meeting.

Comments

This course focuses on young people's political mobilization and activism during the twentieth century. Youth were not only instrumental in pre-1939 fascist movements, they were also the backbone of armed resistance movements in the Nazi-occupied Europe. Young people were active and engaged in the civil rights movement’s most memorable moments in the US in the 1960s. They desegregated schools in the Jim Crow South, challenged racism during Freedom Rides, and pushed forward voter rights and civil rights legislation. The youth and student movements of the 1960s and 70s all around the world – built around anti-colonial struggles, anti-war protests, and feminist emancipation – fueled the wider spirit of revolt for a generation. They were followed by the peace and anti-nuclear movements, reaching their apogee in 1983 in West Berlin. Young people’s involvement were quite visible in the revolutions that saw the end of the Cold War in 1989. Millions of young people took to the streets in cities throughout China demanding democratic reforms and economic liberalization. 2000s started with a series of movements that have challenged neoliberalism – namely # occupy movements, the “Arab Spring”, and other uprisings in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa. Fridays for Future activists are the newest and the youngest link in a decades-long chain of youth activists at the forefront of social change across the globe. The course intends to trace the historical precedence of youth activism and the factors that drive young people to become important advocates for change. close