Observing the 1980s brings together ‘voices’ from both the Mass Observation Project and the British Library Oral History Collection. This material offers a unique and inspiring insight into the lives and opinions of British people from a range of social classes and regions during the 1980s. Additional context for these materials comes from a collection of ephemera from the same period, consisting of a range of publications dealing with contemporary issues such as the Poll Tax, AIDS and the Falklands Conflict. The materials were selected for their relevance to themes addressed in the undergraduate history course ‘1984: Thatcher’s Britain’ at the University of Sussex. These digitised resources are available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-alike licence . This means that you may download and re-use the resources for non-commercial purposes but you must credit the author and make available any re-purposed versions under the same Creative Commons licence terms. Access to the British Library oral history interviews is via the British Library Sound Archive Oral History Collections.

Introductory lecture on reading poetry and Sor Juana Ines de la cruz

Student politics in France is often dominated by a high degree - and high visibility- of political radicalism. If such radicalism is often the product of a well-organised minority on the extreme left of the political spectrum, it remains a central part of university life. As part of her undergraduate dissertation on 'Toulouse 2008: Ideology, Tactics and Organisation of Student Movements 40 years after May 68' (supervised by Dr Natalya Vince), Rosalind Parkin photographed a series of posters during her year abroad in Toulouse (2007-2008). Students' radicalism is not only aimed at president Sarkozy's reforms of higher education, but also expresses a commitment to feminism, anti-elitism, class-based politics, anti-fascism, and social solidarity. A good level of French is necessary to understand the posters and final year undergraduate and PG students are most likely to benefit from them.

This half day conference, organised by Dr Manus McGrogan at the University of Portsmouth on 12 May 2011, uncovered the trajectories of some of the movements that emerged in early 1970s France, helping to define the radical left politics of the era. This was the aftermath of May ‘68’s mass upheaval, when France, in the grip of student riots and a general strike, had seemed on the verge of revolution. May’s utopian dimension, embodied in slogans such as ‘sous les pavés la plage’ and ‘prenez vos désirs pour la réalité’, held the promise of a world transformed in which each could pursue their own desires, a powerful spur to thousands of young activists, students and workers. The mass revolt of May had also shown that collective action could change the world. These impulses, shaped subsequently by political, socio-cultural and international events, combined to generate new, youth-inflected gender/sexual liberation movements, independent immigrant organisation, ecology groups, underground press, and other movements that were linked to, or autonomous of left political organisation. However, activists also had to contend with a Gaullist State that tentatively introduced reforms, whilst clamping down on the hard left ‘troublions’ still agitating for popular revolt. Intervention in the workers movement also proved problematic given the PCF/CGT dominance in the major workplaces. President Georges Pompidou, on a path of modernising France, perpetuated the social conservatism of his predecessor de Gaulle; faced with these barriers, activists of the Mouvement de Mai sought to merge political radicalism with the cultural underground to fashion an alternative France, as a May-inspired slogan intoned, changer la vie. But what happened to this surge of hope for change? Five academics presented papers on important aspects of this early 1970s radicalism, with the participation of students and lecturers from similar disciplines. They considered the origins and development of the new movements, their significance within Pompidou’s France; the interrelationship of movements, and finally their resonance, or relevance in the France of today. The conference was also part of the undergraduate programme in French History and was generously supported by the LLAS subject centre. The exam was based on the themes developed during the conference. A half day conference, organised at the University of Portsmouth on 12 May 2011, uncovered the trajectories of some of the movements that emerged in early 1970s France, helping to define the radical left politics of the era. This was the aftermath of May ‘68’s mass upheaval, when France, in the grip of student riots and a general strike, had seemed on the verge of revolution. May’s utopian dimension, embodied in slogans such as ‘sous les pavés la plage’ and ‘prenez vos désirs pour la réalité’, held the promise of a world transformed in which each could pursue their own desires, a powerful spur to thousands of young activists, students and workers. The mass revolt of May had also shown that collective action could change the world. These impulses, shaped subsequently by political, socio-cultural and international events, combined to generate new, youth-inflected gender/sexual liberation movements, independent immigrant organisation, ecology groups, underground press, and other movements that were linked to, or autonomous of left political organisation. However, activists also had to contend with a Gaullist State that tentatively introduced reforms, whilst clamping down on the hard left ‘troublions’ still agitating for popular revolt. Intervention in the workers movement also proved problematic given the PCF/CGT dominance in the major workplaces. President Georges Pompidou, on a path of modernising France, perpetuated the social conservatism of his predecessor de Gaulle; faced with these barriers, activists of the Mouvement de Mai sought to merge political radicalism with the cultural underground to fashion an alternative France, as a May-inspired slogan intoned, changer la vie. But what happened to this surge of hope for change? Five academics presented papers on important aspects of this early 1970s radicalism, with the participation of students and lecturers from similar disciplines. They considered the origins and development of the new movements, their significance within Pompidou’s France; the interrelationship of movements, and finally their resonance, or relevance in the France of today. The conference was also part of the undergraduate programme in French History and was generously supported by the LLAS subject centre. The exam was based on the themes developed during the conference.