»Pop oder Politik: Wie popkulturell waren die ›Achtundsechziger‹?«

Most documentaries about 1968 seem convinced of the idea that that particular year was a »pop« phenomenon. Beat and rock music are considered parts of a »soundtrack of the revolution« and Che Guevara posters are regarded as icons of political pop. If you look directly at the sources of time, though, things can sound quite different: »Leave your guitars in the corner and talk!« was 1968 a pop-friendly command generated at the Festival Chanson – Folklore International at Burg Waldeck in Hunsrück, one of the birthplaces of the German-language protest song. For some »sixty-eighters«, American pop culture was considered a symbol of aggressive »US imperialism.« At the same time, utopian hopes for counterculture and the expansion of consciousness and were linked to psychedelic sounds and visual effects. All of this is reason enough to take critical stock of the sometimes-contradictory relationship between pop and politics in the years around 1968. To this end, the cultural historian Bodo Mrozek (Chair of Theory and History of Popular Music, HU Berlin) will discuss with Kathrin Fahlenbrach (Professor of Media Studies at the University of Hamburg) and Berlin writer Bernd Cailloux (author of »The Fiscal Year 1968/69«, Berlin: edition suhrkamp, 2005).