In the Spirit of ’68
Youth Culture, the New Left, and the Reimagining of Acadia
In the Spirit of ’68 tells the story of how a unique blend of local circumstance and global influence transformed Acadian New Brunswick’s youth culture, spawning one of the most influential revolutionary student movements in Canada.
Description
The 1960s were a victorious decade for francophones in New Brunswick, who witnessed the election of the first Acadian premier and the opening of a French-language university. But in 1968, students took to the streets, demanding further concessions. Belliveau debunks the idea that students were simply heirs to a long line of nationalists seeking more rights for francophones. The student movement emerged in the late 1950s as an expression of the province’s changing youth culture and then evolved as students drew inspiration from the New Left. They shifted allegiance from liberalism to radical communitarianism and ultimately fuelled a new brand of Acadian nationalism in the 1970s.