Les événements de Mai as Theory and Practice

The paper reconsiders the events of May 1968 in light of the various attempts to explain and theorize the politics of the student revolution in France. Drawing on contemporary accounts of May '68 as well as historical reflections on the revolution, the paper constructs a historically and politically "horizontal" theory; the structure of the barricades is used as a model for such a political theory. In the Foucauldian and Deleuzian sense of an active form of theory, a "horizontal" approach effectively politicizes theory and enables it to continue the seemingly failed efforts of the student protestors.