This lecture will take place in the Multi-Media Lab (room 482), Discovery Centre, MacOdrum Library starting at 2:30PM followed by a reception in the History Lounge (433 Paterson Hall).

Abstract

Expo 67 was part of the global wave of change that affected all Western societies in the 1960s. The decade saw the democratization of higher education, the rise of the consumer society, and the consolidation of the middle class. These profound changes had specific repercussions depending on the national context. How did the decade affect Quebec? What were the province’s principal adaptations, interpretations and translations of the sixties? From to the creation of cegeps to l’Osstidcho and the foundation of the Parti québécois, 1960s Quebec was a nation literarily transformed from within. In less than ten years, a ‘priest ridden province’ had become, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, a ‘hippie nation.” Expo 67 both reflected and stimulated the contemporary transformation of Quebec.

About Professor Jean-Philippe Warren

Professor Warren is a professor of sociology at Concordia University in Montreal, and he holds degrees from Université Laval, the University of Montreal and the Ecole Normale Supérieure, in Paris. He has published over 150 articles in intellectual and scholarly journals and has published on a wide range of subjects related to the history of Quebec – including indigenous peoples, social movements, popular culture, youth, the Catholic Church And the arts. His works have appeared in journals of sociology, history, studies of religions, literature and anthropology. His book L’Engagement sociologique (Boréal) received the Clio Award and the Michel Brunet Award in 2003. He is also the author of several books, notably Discours et pratiques de la contreculture au Québec (Sptentrion, 2015), with Andrée Fortin, and Autour de Paul-Émile Borduas (Boréal, 2011).