Abstract: IT WAS INDEED A PLEASURE TO BE PART OF THE SEMINAR HELD BY TONY AND JONATHAN in the Fall of 2012 in Berkeley. It was a way--and way!--to go back in time to when I first arrived in Berkeley in the Fall of 1977. As for all migrants, there were push and pull factors involved in such a move (even if certainly much less dramatic than for so many of them!). I remember the September of 1977 as a momentous time for me, but also for the Italian and more generally the European social and political life. At the beginning of the month, I had put my trusted Lambretta scooter on a boat from Genoa to Barcelona, where on September 9-12, 1977, I participated in the fifth meeting of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control under the very appropriate theme title State and Social Control. I do not recall much about the contents of the meeting, but I do certainly remember that back then Spain, and Catalonia even more, was in the throes of the transition from Franco's dictatorship to becoming one of the most innovative and culturally interesting places in Europe. Every night at 11 on the Ramblas--almost in a ritual that, I thought, followed the habit of dining quite late--confrontations would take place between young Catalans and the Guardia Civil. Then, on September 11, on the day of the historic anniversary of the Diada Nacional de Catalunya, which had been banned under Franco since 1939, a memorable rally or perhaps I should say innumerable rallies took place, asking for Catalonia's autonomy, and millions of people filled every street and every square of the Catalan capital. One could hear only the calm and rhythmic chanting of the huge crowds and the songs sung by Lluis Llach from hundreds of loudspeakers. No noise of cars or buses anywhere in the city because there were none, only people marching everywhere. Then, back in Bologna, on September 22-24, the against took place, where the likes of Felix Guattari famously participated. On the previous 11th of March, the police had killed the student Francesco Lorusso during a street demonstration and three days of student quasi-insurrection had followed, at the end of which the police had surrounded the huge university area of Bologna with light tanks and had basically proclaimed a sort of state of siege in the city. The Convention against Repression had been called as a way to respond to that, but especially to reflect about what needed to be I personally had no idea should be done. I did not recognize myself in any of the parties involved. The Italian Communist Party was obviously perseverating in its lasting tradition of failing to communicate with or understand the students; I was even less drawn to the groups that were then drifting toward some kind of armed struggle, which I thought to be somewhat childish and destined to be played out in games run by the worst reactionary forces. There was not much room left in the middle. So 1 was very happy to have the chance, in the next few days, to catch a plane to San Francisco, having won a one-year fellowship to study and conduct research in the United States. I also had an inkling, or perhaps foresight, that the enormous difficulties facing the Italian and European Left had something to do with the victory of an American culture that--through films and music--had become hegemonic even within the staunchest of the European left radical groups. I was fascinated, therefore, to find out more about that culture. In a left-wing journal that I had found in Amsterdam, Kapitalistate--which I would then discover was also produced in Berkeley--I came across a short article by Herman Schwendinger (1973) that told the story of the Berkeley School of Criminology. The magazine was old and the article did not reflect the most recent developments within the School. When I wrote to the Schwendingers, they sadly informed me that the School had been closed and that they themselves were temporarily at the University of Nevada--on their way, I believe, to New Paltz in New York. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-03-22
Language: en
Type: article
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