Hearts and Minds: Memories of 1968

Abstract

This essay was written based on the author's memoirs, as a student of the first class of the Course at the Ciências Sociais, at the Universidade Federal do Ceará, in 1968. She was chosen as one of the 30 UFC delegates who participated in the Ibiúna Congress, in São Paulo, in October of that year. The guiding line of the text is the concept of generation, in the sense employed by Karl Mannheim, for whom this concept includes the notions of inner time. If biological and subjective factors underlie this concept, its sociological assumptions resides in social interaction and collective response to social trends or currents of a time. Although belonging is not a criterion for judging a narrative, because it requires not only knowledge as a capacity for distancing, it is very difficult to judge exemplary epochs such as the year 1968, for the dreams of freedom involved.