Reunion and conference on Madison in the ’60s set for June | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Reunion and conference on Madison in the ’60s set for June

 

MADISON – A nonprofit organization, The Madison Reunion, is to hold “The Madison Reunion” and the “Conference on Madison in the ’60s” on June 14-16, 2018, billing it as a “50th anniversary cultural Woodstock.”

University of Wisconsin alumni Judy and Ben Sidran, with former UW Chancellor John Wiley and the support of town, gown, and those who were there (or wish they were), have announced that registration is now open.

The event is to celebrate Madison’s place in the zeitgeist of the sixties. With panel discussions, performances, art, films and fun on the UW campus and around town, participants will revisit a time when Madison was the cradle of the counterculture, according to a news release. It’s billed as a party with a purpose to examine where we are, how we got here and what we left behind.

The Madison Reunion, open to all, features free events, music on the Union Terrace, trolley rides around town, tie-dying in city parks, exhibits of art and artifacts of all kinds memorializing a pivotal decade in our history. A half century on, Madison’s original ‘60s “counterculture” returns to celebrate their student days, this time with active encouragement and support from “the establishment,” including the City of Madison, the Convention & Visitors Bureau, Evjue/Cap Times Foundation, Dane Arts, and the State Historical Society, among others, according to the news release.

The Madison Reunion is to be a uniquely Madison experience where, once again, history will be made.

The Conference on Madison in the ’60s, by registration only, presents three days of discussions, panels, tours, tastes, and talent in and around the UW Memorial Union featuring such notable UW students and faculty as filmmakers Errol Morris and Jim Abrahams, political scientist Katherine Cramer, professor and anti-war activist Joe Elder, actors Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and André De Shields, activists Marjorie Tabankin, Gwen Gillon and Paul Soglin, journalists David Maraniss and Jeff Greenfield, historians Hasia Diner and Jonathan Pollack, and many more, on such diverse topics as the legacies of historians George Mosse and Harvey Goldberg, freedom riding, feminism, psychopharmacology and Madison as a breeding ground for popular comedy.

Ticketed performances at the Memorial Union Shannon Hall feature the Motown sound of The Temptations and the Reunion Blues with musicians Boz Scaggs, Ben Sidran and Tracy Nelson.

For more information and to register for the conference, email info@madisonreunion.com or visit MadisonReunion.com.