Annual Review of Critical Pychology (Issue 9): Marxism and Psychology

Marxism and Psychology

ANNUAL REVIEW OF CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Issue 9: Marxism and Psychology

This issue of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology (ARCP) explores issues that emerge at the intersection of Marxist scholarship and psychological practice. Given the ongoing global financial crisis, it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the role that modern psychological research and practice play both in reproducing and in legitimizing one of the dominant features of modern society. We hope that the articles in this issue will persuade scholars, students, and activists that Marxism remains a potent tool for interrogating the economic and political foundations of modern psychology. It should be noted that the papers included in this issue were originally presented at the first Marxism and Psychology Conference held at theUniversityofPrince Edward Islandin August of 2010.

Contents of ARCP 9

INTRODUCTION

Marxist Scholarship and Psychological Practice
MICHAEL ARFKEN

Marxism and Psychology Conference 2010
IAN PARKER

ARTICLES

Knowldge and Interest in Psychology: From Ideology to Ideology Critique and Beyond
GORDANA JOVANOVIC

Reconstructing the Critique of Ideology: A Critical-Hermeneutic and PsychologicalOutline
THOMAS TEO

Re-Imagining Non-Domination: Troubling Assumptions in Psychoanalytic Critical Theory
BOGDAN POPA

The Role of Technology in Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization
JAMES MCMAHON

Hidden Trends: Reason, Renunciation and Liberation in Marcuse’s Appropriation of Hegel and Freud
ELLIOTT BUCKLAND

Meditation of the Socialist Dream: Psychoanalysis, Psychology, and the Political Organization of a Discipline
GREGORY FLEMMING

Marx in Lacan: Proletarian Truth in Opposition to Capitalist Psychology
DAVID PAVÓN-CUÉLLAR

To Sell Marx in North America is to Not Sell Marx
BRAD PIEKKOLA

Ideology Beyond Marx: Shame, Disambiguation, and the Social Fashioning of Reparation
STEVE LAROCCO

The Malleable and Open Body: Emancipatory or Oppressive?
CLIFFORD VAN OMMEN & VASI VANDEVENTER

Identity Recognition and the Normative Challenge of Crowd Psychology
RADU NECULAU

Marxian Currents in Latin and North American Community Psychology
RAVI GOKANI

The Development of Development: A Post-Marxist Analysis of the Development of Hegemonic Developmental Psychology
JOANNA WASIAK

Wresting Change as a Liberating Concept: Lessons Learned from Teen Moms in a Liberation Psychology Workshop
COLLEEN MACQUARRIE, EMILY RUTLEDGE &LORRAINE BEGLEY

You can download each paper by clicking on the title or download the complete issue (which includes the biographical notes for contributors) in one complete 140 page pdf here.

Annual Review of Critical Psychology is an international peer-reviewed online open-access journal (ISSN 1746-739X)

A full list of members of the ARCP editorial board can be accessed here.

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Marx and Philosophy Society Annual Conference 2012

Karl Marx

MARX AND PHILOSOPHY SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2012

Marx and Philosophy Society Annual Conference
Marx and Hegel

Saturday 2 June 2012, 9.15am – 6.00pm
Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1

Plenary speakers: 

Andrew Chitty (Sussex)
Recognition and Property in Hegel and the Early Marx

Emmanuel Renault (Lyon)
The Early Marx and Hegel: The Young-Hegelian Mediation

Frederick Neuhouser (Columbia)
Marx and Hegel on the Value of ‘Bourgeois’ Ideals

Graduate panels:

Herbert De Vriese (Antwerp) Breaking the Idealistic Spell: Marx’s Farewell to the Hegelian Ideal of Presuppositionless Thinking
Bue Rubner Hansen (Queen Mary) Hegel, Marx, and Singular Times
Jacob Blumenfeld (New School for Social Research) The Method and Object of Capital

Christopher Joonho Ro (Princeton) Capital as Collective Product: Mutual Interaction in Marx’s Idea of Alienation
David Marjoribanks (Kent) Universality and Particularity in Hegel and Marx
Jan Kandiyali (Sheffield) Kantian and Hegelian Strands in Marx’s Account of Communism 

£20 waged, £10 unwaged (provides annual membership of the Society)
To reserve a place in advance please email David Marjoribanks at dm275@kent.ac.uk
Directions: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/sitehelp/1072.html

Marx and Philosophy Society: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/society

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Power and Resistance – Studies in Political Thought Annual Conference 2012

Crisis

POWER AND RESISTANCE – STUDIES IN POLITICAL THOUGHT ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2012

Studies in Social and Political Thought Annual Conference – Power and Resistance

June 15-16, 2012

Universityof Sussex, Brighton

Keynote Speakers: 

Werner Bonefeld (York)

Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths)

While governments around the world have initiated austerity measures on a grand scale and have even been ousted in favour of technocratic administrations, pockets of sustained resistance continue to manifest themselves. Whether it is the populist Occupy movement, ultra-left theorists of Communisation, anti-cuts protesters, or even the rioters who took to the streets ofLondonand beyond, the struggle against the apparent status quo continues. When taken in the light of the Arab Spring, questions must be asked in regards to the relationship between resistance and revolution. These movements managed to turn a tide of resistance into a force for revolution. Is this a paradigm-shift in the way this relationship must be thought?

Alongside these movements and despite the optimism generated by them, the power of the governments to crush, de-legitimise, and ignore opposition appears to remain. Some critics blame a lack of coherent message and agenda; others say that the forces of opposition are not dealing with the reality of the situation. This critique, however, does not have the last word. These forms of resistance, in their many guises, challenge the state’s belief that it has a monopoly on reality. They challenge the very legitimacy of the state to disseminate the status quo and, therefore, represent a radical alternative even if they do not, or cannot, dictate what the alternative may be. What role do the concepts of power and resistance play in our analysis of the current situation? Do they require a reassessment or does the contemporary conjuncture simply represent a reassertion of the same old forces in a different guise?

Power is one of the core concepts of social and political thought. Yet there is plenty of disagreement about what is, how it functions and how it should be contested. Our present conjuncture is witnessing many different manifestations of power and resistance. However, there is a lack of serious theoretical engagement with the current situation. We are seeking papers that engage theoretically with the current situation, and which emphasise the central roles of the concepts of power and resistance. Possible theoretical frameworks include, but are not limited to, theories of biopolitics, instrumental reason, critical theory, post-colonialism, discourse and democratic theory, structuralism and post-structuralism, recognition, soft-power, hegemony, world-systems, sovereignty, legality, and legitimacy.

 

Programme:

June 15, 2012

9-10 – Registration

10-1045 – Gianandrea Manfredi (SussexUniversity): Understanding the structural form of resistance and the processes by which resistant social spaces are negated

1045-1130 – Jeffery Nicholas (Providence College/CASEP (London Metropolitan University): Reason, Resistance and Revolution: Occupy’s Nascent Democratic Practice

1130-1215 – Svenja Bromberg (Goldsmiths), A critique of Badiou’s and Ranciere’s notion of emancipation

1215-1315 – Lunch

1315-1400 – Khafiz Tapdygovich Kerimov (American University in Bulgaria), From Epistemic Violence to Respecting the Differend: The Fate of Eurocentrism in the Discourse of Human Sciences

1400-1445 – Jorge Ollero Perón & Fernando Garcia-Quero (University of Granada), Can ethics be conceived as an economic institution? An interdisciplinary approach to the critique of neoliberal ethics

1445-1530 – Marta Resmini (KU Leuven), Participation as Surveillance? Counter-democracy versus Governmentality

1530-1600 – Coffee Break

1600-1645 – Alastair Gray (University of Sussex), Activity Without Purpose: Parrhesia, The Unsayable and The Riots

1645-1730 – Zoe Sutherland (University of Sussex) & Rob Lucas (Independent Researcher) – A Theory of Current Struggles

June 16, 2012

945-1045 – Registration

1045-1130 – Sarit Larry (Boston College), The Status of Vagueness, Mythical Events and the Israeli Social Justice Movement

1130-1215 – Mehmet Erol (York), Bringing Class Back In: The case of Tekel Resistance in Turkey

1215-1315 – Lunch

1315-1515 – Keynote: Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths)

1515-1530 – Coffee Break

1530-1615 – Torsten Menge (GeorgetownUniversity), A deflationary conception of social power

1615-1700 – Sarah Burton (University of Cambridge), Reimagining Resistance: misrule and the place of the fantastic in John Holloway’s anti-power

1700-1900 – Keynote: Werner Bonefeld (York)

 

Please email ssptconference2012@gmail.com  to register and check ssptjournal.wordpress.com  for more information.

There will be a £15 conference fee (£7.50 for one-day) payable in cash on the day to help cover expenses.

For information about travel and accommodation see:  http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/findus

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Value, Money and Crisis: A Workshop on the Work of Hans-Georg Backhaus

Money

VALUE, MONEY AND CRISIS: A WORKSHOP ON THE WORK OF HANS-GEORG BACKHAUS

The Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London invites you to:

Value, Money and Crisis: A Workshop on the Work of Hans-Georg Backhaus

Presentations by Riccardo Bellofiore and Tommaso Redolfi Riva, responses by Chris Arthur and Werner Bonefeld

4 June 2012
Room 137, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London
4-6 pm
All welcome

Hans-Georg Backhaus is one of the most provocative thinkers of the Frankfurt School. Together with Helmut Reichelt, Alfred Schmidt, and Hans-Jürgen Krahl, he was at the origin of the Neue Marx-Lektüre. Building on Adorno’s critical sociology, Backhaus has been engaged in a problematization of the Marxian critique of political economy which takes seriously its roots in Hegel’s Logic. Questioning orthodox Marxism and Engels’s legacy, he has advanced a whole-scale reconstruction of Marxian theory, confronting the inconsistencies in Das Kapital, and rescuing Marxism as a critical theory of society. The most important of his essays were collected in Dialektik der Wertform: Untersuchungen zur marxschen Okonomiekritik (The Dialectic of the Value Form: Investigations into Marx’s Critique of Economics) by the German publisher Caira. Very few of them are available in English, but the seminal contributions (in particular his 4-part Materials for the Reconstruction of Marx’s Theory of Value) have now been published in Italian under the editorship of Bellofiore and Redolfi Riva. At the core of Backhaus’s reconstructive project is the uniqueness of Marx in building the only monetary theory of value available to us, together with a full recognition of the fetish character and the displaced/perverted nature of contradictory capitalist reality. Backhaus’s contributions put the question of the ‘constitution’ of capitalist social ‘objectivity’ once again on the agenda of Marxian theory and politics. They are essential today for anyone preoccupied with building an analysis of the crisis – one that would not only depart radically from mainstream economic theory, but go far deeper than Neo-Ricardianism and Keynesianism.

Riccardo Bellofiore has published books on Marx, Luxemburg, Minsky, Napoleoni, globalization, and the current economic crisis. With Giovanna Vertova he has a FB page, Economisti di classe. He teaches at the University of Bergamo, Italy.

Tommaso Redolfi Riva studied Philosophy and History of Political Economy in the Universities of Pisa and Florence. Together with Riccardo Bellofiore he is the editor of Hans Georg Backhaus, Dialettica della forma di valore, Roma, 2009.

Chris Arthur is the author of The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital.

Werner Bonefeld teaches at theUniversity ofYork. He recently edited Subverting the Present, Imagining the Future: Insurrection, Movement, Commons.

 

Further information: http://www.gold.ac.uk/sociology/calendar/?id=5410

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence

 

Raya Dunayevskaya

THE DUNAYEVSKAYA-MARCUSE-FROMM CORRESPONDENCE, 1954-1978: DIALOGUES ON HEGEL, MARX, AND CRITICAL THEORY

Edited by Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell

This book presents for the first time the correspondence during the years 1954 to 1978 between the Marxist-Humanist and feminist philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-87) and two other noted thinkers, the Hegelian Marxist philosopher and social theorist Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) and the psychologist and social critic Erich Fromm (1900-80), both of the latter members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.

In their introduction, editors Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell focus on the theoretical and political dialogues in these letters, which cover topics such as dialectical social theory, Marxist economics, socialist humanism, the structure and contradictions of modern capitalism, the history of Marxism and of the Frankfurt School, feminism and revolution, developments in the USSR, Cuba, and China, and emergence of the New Left of the 1960s. The editors’ extensive explanatory notes offer helpful background information, definitions of theoretical concepts, and source references.

Among the thinkers discussed in the correspondence – some of them quite critically– are Karl Marx, G. W. F. Hegel, Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Bukharin, Sigmund Freud, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, Daniel Bell, and Seymour Martin Lipset. As a whole, this volume shows the deeply Marxist and humanist concerns of these thinkers, each of whom had a lifelong concern with rethinking Marx and Hegel as the foundation for an analysis of capitalist modernity and its forces of opposition.

978-0-7391-6835-6 – Hardback
April 2012 - $80.00 - (£49.95)

978-0-7391-6836-3 – Paperback
April 2012 - $34.99 - (£21.95)

978-0-7391-6837-0 – eBook
April 2012, Pages: 330

LexingtonBooks

Kevin B. Anderson is a professor of sociology, political science, and feminist studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. 
Russell Rockwell is an independent scholar based inNew York. 

Contents

Acknowledgments
Editors’ Introduction
Note on Sources
Abbreviations
The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse Correspondence, 1954-78
The Dunayevskaya-Fromm Correspondence, 1959-78
Appendix
Marcuse’s Preface to Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom
Dunayevskaya’s Review of Marcuse’s Soviet Marxism
Dunayevskaya’s Review of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man
Fromm’s Foreword to the German Edition of Dunayevskaya’s Philosophy and Revolution
Dunayevskaya’s ‘In Memoriam’ to Marcuse
Dunayevskaya’s ‘In Memoriam’ to Fromm

“[This work] could not have been published at a better time. In addition to an increase of interest in the works of all three thinkers, we are also seeing new social developments that each of them would find it necessary to respond to. This volume discloses the theoretical develop of Dunayevskaya, Marcuse, and Fromm as they engaged the social and political struggles of their day. It is evident that we can learn from them today.” – Arnold L. Farr, University of Kentucky

“This supple meditation on the exchange among three of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century is an absorbing, stimulating and fiercely illuminating contribution to radical philosophy. And further, this collection of correspondence between Dunayevskaya, Marcuse and Fromm is not only historically significant from the perspective of philosophical aficionados, but limpidly demonstrates the continued relevance, if not urgency, of the work of these iconic thinkers for the present historical juncture. And most significantly, the volume speaks to the growing importance of Marxist humanist philosophy for a radical transcendence of domination and oppression as a concrete historical possibility for our times.” – Peter McLaren, Professor, GraduateSchool ofEducation and Information Studies,University ofCalifornia,Los Angeles

“This book is an excellent treatment of an understudied area in the history of the development of Frankfurt School Critical Theory in the U.S. and its intersections with Marxist Humanism. It delivers an original piece of work in the Critical Theory/history of the Frankfurt School literature; it fills an important gap by making the connection between these three important Marxist theorists who all evolved intellectually in the context of the U.S. and emigrated from Europe; and it presents material that will challenge historians of radical thought in the U.S. from the 1950s to the 1970s as well.” – Douglas Kellner, UCLA, editor of the Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse

“Anderson and Rockwell’s edited collection of the correspondence between Raya Dunayevskaya and first Herbert Marcuse, then Erich Fromm, brings Marxist humanism to life. These letters give the reader a close view of these three major theorists’ understanding of the movements and issues of these decades, and of their sometimes corresponding, sometimes clashing political and theoretical outlooks. Anderson and Rockwell’s introduction places these dialogues in context, tracing the political and intellectual evolution of each of the authors, and highlighting the importance of the issues that they grapple with. This collection is a crucial resource for anyone wishing to understand Marxist humanism, the range of views within it, and its relation to Critical Theory.” – Barbara Epstein,University ofCalifornia,Santa Cruz

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

No Local

No Local

NO LOCAL

New title from Zero Books:

No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change The World

By Greg Sharzer

Available on Amazon; Facebook page

$19.95 USD / £11.99

ISBN: 978-1-84694-671-4 

 

‘No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change The World’ challenges the received wisdom that farmers’ markets, community gardening and cooperatives can provide a human-scale alternative to the global market. ‘Localist’ schemes are covered regularly in the press and their small-is-beautiful ethos has become accepted wisdom among many progressive urbanites. But can growing your own vegetables really do an end-run around corporate agribusiness? Does capitalism get friendlier as it gets smaller?

Most critics of local economic alternatives come from the Right, but ‘No Local’ is firmly rooted in Marxism, arguing that, far from challenging market rule, small-scale alternatives are often ways to reconcile with it. Localist politics can come from a desire to escape, rather than to confront, capitalist inequality.

But that doesn’t mean things are hopeless. Although direct and questioning, ‘No Local’ takes a positive view about the possibilities for social change. If we confront the market and its political rulers, we can build social movements that begin to create an egalitarian society – a legacy the Arab Spring and Occupy movements have begun to reclaim. 

Published by radical press Zero Books, ’No Local’ poses key questions for the Left as it emerges from its decades-long torpor.

No Local at Zero Books: http://www.zero-books.net/books/no-local

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Dictatorship of the People – Peter Hallward

Peter Hallward

THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PEOPLE – PETER HALLWARD

LONDON SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY MARXIST THEORY

16th May, 5pm

King’s College London, S-1.06, Raked Lecture Theatre

Peter Hallward (Kingston University)

The Dictatorship of the People

The global economic and financial crisis has witnessed a deepening of interest in different forms of critical and radical thought and practice. Following a successful series in 2010/11, the London Seminar on Contemporary Marxist Theory in 2011/12 will continue to explore the new perspectives that have been opened up by Marxist interventions in this political and theoretical conjuncture. It involves collaboration among Marxist scholars based in several London universities, including Brunel University, King’s College London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Guest speakers – from both Britainand abroad – will include a wide range of thinkers engaging with many different elements of the various Marxist traditions, as well as with diverse problems and topics. The aim of the seminar is to promote fruitful debate and to contribute to the development of more robust Marxist analysis. It is open to all.

For further information, please contact:

Alex Callinicos, European Studies, King’s: alex.callinicos [at] kcl.ac.uk

Stathis Kouvelakis, European Studies, King’s: stathis.kouvelakis [at] kcl.ac.uk

Costas Lapavitsas, Economics, SOAS: cl5 [at] soas.ac.uk

Peter Thomas, Politics and History, Brunel: PeterD.Thomas [at] brunel.ac.uk

**END**

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Marxism in Culture – Programme for Summer Term 2012

North Atlantic Oscillation

MARXISM IN CULTURE – PROGRAMME FOR SUMMER TERM 2012

Friday 18 May

Forgotten Futures: Municipal Cinema as the People’s Cinema?

Elizabeth Lebas (Middlesex University)

Friday 01 June

Damien Hirst: The Capitalist Sublime?

Luke White (Middlesex University)

Friday 15 June

Fashion and Materialism

Ulrich Lehmann (University for the Creative Arts)

Friday 29 June

Book Launch of Steve Edwards’ (Open University) Martha Rosler, The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems - published by Afterall

All seminars start at 5.30pm, and are held in the Court Room (unless otherwise indicated) at the Institute of Historical Research in Senate House, Malet St, London. The seminar closes at 7.30pm and retires to the bar.

Organisers: Matthew Beaumont, Dave Beech, Alan Bradshaw, Warren Carter, Gail Day, Steve Edwards, Larne Abse Gogarty, Owen Hatherley, Esther Leslie, David Mabb, Antigoni Memou, Chrysi Papaioannou, Nina Power, Dominic Rahtz, Pete Smith, Peter Thomas & Alberto Toscano.

For further information, contact Warren Carter, at: w.carter@ucl.ac.uk or Esther Leslie at: e.leslie@bbk.ac.uk

Soft Coda, by North Atlantic Oscillation, from their ‘Fog Electric’ album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAhSSeR8j0 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Red Mist

Red Mist

RED MIST

Introducing a new radical cultural project: http://redmistreviews.com/

Cultural products are produced because someone has something important to say, progressive or reactionary, rational or irrational; yet everywhere the result is trite banality. Late capitalism has become ever more adept at enforcing its conservative, accountant-friendly worldview on culture. In the world of the market, an artist can only try something that has already been tried and been seen to succeed. The state’s arts-funding bureaucracies, not much less conservative than private investors but acting at least in the name of different priorities, are getting slashed out of existence, along with everything else that needs public money to function (failing banks excepted, of course). At this rate, in fifty years all movies will be sequels, all plays will be musicals and all novels will be airport-friendly crime yarns. (All academic papers, meanwhile, will be cooked up to order by corporations.)

Red Mist is the successor to London Book Club, to whose interesting accumulation of reviews we intend to add some serious political direction, editorial focus and old-fashioned panache. As Marxists, we do not think that the above depressing outlook is the only possible outcome for the human race. More to the point, we do not think that artists, writers and thinkers meekly accept their fate – nor do their works. Ernst Bloch used to say that every artefact of capitalist society, no matter how apparently banal and degraded, had a hidden Utopian striving beyond its mundane existence; the reverse is also true, however, and even the most radically leftist work has to come to terms, secretly, with the reality that gave it birth.

Working out what is what is the job of critics. It is not our job to say that we liked film X and thought that it was good; or (still worse, as the reviews in most leftwing publications do) say that we liked the explicit political content of film X, and therefore liked it, and thought that it was good. And though we are a theoretically minded project, we will not destroy your will to live with 10,000 word Lacanian disquisitions on Proust.

What we will do is review all manner of texts – from pop singles to academic monographs – and reveal what really makes them tick. We will do this with the oldest tools in the box: a knowledge of context, an understanding of the medium, and a sprinkling of humour (after all, if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry). Join us on our journey through the bizarre, contradictory cultural life of capitalism – and hopefully we will one day get out the other side.

Red Mist: http://redmistreviews.com/

This looks to be most welcome development for the times we live in — Glenn Rikowski

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Historical Materialism Toronto Conference Programme

Karl Marx

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM TORONTO CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Historical Materialism Toronto
York University
11-13 May

The 2012 Historical Materialism Toronto Conference Programme is now available. Follow the link below for a PDF. 

No further changes to the dates and times of sessions will be possible. Please note that room numbers have not yet been assigned.

All sessions will happen in the Accolade West building atYork.

http://www.yorku.ca/hmyork/program/HMToronto2012Schedule.pdf
http://www.yorku.ca/hmyork/index.html

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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Feminisms and Marxisms

Sara Carpenter and Shahrzad Mojab

FEMINISMS AND MARXISMS

Call for Papers: In the framework of the 9th Historical Materialism Conference, ‘Weighs like A Nightmare’, SOAS, Central London, 8-11 November 2012

Feminisms and Marxisms 

A new generation of anti-capitalist feminists has emerged in the last years across the world. Although not without tensions and disagreements, these new feminist currents have been in constant dialogue with different traditions of Marxism and the Marxist critique of political economy in areas ranging from social science, philosophy to art history. With the aim of providing a space for this dialogue, the 9th Historical Materialism conference inLondonwelcomes presentations exploring the synergies between the feminist and the Marxist critiques of capitalism in their various articulations. 

Paper proposals (between 200 and 300 words) should be submitted by registering at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences BEFORE 10 May 2012. Submissions will be peer reviewed. Please be aware that the conference is self-funded therefore we are unable to help with travel and accommodation costs.

Themes of particular interest for the conference include:

      Marxist and Socialist feminism in the 21st century

      The critique of the political economy of sex work

      Autonomia and Feminism: A legacy?

      Intersectionality theory and Marxism

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of liberal feminism

      Queer studies, LGBTQ and Marxism

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of gendered labour exploitation

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of racism and Islamophobia

      The political economy of gender and carceral detention

      Feminism, Marxism and art theory

      Women’s collectives and the contemporary art world

      Feminist, Marxism and the visual cultures of globalisation

      Gendered international migrations

      Commodification of care

      Social reproduction

Please note that the following donations are requested in support of conference costs:

£50 waged/15 unwaged on pre-registration
£75 waged / 25 unwaged at the door

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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

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Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Marxism 2012 Timetable

Marxism and Education

MARXISM 2012 TIMETABLE

Marxism 2012 – Timetable now out

5-9 July, University College London and Friends Meeting House, central London

Full timetable, including over 200 meetings out now

Speakers include: David Harvey, Gary Younge, Tariq Ali, Leila Khaled, Tony Benn, Robert King Wilkerson, Owen Jones, Nick Davies, Gigi Ibrahim, Hossam el-Hamalawy, George Galloway, Istvan Meszaros and more…

Go to www.marxismfestival.org.uk for more info and tickets

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski