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

Introduction to Antiphilosophy – Boris Groys

Communisation

INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY – BORIS GROYS

NEW TITLE FROM VERSO:

INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY

By BORIS GROYS

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become sceptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in ‘universal thinking’, so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism.

In INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY, BORIS GROYS argues that modern ‘antiphilosophy’ does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the universality of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences – angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or ‘profane illumination’ – and he analyses this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin.

Ranging across the history of modern thought, INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY endeavours to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development.

———————————

Praise for THE COMMUNIST POSTSCRIPT:

‘Groys has claimed a defining role in the reception of the Russian avant-garde … The Communist Postscript presents Groys’s attempt to advocate the communist idea against its own historic assumptions.’ - RADICAL PHILOSOPHY

 ’A timely intervention in present debates about the legacy of communism [and] a provocative addition to Groys’ brilliantly paradoxical body of work.’ - ART REVIEW

Praise for ART POWER:

“The range of topics canvassed in Art Power is impressive. … All of these subjects have been comprehensively treated elsewhere, but rarely with Groys’ penetrating eye for the unexpected upshot of such developments.” – FRIEZE

“This magisterial overview situates contemporary art – its aesthetic strategies, institutions and drives -within the deeper context of the Modernist revolution, urbanism, new technologies, and the post communist era. Groys’ combines revelatory analysis with philosophical questions that go to the heart of cultural production today.” - IWONA BLAZWICK, Director, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY

‘Persuasive … provocative … By probing unacknowledged, repressed, or otherwise unexamined relationships that hover in the background of art-world conversation, Art Power recombines categories, reconfigures assumptions, and, in the end, reimagines what art writing can be.’ - BOOKFORUM

Praise for THE TOTAL ART OF STALINISM

‘This is not just a book but an event … The Total Art of Stalinism is an intellectual landmark’ – ART BULLETIN

‘One of the most astute commentators on the art scene today’ –  NEW LEFT REVIEW

———————————

BORIS GROYS is Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology inKarlsruhe, and since 2005, the Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science, NYU. He has published numerous books including THE TOTAL ART OF STALINISM, ILYA KABAKOV: THE MAN WHO FLEW INTO SPACE FROM HIS APARTMENT, ART POWER, and THE COMMUNIST POSTSCRIPT.

———————————

ISBN: 9781844677566 / $26.95 / £16.99 / Hardback / 272 pages

———————————–

For more information about INTRODUCTION TO ANTIPHILOSOPHY, or to buy the book visit:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1052-introduction-to-antiphilosophy

 

**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  

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

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

Transdisciplinarity: Anti-Humanism and Gender Studies

Philosophy

TRANSDISCIPLINARITY: ANTI-HUMANISM AND GENDER STUDIES

Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP)
Kingston University London
www.kingston.ac.uk/crmep

Workshop: Transdisciplinary Problematics
Anti-Humanism and Gender Studies
17-18 May 2012, London

This two-day workshop will examine the notion of a transdisciplinary problematic, via the cases of anti-humanism and gender studies. The first day will approach theoretical anti-humanism from the standpoint of its destructive effect upon disciplinary fields in the humanities and as a radical problematisation of the discipline of philosophy in particular. The second day will focus on gender studies as a transdisciplinary problematic and on the transdisciplinary nature of the concept of gender itself. Topics will include the historical reconstruction of ‘gender’ as a boundary-crossing concept; the relation of its conceptual content to its functioning as a general concept across disciplines; the transformation of the disciplines in the humanities by ‘gender’ and gender studies; and the current productivity of ‘gender’.

Day 1: Anti-humanism
17 May 2012, 10.00-18.00
Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London WC1

Introduction: Peter Osborne & Eric Alliez (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Etienne Balibar (Philosophy, University of Paris X/Irvine)
       ’Anti-Humanism, and the Question of Philosophical Anthropology’
       Respondent: Patrice Maniglier (University of Essex)
Nina Power (Philosophy, Roehampton University/Royal College of Art)
       ’Is Antihumanism Transdisciplinary?’
David Cunningham (English, University of Westminster)
       ’Intersciences, Philosophy and Writing’
       Respondent: Simon Morgan Wortham (English, Kingston University)

Day 2: Gender Studies
18 May 2012, 10.00-18.00
Large Common Room, Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N

Introduction: Stella Sandford (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Tuija Pulkkinen (Women’s Studies, University of Helsinki)
       ’Disciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Gender Studies’
Sara Heinamaa (Philosophy, University of Helsinki)
       ’Sex, Gender and Embodiment: A Critique of Concepts’
Elsa Dorlin (Political Science, University of Paris VIII)
       title tba
Ken Corbett (Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis, New York University)
       ’The Transforming Nexus: Psychoanalysis, Social Theory and Queer Childhood’
Respondent: Lynne Segal (Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, London)

The event is free, but registration is essential @: http://workshopthree.eventbrite.com/

Further information and background texts, go to: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=1962

Other enquiries: S.Sandford@Kingston.ac.uk

This is the third public workshop of the AHRC-funded project ‘Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities: Problems, Methods, Histories, Concepts’, 2011-2013 (AHRC 914469)

**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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

A Contribution to the Critique of Human Rights

Human Rights

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

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

Massimiliano Tomba (University ofPadua) 

A Contribution to the Critique of Human Rights

21 May 2012

Richard Hoggart Building, Room 137

5-7pm

 

Human rights are in crisis. Their crisis does not depend on their violations in particular states of emergency which interrupt the ‘normal’ course of the liberal-democratic state. Rather, I consider this crisis as something that is deeply rooted in the nature of human rights. Taking into account the problem of human rights and their protection in a unique constellation that includes the concepts of ‘power’, ‘rights’ and ‘subjects of right’, I will consider them and their crisis not as a deviation from a supposed progressive development of democracy but as an expression of the aporia of political modernity.

From this perspective I consider the increasing of violations of human rights not as an exception but as the consequent expression of the aporia of political modernity. Crisis therefore is not something that happens in the course of modernity but is rather the course as such, ever since the birth of modern political concepts. Rethinking human rights today means considering them beyond the horizon of their crisis: not as the rights of ‘bare life’ but setting out from ‘just life’.

**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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Anarchist Studies Network Conference

William Godwin

ANARCHIST STUDIES NETWORK CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PAPERS
Anarchist Studies Network Conference 2.0 – ‘Making Connections’
Loughborough University, UK
3rd-5th September, 2012

***Deadline for abstract submissions extended to May 1st, 2012***

Registration Packages Now Confirmed (scroll down for more)
Full contact details for panel organisers available at: www.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk
If you have a paper that doesn’t necessarily fit in the advertised panel streams, it will still be considered. See below for details.

We live in interesting times. The Arab Spring, Occupy X and anti-austerity protests are only the latest and most visible examples in a long tradition of grassroots social movements in which ordinary people create democratic alternatives to hierarchy and inequality. Here and everywhere, people are getting together and making connections between their own everyday experiences and wider patterns of relationships and power, official and unofficial. They (or we) are making connections with each other, personal and political. New patterns evolve as people experiment with different ways of organising, of relating, of connecting, of thinking. Scholars, artists and activists observe, theorise and participate in various ways, helping to make connections, both in social movements and in the movements of everyday life. Feminists, in particular, have foregrounded intersectional approaches to power, privilege and oppression. Race, class and gender; sexuality, ecology and (dis)ability; age, species and faith — each of these and more interconnect in numerous ways, both subtle and overt.

The Anarchist Studies Network is hosting a conference to acknowledge, celebrate and deepen these diverse efforts to understand and transform our world, our lives. We want this conference itself to be a space for making connections, both intellectual and personal. It will include a blend of more or less traditional panels, participatory discussions and experiential workshops, extended breaks and social events. This first call is an invitation to propose thematic streams, workshops or panel topics by those who are willing to take a role in organising them. Further calls will invite papers, participation, performance. We’re particularly keen to make connections across borders of identities, movements, disciplines and practices. We invite contributions from students, academics and unaffiliated researchers, activists and artists, health practitioners and care workers, trade unionists, community organisers and those without labels. Above all, we would like to nurture a convivial atmosphere in which to make connections with others, explore areas of both overlap and difference, create or simply meet, to learn and to share.

Our intention is for this to be a scholarly conference with a difference. Scholar means both student and teacher. By bringing together a diverse group of participants, who share in common a desire to learn and a commitment to acknowledging and creating alternatives to rigid hierarchies and exploitative relationships, we hope that each of us will have something to offer others and much to learn. The process of organising the conference is decentralised, with the conference initiators welcoming proposals from a diverse range of session organisers covering a wide variety of engaged and engaging topics. We also invite session organisers to consider playful, participatory and/or experimental panel and workshop formats. This might range from a traditional three paper panel followed by a discussion using alternative facilitation techniques (e.g., open space technology, fishbowl, or sitting in a circle with a facilitator) to more interactive workshop-style discussion or experiential sessions. Our intention is not to be transgressive for the sake of it, but to encourage a variety of methods in order to facilitate making connections.

20 Panel Streams and Workshops

Please contact the conveners with your paper/presentation abstracts (full details on the ASN website).

‘No Master But God’? Exploring the Compatibility of Anarchism and Religion. Convener: Alex Christoyannopoulos

Anarchism and Non-Domination. Convener: Alex Prichard

A workshop on workable anti-work utopias (working title). Convener: Peter Seyferth

Anarchism in different national contexts. Convener: Mari Kuukkanen

Anarchism and other animals – making connections across species boundaries. Conveners: Erika Cudworth and Richard White

Connecting Anarchism and Critical Management and Organisation Studies. Conveners: Thomas Swann and Konstantin Stoborod

Anarchism & Autonomism. Convener: Stevphen Shukaitis

Real Democracy and the Revolutions of our Time. Conveners: Laurence Davis and Peter Snowdon

Anarchism and War. Convener: Pietro di Paola

On Violence. Convener: Mohamed Veneuse

Anarchism and Education. Convener: Peter Jandric

Re-imagining Anarchism in America: A Critical Perspective. Convener: Jorell Meléndez

Anarchism and Disability. Conveners: Steve Graby, Anat Greenstein, Jess Bradley

Is anarchism Western? Anarchism and its challenges in a (post)colonial world. Convener: Gabriel Kuhn

Ontological Anarchism. Convener: Peter Hardy

Anarchist Publishing. Convener: Jason Lindsey

MethodBox Workshop. Conveners: Eleni Froudaraki and Isidora Ilic

***Other Sessions Confirmed***

‘Let’s Build it Together’: A Workshop on Protest Camps and Autonomous Politics Session Organisers: Anna Feigenbaum and Fabian Frenzel

Bodily Anarchy. Facilitator: Jamie Heckert

What now for workplace organising: Contemporary wobbly experiences. Convener, David Bailey

Film night and other social activities to be scheduled….

Nothing here that takes your fancy? Contact Chris Rossdale with your paper proposal for the open stream (C.Rossdale@warwick.ac.uk ).

Registration options:
Registration fees:
Full waged: £68
Low-waged: £38
Unwaged: £10

Registration will open in early May. Please check the ASN website for regular conference updates.

The registration fee covers the costs for lunches, snacks and refreshments on Monday 3rd, Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th of September, and contributes towards venue costs and bursaries. Full travel and accommodation bursaries will be made available on the basis of need. On registration you will be asked to detail your requirements and to ensure you keep all your receipts.

Accommodation costs are not included in the registration fee. A number of accommodation options are available:

On campus, Royce Hall (all B&B): http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/campus-living/accommodation/halls/royce/
Single en suite    £44
Standard single with shared bathroom    £30

Premier Inn
http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/LOUBOR/loughborough
Single en suite: £58 single occupancy based on B&B
Double en suite: £66.25 double occupancy   (B&B)

Ramada Inn
http://www.ramada.com/Ramada/control/Booking/property_info?propertyId=15797&variant=uk&brandInfo=RA
Single B&B: £50
Single, room only: £45
Double/twin B&B: £65
Double/twin, room only: £55

For more information, contact Alex Prichard: alprich@gmail.com

Anarchist Studies Network: http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/

**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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Europe in Crisis

Eurozone Crisis

EUROPE IN CRISIS

PERG Workshop – Europe in Crisis

Thursday, 19 April, 9.30 -17.00

JG 1008 (John Galsworthy building), Kingston University, Penrhyn Road

Europeis in a crisis. An international financial crisis has laid bare the fundamental flaws in the construction of the European economic policy regime. Monetary integration without fiscal and social integration has not only resulted in a mediocre economic performance, falling wage share and persistent imbalances, but has also left the peripheral countries without protection against the crisis. Rather than using fiscal policy to counteract a Great Depression in the European South, fiscal policies are firmly put into austerity mode. If the subprime financial crisis was not sufficient to lead to a new Great Depression, austerity might do so. The workshop will discuss the causes of the crisis in Europe, the present economic policy and strategies to deal with the crisis, and progressive alternatives forEurope.

9.00 Registration and coffee

9.30 Introduction

10.00-12.00 Roots of the crisis

-         E. Stockhammer, Kingston University: Rebalancing the Euro area: inflationary or depressive

-         D. Gabor, University of West England: The Missing Link: European bank funding strategies and ECB’s crisis policies

-         J. Grahl, Middlesex University: The First European Semester: an incoherent strategy.

12.00-13.20 Lunch

13.20 -15.20 EU Economic Policy

-         T van Treeck, IMK: Reducing Economic Imbalances in the Euro Area: Some Remarks on the Current Stability Programs

-         J Weeks, SOAS: Crisis Scams in Italy, Spain and the UK: Triumph of Ideology over Reality

-         T. Evans, Berlin School of Economics and Law: The crisis in the euro area

15.40-17.00 Progressive strategies for Europe

-         D. Sotiropoulos, Kingston University: The fundamental problem of Euro zone and the problem with ‘fundamentals’: an alternative (Marxian) approach to European economic policy context

-         R. Hyman, LSE, and R. Gumbrell-McCormick, Birkbeck: European Trade Unions: Responses to the Crisis

 

Political Economy Research Group (PERG)

The Political Economy approach highlights the role of effective demand, institutions and social conflict in economic analysis and thereby builds on Austrian, Institutionalist, Keynesian and Marxist traditions. Economic processes are perceived to be embedded in social relations that must be analysed in the context of historical considerations, power relations and social norms. As a consequence, a broad range of methodological approaches is employed, and cooperation with other disciplines, including history, law, sociology and other social sciences, is necessary. (http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/research/perg )

MA Economics (Political Economy) at Kingston University

http://www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate/booklets/FASS/political-economy-MA.pdf

MA Politics, Philosophy, Economics at Kingston University

http://www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate/booklets/FASS/PoliticsPhilosophyEconomics.pdf

 

**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

‘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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Subjectivity – Volume 5 Issue 1 (April 2012)

Critique

SUBJECTIVITY – VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 (April 2012)

Special Issue: Collective Becomings
Edited by Stevphen Shukaitis & Joanna Figiel
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/journal/v5/n1/index.html

Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi is a contemporary writer, autonomist theorist and media activist. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975-1981), and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first pirate radio station in Italy (1976-1978). His work analyzes the role of media and information technology in post-industrial capitalism, in particular drawing from schizoanalysis and aesthetics to investigate processes of subjectification within precarious labor.

This issue of Subjectivity, which is the first major engagement with Bifo’s work in English, focuses on the themes of collective becomings, whether manifest in the eruption of new political movements, within the workings of the economy, or in the artistic sphere. It is not just a collection of essays that take Bifo’s ideas as their starting point, but rather a collection of essays that all start from the conjuncture of Bifo’s ideas, the issues and conditions raised by them, with forms of collective becomings in the present.

The purpose then is not to consider Bifo’s work in isolation, but rather to develop it as a tool, one that is explored through continued usage and application. This conjunctive approach is the most productive and valuable feature of Bifo’s writing, and autonomist analysis more generally: its ability to act as a kind of crossroads for bringing together different forms of political analysis and social theory, to act as a bridge between them.

Issue Contents:

Introduction
Stevphen Shukaitis & Joanna Figiel

Angels of love in the unhappiness factory
Dave Eden

Labor of recombination
Abe Walker

Creative labor in Shanghai: Questions on politics, composition and ambivalence
Anja Kanngieser

Cinematic and aesthetic cartographies of subjective mutation
Michael Goddard

The Novel Form in Italian Postmodernity: Genna’s Day of Judgment
Giuseppina Mecchia

Reassessing recomposition: 40 years after the publication of Anti-Oedipus
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi

– 
Stevphen Shukaitis
Autonomedia Editorial Collective
http://www.autonomedia.org
http://www.minorcompositions.info

“Autonomy is not a fixed, essential state. Like gender, autonomy is created through its performance, by doing/becoming; it is a political practice. To become autonomous is to refuse authoritarian and compulsory cultures of separation and hierarchy through embodied practices of welcoming difference… Becoming autonomous is a political position for it thwarts the exclusions of proprietary knowledge and jealous hoarding of resources, and replaces the social and economic hierarchies on which these depend with a politics of skill exchange, welcome, and collaboration. Freely sharing these with others creates a common wealth of knowledge and power that subverts the domination and hegemony of the master’s rule.” – subRosa Collective

**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)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

What is Radical Philosophy Today?

Radical Philosophy

WHAT IS RADICAL PHILOSOPHY TODAY?

The Program Committee for the Tenth Biennial Radical Philosophy Association Conference announces an extension of the deadline for submissions to April 16, 2012.

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE TENTH BIENNIAL RADICAL PHILOSOPHY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE AND THE 3OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RPA

What is Radical Philosophy Today?
Canisius College, Buffalo, New York
October 11-14, 2012

Call for Papers:

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO APRIL 16, 2012 

The Radical Philosophy Association Conference Program Committee invites submissions of talks, papers, workshops, roundtable discussions, posters, and other kinds of conference contributions for its tenth biennial conference, to be held at the Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, October 11-14, 2012. 

In the spirit of collaboration, and in the recognition that radical philosophy is often done outside traditional philosophical settings, we invite submissions not only from philosophers inside and outside the academy, but also from those who engage in theoretical and/or activist work in other academic disciplines – such as ethnic studies, women’s studies, social sciences, and literary studies – and from those engaged in theoretical and/or activist work unconnected to the academy.

We especially welcome contributions from those often excluded from or marginalized in philosophy, including persons of Africana, Latin American (Americana), Indigenous, or Asian descent or traditions, glbt persons, persons with disabilities, poor and working class persons.

Conference Theme

‘What is Radical Philosophy Today?’ The adjective ‘radical’ is used in many different ways politically and philosophically. It is especially important to explore some of these various meanings as the Radical Philosophy Association looks back on thirty years of intellectual and political activism and advocacy on behalf of justice and liberation and forward to the future through and beyond our current crises.

It seems to many that the world faces several deep problems. How does specifically ‘radical’ philosophy help us to understand and address them? For example, capitalism demands and enforces increasing gaps between the wealthy and the middle class and the poor worldwide. Oppressive systems of class, race, gender, heteronormativity, and able-bodiedness continue to function, defining people and their lives in harmful and de-humanizing ways. Violence continues to deform people’s lives and possibilities by permeating our everyday experience and invading our consciousness, making us both less aware of it and thus more accepting of it.

For these reasons and many more, we invite submissions that answer (or raise) questions about the nature of radical philosophy and its roles in understanding and responding to current crises. 

What is radical theory? How can radical theory be made more effective in responding to crises? What philosophies/philosophers are radical?

What is radical practice? What does one have to do/be to be radical? Is being radical important? Do some forms of radical practice need to be criticized?

What is radical identity? How does one think radically about identities of race, gender, nationality, citizenship, able-bodiedness, sexuality, etc.? What constitutes a radical identity? How do individuals in groups historically labeled or excluded by race, gender, nationality, etc., redefine, refute, or revolt against the western histories of those categories?

What radical responses are needed to address the crises in economics worldwide? What place does class (and class analysis) have in discussions of radical ideas, radical politics, or radical critiques of the political economy? How does one radically rethink the concept of class in light of current crises?

How does one think radically about democracy or statehood/nationhood? What is radical political engagement? What does radical philosophy have to say about current protest movements in theUSand worldwide?

What is radical art, radical expression, a radical style? How can such aesthetic categories and concerns contribute to changing/transforming the world?

What is radical pedagogy? How can teachers help to radically change the world in positive ways?

We thus invite submissions for the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Radical Philosophy Association: ‘What is Radical Philosophy Today?’

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

In keeping with the spirit of radical thinking embodied by the RPA, we encourage submissions that employ formats and media that challenge the standard conference presentation. For instance, we urge presenters to use formats that allow for greater interaction between participants and audience (e.g. presenting an outline, rather than reading a paper) and that emphasize collective inquiry (e.g. organizing a workshop).

Please note that participants will be selected for at most one presentation (talk, workshop, poster session, etc.) during the conference; submissions should be presented with this in mind. (This limit does not include chairing sessions.)

Please submit all the information requested:

For an individual talk/paper/workshop/poster/performance or other type of individual presentation:

Name, address, email, affiliation (independent scholar, activist, educator, etc.), of presenter

Nature (talk, workshop, etc.) and title of proposal

Abstract of 250-500 words

Equipment needs

For a group panel/workshop/poster/performance or other type of group presentation (note: maximum three panel participants not including chair):

Name, address, email, affiliation of the group’s contact person and of each participant

Nature (panel, workshop, etc.) and title of proposal

Abstract of 250-500 words for group proposal

Titles and abstracts of 250-500 words for each paper (if applicable)

Equipment needs

 

Panel chairs: If you would be willing to serve as a panel session chair, please indicate this on your submission form. Session chairs are responsible for introducing participants in panel sessions and ensuring that each presenter gets her or his fair share of the available time.
Mailing Address for Submissions:

Please submit paper, workshop, poster, and other proposals as an email attachment (.doc) to rpa2012meeting@gmail.com .  NOTE: Please do NOT submit complete papers.

EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: APRIL 16, 2012

For further information, contact members of the Program Committee:

Melissa Burchard mburchar@unca.edu (chair); Tommy Curry t-curry@philosophy.tamu.edu; Gertrude Postl postlg@sunysuffolk.edu; Devin Shaw devinzshaw@gmail.com; Sarah Tyson sarah.tyson@vanderbilt.edu; Scott Zeman scott.zeman@vanderbilt.edu

The local organizer of the conference is Tanya Loughead tanya.loughead@canisius.edu

Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/what-is-radical-philosophy-today-buffalo-ny-11-14-oct.-submissions-deadline-extended-to-16-april

 

**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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Machiavelli, Marxism, and the Revolutionary Tradition

MACHIAVELLI, MARXISM, AND THE REVOLUTIONARY TRADITION
In the frame of Historical Materialism Conference, London, 8-9 November 2012:

Machiavelli, Marxism, and the Revolutionary Tradition

In a letter to Engels of 1857, Marx calls Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories a “masterpiece.” Praising his powerful historical sensibility, Marx explicitly recognises the importance of Machiavelli’s theories on social conflict, the political meaning of a citizen’s army, and the connection between the productive forces and social relations. Machiavelli has never ceased to be a reference for the Marxist and revolutionary tradition.

Explicitly, as a grounding stone of their thought, for philosophers such as Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser, more implicitly for political and intellectual authors such as Kamenev, Bakunin, Lenin, Horkheimer, Macek, Lefort, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, and Weil.

In this panel, we will explore the connection between Machiavelli’s thought and the Marxist and revolutionary tradition. The proposed panel combines a historical perspective with a theoretical approach. It aims to examine the theoretical problems Machiavelli raised, problems critical not only for the early modern age but for all subsequent Western revolutionary political theory and philosophy. It aims also to analyse the influence of Machiavelli’s thought on individual Marxist and revolutionary thinkers.

Paper proposals (between 200 and 300 words), in English, French, or Italian are welcome in any of the following axes:

* Social conflict, class conflict, tumult, and revolution.

* The verità effettuale della cosa: Machiavelli’s ontological realism.

* Grounding on the void: the origin of politics and constituent power.

* Citizen’s army and popular order.

* History as a battlefield: historiography as a political theory.

* Materialism, Machiavellianism, and Marxism.

*Politics and economy in Machiavelli’s thought.

* Plebs, people, multitude, class, proletariat: a Machiavellian perspective on the revolutionary tradition.

* Theory and practice of dictatorship.

Paper proposals should be submitted by registering at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences BEFORE 26 April 2012 and sent, together with a short CV, to the panel organizer, Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University – London) at the following email address: filippo.dellucchese@brunel.ac.uk

The expected presenting time will be around 30-40 minutes per speaker, depending on the exact number of papers. The official language of the Historical Materialism Conference is English.

Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/machiavelli-marxism-and-the-revolutionary-tradition-cfp-for-panel-at-london-hm-conference-8-9-november  

**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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Communisation and Its Vicissitudes

Communisation

COMMUNISATION AND ITS VICISSITUDES

Endnotes and Blaumachen are holding a discussion on communisation with a presentation of the journal Sic (International Journal for Communisation).

Next Sunday (18/3) 6pm at Colorama (52-56 Lancaster Street, London SE1)

We will also talk about:
- Communisation and Politics
- Struggles in Greece

Please join us and distribute to all those you think will be interested.

Some information about Sic & Communisation

Sic aims to be the locus for an unfolding of the problematic of communisation. It comes from the encounter of individuals involved in various projects in different countries: among these are the journals Endnotes, published in the UK and the US, Blaumachen in Greece, Théorie Communiste in France, Riff-Raff in Sweden, and certain more or less informal theoretical groups in the US (New York and San Francisco). Each of these projects will continue to exist on their own. Also participating are various individuals in France, Germany, and elsewhere, who are involved in other activities and who locate themselves broadly within the theoretical approach taken here.

Communisation

In the course of the revolutionary struggle, the abolition of the division of labour, of the State, of exchange, of any kind of property; the extension of a situation in which everything is freely available as the unification of human activity, that is to say the abolition of classes, of both public and private spheres – these are all ‘measures’ for the abolition of capital, imposed by the very needs of the struggle against the capitalist class. The revolution is communisation; communism is not its project or result.

One does not abolish capital for communism but by communism, or more specifically, by its production. Indeed communist measures must be differentiated from communism; they are not embryos of communism, rather they are its production. Communisation is not a period of transition, but rather, revolution itself is the communist production of communism. The struggle against capital is what differentiates communist measures and communism. The content of revolutionary activity is always the mediation of the abolition of capital by the proletariat in its relation to capital. This activity does not constitute an alternative in competition with the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production, but rather the latter’s internal contradiction and its overcoming.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a whole historical period entered into crisis and came to an end – the period in which the revolution was conceived in different ways, both theoretically and practically, as the affirmation of the proletariat, its elevation to the position of ruling class, the liberation of labour, and the institution of a period of transition. The concept of communisation appeared in the midst of this crisis.

During the crisis, the critique of all the mediations of the existence of the proletariat within the capitalist mode of production (mass parties, unions, parliamentarism), of organisational forms such as the party-form or the vanguard, of ideologies such as Leninism, of practices such as militantism in all its variations – all this appeared irrelevant if revolution was no longer to be an affirmation of the class, whether it be workers’ autonomy or the generalisation of workers’ councils. It is the proletariat’s struggle as a class that has become the problem, i.e. has become its own limit. This is how the class struggle signals and produces the revolution as communisation in the form of its overcoming.

In the contradictory course of the capitalist mode of production since the 1970s the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour have lost all meaning and content. There is no longer a worker’s identity facing capital and confirmed by it. The revolutionary dynamic of contemporary struggles consists in the active denial – against capital – of the proletarian condition, even within ephemeral, limited bursts of self-management or self-organisation. The proletariat’s struggle against capital contains its contradiction with its own nature as a class of capital.

The abolition of capital, i.e. the revolution and the production of communism, is immediately the abolition of all classes and therefore of the proletariat. This occurs through the communisation of society, which is abolished as a community separated from its elements. Proletarians abolish capital by the production of a community immediate to its elements. In this way they transform their relations into immediate relations between individuals – between singular individuals that are no longer the embodiment of a social category, including the supposedly natural categories of the social sexes of woman and man. Revolutionary practice is the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity, i.e. self-transformation.

A Problematic

This minimal approach of communisation constitutes neither a definition, nor a platform, but exposes a problematic.

The problematic of a theory, here the theory of revolution as communisation, does not limit itself to a list of themes or objects conceived by theory; neither is it the synthesis of all the elements which are thought. It is the content of theory, its way of thinking, with regards to all possible productions of this theory:

    • the analysis of the current crisis and of the class struggles intrinsic to it;
    • the historicity of revolution and communism;
    • the periodisation of the capitalist mode of production and the question of the restructuring of the mode of production after the crisis at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s;
    • the analysis of the gender relation within the problematic of the present class struggle and communisation;
    • the definition of communism as goal but also as movement abolishing the present state of things;
    • a theory of the abolition of capital as a theory of the production of communism;
    • the reworking of the theory of the value-form (to the extent that the revolution is not the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour).

By definition no list of subjects coming under a problematic can be exhaustive.

**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

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

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