Power to the People?

Power to the People?

…masses, proletariat, workers, soviets, nation, community, subalterns, multitude, commons…

Saturday 9^th May 2009
Radical Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London

BOOK NOW!

£25/£10 unwaged

Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk

Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd’ should be sent to: 
Radical Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ

 

PROGRAMME:

Plenary (chair: Peter Osborne, RP)
Gayatri Spivak (Columbia University, NY): ‘They, the People’

 

1. The General Will (chair: Peter Hallward, RP)

David Andress (Portsmouth): ‘The General Will on the Street: Parisian Activism, Sovereignty and Power, 1789–93’

 

Sophie Wahnich

(CNRS, Paris): ‘How Do the People Make Themselves Heard?’

 

2. Urban Collectivities (chair: David Cunningham, RP)

AbdouMaliq Simone (Goldsmiths): ‘Urban Intersections and the Politics of Anticipation’

Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester): ‘Reflections on the Post-Political City’

 

3. Population & Biopolitics (chair: Claudia Aradau, RP)

Couze Venn (Nottingham Trent): ‘Biopolitics, Diasporas and (Neo)Liberal Political Economy’

Encarnacion Gutierrez Rodriguez (Manchester): ‘Feminist Strategies Revisited – Sexopolitics, Multitude and Biopolitics’

 

4. Class, Commons & Multitude (chair: Esther Leslie, RP)

 

Massimo De Angelis

(UEL): ‘Crisis, Tragedies and the Commons’

Daniel Bensaid (University of Paris-VIII), ‘Can We (Still) Break the Vicious Circle of Domination?’

 

 

‘Power to the people!’ was once a revolutionary slogan, but reference to government by the people and for the people soon became an empty cliché of the post-revolutionary status quo. The people has become a notoriously ambiguous and contested term, for which numerous alternatives have been proposed: the proletariat, the workers, the masses, the soviets, the nation, the community, the multitude, the commons… And now? How might we assess the different  conceptions of political change embodied in these often conflicting ideas? What is the political and philosophical significance of `the people’ today?

 

£25/£10 unwaged

Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk

Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd’ should be sent to: Radical Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

 

 

 

 

Immanence and Materialism

IMMANENCE AND MATERIALISM CONFERENCE

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS
QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

CALL FOR PAPERS

Date: 23 June 2009
Venue: Queen Mary, University of London
Call for papers deadline: 22 May 2009
All papers and enquiries to: s.j.choat@qmul.ac.uk

Keynote speakers:

Professor James Williams (University of Dundee)
Dr Ray Brassier (American University of Beirut)
Dr Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths, University of London)

The concepts of immanence and materialism are becoming increasingly important in political philosophy. This conference seeks to analyse the connections between these two concepts and to examine the consequences for political thought. It is possible, as Giorgio Agamben has done, to make a distinction within modern philosophy between a line of transcendence (Kant, Husserl, Levinas, Derrida) and a line of immanence (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Deleuze, Foucault). If we follow this distinction, then ‘the line of immanence’ might include Spinozist interpretations of Marx, Althusser’s aleatory materialism, and Deleuze’s superior empiricism. But what is the value of this work and is it useful to distinguish it from ‘transcendent’ philosophies? Distinctions between materialism and idealism are equally complex: Derrida, for example, might as easily be classed a materialist as an idealist. And where can we place more recent work like the critiques of Deleuze by Badiou and Zizek, or Meillassoux’s speculative materialism?

Papers may wish to consider the following questions:
* What is materialist philosophy? How can it be distinguished from idealist philosophy, and is it useful to do so? Are all philosophies of immanence necessarily materialist?
* Is it legitimate or useful to make a clear distinction between philosophies of immanence and philosophies of transcendence?
* How have the concepts of immanence and materialism traditionally been conceived within political philosophy?

* What, if any, are the political consequences of pursuing a philosophy of immanence?

 

Paper titles and a 300-word abstract should be sent by Friday 22 May 2009 to Simon Choat at: s.j.choat@qmul.ac.uk, Department of Politics, Queen Mary College, University of London.

Graduate papers welcome.

Dr Simon Choat
Lecturer in Politics
Queen Mary, University of London
Office: Hatton House 1B
Email: s.j.choat@qmul.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7882 8592
http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/staff/choat/index.html

 

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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