The Education Shock Doctrine

Schools in Crisis

THE EDUCATION SHOCK DOCTRINE 

International Socialist Review

ISSUE 71: May-June 2010

http://www.isreview.org/

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The education shock doctrine

Letter from the editors

ANALYSIS IN BRIEF

Lance Selfa 
The right on the defensive 
The passage of health care reform gives the Democrats new legs

PLUS: Helen Redmond on the health care bill—prescribing aspirin for cancer; Joel Geier on contradictions in the economic recovery

COLUMN

Phil Gasper • Critical thinking 
The imperial war in Afghanistan

FEATURES 

Gillian Russom 
Obama’s neoliberal agenda for education 

Gillian Russom 
The case against charter schools 

Adam Sanchez 
Disaster schooling: How the “shock doctrine” is playing out in New Orleans, Chicago, and Detroit 

Arundhati Roy 
Bhumkal: Walking with the Comrades 
The author of The God of Small Things travels with India’s rural rebels

HISTORY

Danny Lucia 
Bringing misery out of hiding: The unemployed movement of the 1930s

FEATURE REVIEW

Tom Twiss and Paul Le Blanc 
Revolutionary betrayed: Trotsky and his biographer 
Robert Service’s widely-acclaimed work is full of inflated assertions and shocking inaccuracies

BOOK REVIEWS 

Jeff Bale 
Defector from the school reform consensus 

Review of Diane Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System

PLUS: Sherry Wolf on the fight for civil rights up North; Petrino DiLeo on the next debt bubble; Martin Smith on Race and radicalism in the Civil War; Dennis Kosuth on the 1989 revolutions in the Eastern Bloc; Lee Wengraf on women in the American gulag; Matt Swagler on the myth of “heterosexual Africa”; Ragina Johnson on same-sex marriage in practice

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What Does Marxist-Humanism Mean for Today?

Peter McLaren

WHAT DOES MARXIST-HUMANISM MEAN FOR TODAY?

Announcing an open forum in Chicago on…

What Does Marxist-Humanism Mean for Today?

Celebrating the Centenary of Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987)

As the global crisis of capitalism deepens, so too does the search for alternatives to it. This brings to life the contributions of Raya Dunayevskaya, an uncompromising critique of capitalism in both its “free market” and statist forms. Born in Ukraine in 1910, she was Leon Trotsky’s Russian-language secretary during his exile in Mexico. After breaking from him, she developed the analysis of the USSR as a “state-capitalist” society, published the first English translation of parts of Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and from the 1950s through the 1980s developed the philosophy of Marxist-Humanism in a number of path breaking works. Join us for a discussion of how her ideas speak to issues now being debated by feminists, critical race theorists, and many others searching for new pathways to liberation.

Convenor: Lauren Langman, Sociology, Loyola University

Chair: Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, author, Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity

Speakers:

Peter McLaren, author, Life in Schools, University of California, Los Angeles

David Schweickart, author, After Capitalism, Loyola University

Sandra Rein, author, Reading Dunayevskaya: Engaging the Emergence of Marxist-Humanism, University of Alberta

Ba Karang, writer for Africa-Links, West Africa

Kevin Anderson, author, Marx at the Margins, University of California at Santa Barbara

Peter Hudis, co-editor, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, Loyola University

Friday July 2
6:30 p.m.
Corboy Law Center
25 East Pearson, Room 0211 (1 block north of Chicago Ave; ½ block east of State St.)

Sponsored by Loyola University Department of Sociology and the U.S. Marxist-Humanists

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Raya Dunayevskaya

Middlesex University Philosophy Campaign – Update 26th May 2010

 

Philosophy

MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY PHILOSOPHY CAMPAIGN – UPDATE 26th MAY 2010

Campaign update Wednesday 26 May 2010 (http://savemdxphil.com/)

1. John Protevi and Todd May have posted a petition calling for an international academic boycott of Middlesex University, http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/academic-boycott-of-middlesex-university.html. Several hundred well-placed people have already signed it, in the space of a few hours. Please spread the word about this, far & wide.

2. The poet Michael Rosen renounced his visiting professor at Middlesex today. He explained that “On account of the action of Middlesex University over the Philosophy Department, I would like to inform Professor Ahmad that I would like to renounce my visiting professorship. I do not wish to be a visiting professor at Middlesex University. Best wishes, Michael Rosen.”

3. This morning, professors Osborne and Hallward were denied managerial permission to attend an emergency meeting of their union, the UCU, scheduled for Friday 28 May. They were also denied permission to attend the UCU annual general meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, and a meeting of the University’s self-constituted Professors Group.

4. Collective pressure to greylist i.e. boycott Middlesex University is growing rapidly. The external examiners for the Middlesex Philosophy department have already announced their refusal to collaborate with next month’s assessment boards, and colleagues in other departments may soon follow suit. A boycott by external examiners will have a significant and immediate impact on the University.

5. Last Friday Middlesex management told the four suspended students that their hearings would take place this Friday 28 May at the Hendon campus. Fiona Fall, who will preside over the hearings, suddenly decided this morning that it would be ‘better for the students’ to hold the meeting at Trent Park instead, since it is their ‘home campus.’ The four students explained that they would nonetheless prefer for the hearing to go ahead at Hendon as originally planned. But Fiona Fall has made up her mind. ‘As my understanding is that a rally of support is being organised at Hendon,’ she told one of the students, ‘I have decided that Trent Park continues to be the best most calm place to hold the hearings for both students and the panel.’

5. Confirmed speakers for the rally at Hendon on Thursday 27 May from 4pm include Alex Callinicos (KCL), Richard George (Campaign for Better Transport; Plane Stupid), Paul Gilroy (LSE), Nina Power (Roehampton), Jim Wolfreys (UCU), among others. Please circulate the rally announcement and flyer (http://savemdxphil.com/) to everyone who might be sympathetic.

The Campaign
26 May 2010.

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Crack Capitalism – by John Holloway

John Holloway

CRACK CAPITALISM – BY JOHN HOLLOWAY

A message from John Holloway

With a cry of joyous rage and a little dance I announce that Crack Capitalism (published by Pluto Press, London, distributed by Palgrave in the US) is now in the shops. Rush out immediately to get your copy, give one as a present to all your friends (at least one each), put it on every reading list you can think of, order it for libraries, write reviews for newspapers and journals, spray-paint it as a slogan on the walls of the city, shout it from the rooftops and send this on to all your contacts. And if you want to send me comments, I would be delighted.

John Holloway

Details at: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330082&

About the Book

Crack Capitalism, argues that radical change can only come about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of ‘cracks’ in the capitalist system. These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing.

John Holloway’s previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism. Now Holloway rejects the idea of a disconnected array of struggles and finds a unifying contradiction – the opposition between the capitalist labour we undertake in our jobs and the drive towards doing what we consider necessary or desirable.

Clearly and accessibly presented in the form of 33 theses, Crack Capitalism is set to reopen the debate among radical scholars and activists seeking to break capitalism now.

About The Author

John Holloway is a Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. His publications include Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), Change the World Without Taking Power (Pluto, 2005), Zapatista! Rethinking Revolution in Mexico (co-editor, Pluto, 1998) and Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money (co-editor, 1994).

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Anarchist Pedagogies

William Godwin

ANARCHIST PEDAGOGIES

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS

For a book entitled

Anarchist Pedagogies

Editor: Robert Haworth PhD

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Overview:

Anarchist movements have a long history of resisting traditional schooling and authoritative pedagogical practices, while at the same time, attempting to construct transformative educative processes. Examples include Francisco Ferrer’s (1913) work entitled, Origins of the Modern School and the creation of the Escuela Moderna schools in Spain, the Modernist Schools in the United States (Emma Goldman, Voltaraine de Cleyre, Alex Berkman and others) during the early 20th century as well as contemporary anarchists who are experimenting in participatory informal learning spaces. These examples are important to acknowledge within radical notions of teaching and learning being that they are experiences that enable activists and scholars to critically re-imagine education and build theories on “how” and “where” individuals experiment in constructing knowledge through differing learning spaces (Coté, Day & Peuter, 2007; de Leon, 2008, Malott, forthcoming).

Moreover, as totalizing efforts of the nation-state continue to develop standardized curriculum, efficiency models and data driven outcomes, anarchist pedagogies attempt to construct ongoing collective learning environments that can be described as ‘disciplined improvisation’ or ‘spontaneous’ in nature (Goldman, 1969; Haworth, forthcoming; Sawyer, 2003; Ward, 1972). Furthermore, these informal learning spaces create new ways of exposing illegitimate corporate and state power, as well as participating in the ‘coming communities’ (Day, 2007).

This edited book calls on international scholars (15 single authored or collectively authored chapters) in anarchist studies to critically reflect on historical and contemporary experimentations in anarchist pedagogies. Scholarly efforts will focus on what we have learned from past anarchist experiences and current transformative learning environments — where individuals are engaged in collective, participatory, voluntary and mutual efforts that contest global capitalist structures.

The edited collection responds to the need to reflect on anarchist pedagogies and will highlight three major themes. Authors in the first section will be encouraged to focus on historical discussions surrounding anarchism and education. The authors will give introspective critiques of historical practices, including theories of teaching and learning and alternatives to compulsory public schools. Authors in the second section will construct philosophical and theoretical frameworks evolving from contemporary anarchists, particularly through individuals participating in cooperatives, independent media collectives, infoshops, political zines, open source projects, DIY, direct action networks and other autonomous and cultural spaces.

Continued efforts to construct theoretical and philosophical discussions surrounding anarchism have also provided opportunities to build affinities and tensions with frameworks outside of anarchist writings (Cohn, 2007). The third section will encompass anarchist theories of teaching and learning. Authors will be asked to construct linkages and apprehensions to theories surrounding critical pedagogies and critical theory, autonomous Marxism, postmodernity and poststruturalism.

Proposed sections:

Forward:

Zack de la Rocha

1) Introduction

2) Section 1: Anarchism & Education: Historical experimentations

a. Anarchist perspectives on education

b. Modern Schools; Spain and the United States

c. Pedagogical practices: teacher/student relationship

d. Issues of the state and compulsory education

e. Connection and/or tensions between progressive education and social reconstruction

f. What have we learned?

3) Section 2: Anarchist Pedagogies in the “here and now”

a. Contesting power through multiple fronts: Movements against neoliberalism and learning through collective processes: Infoshops, cooperatives, autonomous spaces, zines, DIY

b. Teaching and learning in non-hierarchical, mutual and voluntary spaces — issues surrounding race, class, gender, LGBT

c. Technology: Issues surrounding the use of technology: open source, listservs, blogs & discussion boards

4) Section 3: Anarchism: Theoretical Frameworks on Teaching & Learning

a. Affinities: Anarchism & Critical pedagogies. Relationship to Postmodernism and Poststructuralism-Postanarchism

b. Informal learning spaces

c. De-schooling

d. Anarchism & the role of the university

e. Pedagogical practices

Audience:

Anarchist Pedagogies will draw upon and make connection to contemporary anarchist studies literature, particularly in education. The book will be important for scholars in anarchist studies, critical pedagogy, as well as undergraduate students and activists who are interested in building philosophical, theoretical, historical and contemporary discussions and imaginations beyond traditional forms of education.

Timeframe:

1) Proposals due by July 20th, 2010

2) Proposal confirmations: August 20th, 2010

3) Chapter drafts due by October 1st, 2010

4) Editor

5) Review of drafts: November, 2010

Editor will produce a comprehensive introductory and single authored chapter in one of the three sections. The forward will be written by an activist/scholar. Final editing and approval of the formatted version will be submitted December 30th, 2010. Publishing date will be set for early fall, 2011.

Contributors:

Process for submitting proposals:

Interested scholars, researchers, educators, activists and others should send to the editor, by July 20th, 2010, the following:

1) Names, positions, mailing addresses, fax and phone numbers, and email addresses of authors;

2) Title of proposed chapter;

3) Description, of no more than 300 words, of chapter, including type of research, approach, context, connection to the book, and other pertinent information;

4) Biographies of authors of no more than 200 words;

Biography of editor:

Robert Haworth is an Associate Professor in Multicultural Education at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He currently serves as the director for the Research Center for Cultural Diversity and Community Renewal. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses surrounding diversity and education, globalization and neoliberalism. He has published multiple peer reviewed book chapters and presented internationally on anarchism and informal learning spaces, as well as critical social studies education. He co-founded Regeneration TV, along with other research collectives that are directly involved in contesting neoliberal policies at the university level. This is Robert Haworth’s first edited book.

Robert Haworth PhD—Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, haworth.robe@uwlax.edu, 608.385.0891

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Peace Education: Past, Present and Future

Peace

PEACE EDUCATION: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Call for Papers for a special issue of the Journal of Peace Education

“Peace Education:  Past, Present, & Future”

Editor:  B. Jeannie Lum

Objectives of the Special Issue:

Peace Education is currently a burgeoning field of scholarship and research that continually experiences challenges to its legitimation and participation in more traditional and conventional approaches to education.   Today, it receives increasing recognition by educators and the public in response to growing societal interests in globalization and local forms of school violence.

“Peace” is a guiding concept and principle that motivates current educational movements to redirect cultures of war into cultures of peace and transform their school cultures into constructive learning communities.  Peace education has worked in repairing the physical, psychological, and social fabric of human lives and societies impacted by natural disasters, war, violence, and human struggle throughout highly developed and underdeveloped countries. It addresses all life stages of human development and growth that lead to sustainable peace education practices within formal institutional and informal settings.  This special edition will examine the field of peace education, its past, present, and projected future.

This call for papers invites submissions that take an overview of the field of peace education, its emergence and gradual formation from the past, the current state of the field and possible visions for the future. It encourages submissions that utilize multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary methodological approaches to study and research.  It accepts works that examines the conceptual foundations of peace education and accounts for the relationship of theory to practice/praxis within a variety of traditional, modern, and post-modern philosophical frameworks.  It seeks papers that review historical trends and/or analyze specified areas of peace education, e.g. environmental ecology, varieties of conflict resolution and mediation, non-traditional school practices, philosophical concepts, historical and current figures, educational movements, multicultural communities, local to global transitions, national/internatio nal and comparative education, educational programs in various regions around the world, impact and effectiveness of NGO activities and global institutions, indigenous education,  etc.  Importantly, it looks for overviews and discussions in peace education about context based schooling practices – curriculum, discipline, classroom management, assessment & evaluation, educational policy and accounts regarding any members involved in schooling.   Importantly, it seeks works that venture to understand how peace education might be distinguished as a field of scholarship and research from other educational traditions.

Notes for Prospective Authors:

Expressions of interest including a 1,000 word should be sent to the Editor by: November 15th, 2010

Please contact Jeannie Lum (jlum@hawaii. edu), if you have inquiries regarding your topic prior to submitting your proposal.  

If selected, submissions should be between 5,000 – 9,000 words and follow the journal’s style requirements. Details can be found at http://www.tandf. co.uk/journals/ journal.asp? issn=1740- 0201&linktype=44

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Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Latest

 

LINKS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIALIST RENEWAL – LATEST

What’s new at Links: Thailand, 1 million reads, Neville Alexander on SA, renewables & tax, Besancenot on Greece, William Morris, Philippines, Bolivia, Arabic

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consider an article, please send it to links@dsp.org.au

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Thailand: Past the point of no return

By Danielle Sabai

[This article was written before the Thai government’s crushing of the Red Shirts’ protest site in Bangkok on May 19, 2010. However, it provides important background to the events.]
May 17, 2010 — The political crisis engulfing Thailand is not a clap of thunder in an otherwise calm sky. The discourse about a country where “everyone lives in harmony and where there is no class struggle but a people united behind its adored sovereign” has nothing to do with reality. For several decades, the Thai people have been subjected to authoritarian regimes or dictatorships and a king in their service. The Thai élites have however not succeeded in preventing regular uprisings against the established order, including those in 1973, 1976 and 1992, all repressed by bloodbaths.

Read more

1,000,000 articles read, 750,000 visits — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

May 21, 2010 — At 11.59pm on May 19, 2010, the 1,000,000th article was read at Links International Journal of Socialist (since records began being kept on April 4, 2008). The article was accessed somebody in Toronto, Canada — the 744,733rd visit to Links — who entered site at the fascinating speech by veteran South African revolutionary socialist Neville Alexander. On May 21, at 5.50pm, Links International Journal of Socialsit Renewal received its 750,000th visitor, who was from Thailand and who read one of Giles Ji Ungpakorn’s essential articles on the struggle for democracy in that country.

Read more

Neville Alexander: South Africa – An unfinished revolution?

[The following address — the fourth Strini Moodley Annual Memorial Lecture, held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on May 13, 2010 – was delivered by renowned South African revolutionary socialist and theorist Neville Alexander. From 1964 to 1974 he was imprisoned on Robben Island. Strinivasa Rajoo “Strini” Moodley (December 22, 1945–April 27, 2006) was a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. In 1976, he was convicted of terrorism in a trial involving members of the South African Students’ Organisation and the Black People’s Convention, and imprisoned on Robben Island. The speech is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with Neville Alexander’s permission.]

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Australia: Tax billionaire companies to fund rapid transition to renewable energy

By Dick Nichols
May 24, 2010 — Even as the Australian federal Labor government sticks its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme [carbon trading scheme] into the freezer the climate change crisis intensifies, demanding a response adequate to its enormity. The goal dictated by climate science is annual emissions reductions of 5% from now to 2020 — the critical “transition decade”.

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Olivier Besancenot: `We are all Greek workers!

By Olivier Besancenot and Pierre-François Grond, translated by Richard Fidler and Nathan Rao

May 14, 2010 — Le Monde via The Bullet — The events in Greece concern us all. The Greek people are paying for a crisis and a debt not of their making. Today it is the Greeks, tomorrow it will be others, for the same causes will produce the same effects if we allow it.

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Debunking the `Menshevik myth’: William Morris and revolutionary politics

By Graham Milner
With some great revolutionary figures in world history, and in international labour history in particular, it has been found necessary for historians or biographers to dig out their subjects from beneath “a load of calumny and oblivion”, “a mountain of dead dogs”. With others, however, a different problem exists. Lenin pointed to this when he wrote that the ruling classes, following upon the deaths of great revolutionaries, often attempt — after having met the ideas and actions of such men and women during their lifetimes with “furious hatred … and slanders” — to turn them into “harmless saints … by way of `consolation’ to the oppressed … while at the same time emasculating and vulgarising the real essence of their revolutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge”.

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Philippines: The May 10 elections and the left

By Sonny Melencio, Manila
May 17, 2010 – The May 10, 2010, election has been bandied about as the cleanest and the most peaceful since the restoration of this exercise after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. This is attributed to the computerised election which ensured the quick counting of votes so that there would not be sufficient time for any of the trapo (traditional politician) to cheat.

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Democracy Now! debate: Is Thailand’s Red Shirt movement a genuine grassroots struggle?

May 18, 2010 — In Thailand, the government has rejected an offer by anti-government protesters to enter talks after a bloody week in Bangkok that has left at least thirty-eight protesters dead. Some fear the standoff could lead to an undeclared civil war. The protesters are mostly rural and urban poor who are part of a group called the UDD, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, more commonly known as the Red Shirts. We host a debate between Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a Thai dissident living in exile in Britain who supports the Red Shirt movement; and Philip Cunningham, a freelance journalist who has covered Asia for over twenty years.

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Thailand: Why Obama is silent on the Bangkok massacres

By Shamus Cooke
May 16, 2010 — When the White House is quiet as protesters are butchered in the streets of Bangkok, suspicions are raised. Silence often equals complicity. One can only imagine what the US government’s response would be to a Venezuelan government slaughter: the US media and US President Barack Obama would loudly condemn such an act, in contrast to the muted response to Thailand’s bloodbath.

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Bolivia’s mining dilemmas: Between Mother Earth and an ‘extraction economy’

By Federico Fuentes, Cochabamba
May 15, 2010 — The tremendous success of the April 19-22 World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has confirmed the well-deserved role of its initiator — Bolivia’s President Evo Morales — as one of the world’s leading environmental advocates.

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(Updated May 21) Thailand: International left solidarity with the democracy movement

Statements by the New Anti-Capitalist Party of France, Socialist Alliance of Australia, the Socialist Party of Malaysia, the Fourth International, Focus on Global South, Australia Asia Worker Links. See also Asia-Pacific left statement — `Resolve crisis through democracy, not crackdown!’, by Asian left and progressive organisations.

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The Flame, May 2010 — Green Left Weekly’s Arabic-language supplement

May 2010 — With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, Green Left Weekly — Australia’s leading socialist newspaper — publishes a regular Arabic language supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia. Editor-in-chief is Soubhi Iskander is a comrade who has endured years of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the repressive government in Sudan.

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Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of “actually existing socialism” in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

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Contemporary Social Movements and the Social Forum Process: From the Global to the Local

World Social Forum

CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE SOCIAL FORUM PROCESS: FROM THE GLOBAL TO THE LOCAL

June 21, 2010

General Lectures 100 and Mangoongian 150 and 151
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI

http://irows.ucr.edu/conferences/ussf10conf/ussf10conf.htm

Program Schedule

9-10:30: Session 1: The Significance of the World Social Forum Process

Moderator: Jackie Smith, University of Notre Dame

David Fasenfest (Sociology, Wayne State University and editor, Critical Sociology), Opening Remarks

Christopher Chase-Dunn (Sociology & Institute of Research on World Systems, UC-Riverside), “The New Global Left and the World Revolution of 20xx”

Lauren Langman (Sociology, Loyola University at Chicago), “Globalization from Below”

Francis Shor (History, Wayne State University), “The World Social Forum as Utopian Alternative”

10:40-12pm: Session 2 (concurrent): Organizing and Decision-making within the Social Forum Process

Moderator: Juliann Allison (Political Science, UC-Riverside)

Peter J. Smith (Athabasca University) and Elizabeth Smythe, Concordia University, College of Alberta), “Academic Disconnections? Social Scientists, Faith Groups and Transnational Activism: The Case of the World Social Forum”

Nicole Doerr (Sociology, Free University, Berlin), “Decision-making in multilingual groups? Comparative impressions from the European Social Forum”

Scott Byrd (Sociology, UC-Irvine, Nicolas Haeringer, http://www.mouvements.info, http://www.m-e-dium.net, Mallory Knobel, May First / People Link, National Technology Coordinator, USSF), “Technological Resources and Social Forum Organizing”

Jeffrey S. Juris, Erica Bushell, Meghan Doran, Mathew T. Judge, Amy Lubitow, Lauren Nicoll, and Chris Prenner (Anthropology & Sociology, Northeastern University), “From Boston to Detroit: Tracing Grassroots Mobilization to the 2010 United States Social Forum (USSF)”

10:40-12pm: Session 3 (concurrent): Do Social Forums Challenge or Reproduce Social Inequalities by Race, Nativity, and Nation?

Moderator: Ellen Reese (Sociology, UC-Riverside)

James Love (Sociology, UC-Riverside) “Global Racism: Connecting The Local to The Global in USSF and WSF Meetings”

Rose Brewer (African-American and African Studies, University of Minnesota and founding member of AfroEco), “Resisting Racism and the USSF: Possible or Not?”

Janet Conway (Sociology, Brock University), “Is the Global Justice Movement Colonial? A Study of Indigenous Positionality at the World Social Forum”

David W. Everson (Political Science, UC-Riverside), “An Indigenous Voice? The Indigenous Movement, Representation, and the Social Forum Process”

12-1:10pm: Lunch break (sponsored by Critical Sociology)

1:10-2:30pm: Session 4 (concurrent): Who Participates and for What?

Moderator: Juliann Allison (Political Science, UC-Riverside)

Mark Herkenrath (University of Zurich), Wolfgang Stuppert (Social Science Research Center Berlin), Dieter Rucht (Social Science Research Center Berlin), “Who participates? Socio-demographic and Political Characteristics of European Social Forum Participants”

Gary Coyne, Jesse Fletcher and Preeta Saxena (Sociology, UC-Riverside), “From Recruitment to Participation: Bridging the Gap between Differential Recruitment and Collective Action”

Anthony Roberts (Sociology, UC-Riverside), “The U.S. Social Forum and the U.S. Class System: Local-Global Orientation of Participants and Social Movements”

1:10-2:30pm: Session 5 (concurrent): Social Movements and the Social Forum Process

Moderator: Christopher Chase-Dunn (Sociology, UC-Riverside)

Elizabeth Schwarz and James Love (Sociology, UC-Riverside), “The Internet and the US Social Forum: Tracing Connections and Demographics of the Environmental Movement”

Elena Shih (Sociology, UC-Los Angeles), “Globalizing Morality: The Transnational Moral Economy of Women’s Work in the Anti-Trafficking Movement”

Edwin Elias (Sociology, UC-Riverside), “Immigrant Rights in the U.S. Social Forum: Role and Impact.”

2:40-4:20pm: Workshop Training #1: “Doing Collective Ethnography at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum,” Jackie Smith (Sociology, University of Notre Dame) and Jeffrey S. Juris (Anthropology & Sociology, Northeastern University)

4:30-5:30pm: Workshop Training #2: “Doing Survey Research at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum,” Juliann Allison (Political Science, UC-Riverside), Christopher Chase-Dunn (Sociology, UC-Riverside), Ellen Reese (Sociology, UC-Riverside)

This conference is co-sponsored by the Center for Peace and Conflict at Wayne State University, the Political Economy of World-Systems section of the American Sociological Association, the journal Critical Sociology, the Program on Global Studies at the University of California-Riverside,  the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California-Riverside, the Global Studies Association, the World Society Foundation and Sociologists Without Borders.

Professor David Fasenfest, Department of Sociology, Wayne State University
Editor, Critical Sociology http://crs.sagepub.com
Series Editor, Studies in Critical Social Science, http://www.brill.nl/scss

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Eurozone in Crisis: Reform or Exit?

Eurozone Crisis

EUROZONE IN CRISIS: REFORM OR EXIT?

Research on Money and Finance (RMF) at SOAS and the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities are organising a roundtable on:

‘Eurozone in Crisis: Reform or Exit?’

The event will explore themes from the widely read RMF report ‘Eurozone in Crisis: Beggar Thyself and Thy Neighbour’. It will also contribute to the debate on the social, political and economic aspects of the Eurozone crisis that was launched by the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Since the start of 2010 the Eurozone crisis has become progressively deeper, threatening the existence of the euro as well as the coherence of the European Union. The crisis poses questions of economic malfunctioning and austerity policies imposed on several European countries, but also of democracy and state relations within the European Union. The roundtable will consider these issues from a variety of radical perspectives.

Participants include:

Costas Lapavitsas, SOAS, ‘Reform or Exit from the Eurozone?”

George Irvin, SOAS, ‘Costs and Benefits of Default’

Costas Douzinas, Birkbeck, ‘The Democratic Deficit within the Eurozone’

Stathis Kouvelakis, King’s College, ‘The Eurozone Crisis as a Crisis of the State”

Alex Callinicos, King’s College, ‘Political Implications of the Eurozone Crisis’

CHAIR: Larry Elliott, The Guardian Newspaper.

Date and Time: June 2nd, 6-8
Venue: Rm B33, Birkbeck College, Mallet St. WC1

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No Future

No Future

NO FUTURE

NO FUTURE: AN INTER-DISCIPLINARY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Durham University, UK
25-27 March 2011

First Call for Papers

From biblical apocalypse to the nihilism of the late nineteenth century, from the Enlightenment invention of progress to the counter-cultures of the late twentieth century, from technological utopianism to contemporary anticipations of environmental catastrophe, western civilization has been consistently transfixed by the figurative potential of the future. ‘No Future’ seeks to connect and inter-animate these disparate ways of thinking about the future, while at the same time questioning the basis of the various discourses of futurity they have produced, and which have proliferated in recent years. ‘No Future’ thus also implicitly questions what it is – other than the preoccupations of the present – that is invoked when we talk about the future.

The conference aims to stage a series of inter-disciplinary encounters around these different senses of ‘No Future’, and to examine the value and implications of adopting a ‘futurist’ position across and between a range of disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Contributions may take retrospective form, re-assessing significant moments in past discourses of futurity such as apocalypticism, Enlightenment ideas of progress, the persistence of the apparent dialectical unity of utopia/dystopia, the constructions of Modernism and the Historical Avantgarde, the symbolic projections of psychoanalytic theory. Others might examine the disciplinary shifts that have displaced or dispersed avantgardism in postmodernity, opening out onto such themes as transhumanism, post-postmodern reinflections of the dialectic, and various forms of contemporary utopianism. All of these are related to the central question of the ideological and aesthetic implications of any appeal to futurity, at the heart of which lies the tension between the future as rhetorical evasion and the future as the most persistent and deeply embedded of all heuristic devices.

Keynote speakers:
Mikhail Epstein (Emory)
Jean-Michel Rabaté (Pennsylvania)
Patricia Waugh (Durham)

Plenary panels:

Apocalyptic Futures
Lenin and Futurity
Bloch and Utopian Futures

Proposals for individual papers or integrated panels that engage with any aspect of the central theme are invited. Papers should be of 20 minutes duration to allow adequate time for discussion, and proposals for integrated panels should comprise a chair and three speakers.

Proposals that specifically engage with any of the following themes are particularly welcome:

Ontologies of the Future
Forms of Utopia
Dystopian Futures
Aesthetics and Technology
Eco-criticism and Ecotopia
Gendered Futures
Transhumanism
Futurism(s)
Futures of Freud
Dialectics of the Future
The Future of Theory

Proposals should be no longer than 250 words and should be submitted as an attachment to: alastair.renfrew@durham.ac.uk by Friday 2nd July 2010.

Further information will be available in due course at the conference web-site: http://www.dur.ac.uk/mlac/research/nofuture

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Spaces of Democracy Events: David Harvey, Doreen Massey, Ananya Roy

David Harvey

SPACES OF DEMOCRACY EVENTS: DAVID HARVEY, DOREEN MASSEY, ANANYA ROY

Please see below for details of FIVE forthcoming, present and related Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space events:-

1] A one day workshop centred around a debate between DOREEN MASSEY and DAVID HARVEY, Friday 19th November, organised by Chantal Mouffe (node Director at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Westminster). (further details forthcoming).

2] ANANYA ROY ON POVERTY, DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP: A micro-seminar on the research and activism of ANANYA ROY (organised by Katharyne Mitchell, node Director, University of Washington) and Victoria Lawson at University of Washington).

This includes a public lecture by Ananya Roy: Monday, Oct 11, 6:00pm, Kane Hall; a preliminary seminar on Friday, Oct 8, 2:30 – 5:20pm, CMU 202 and a concluding seminar on Tuesday, Oct 12, 3:30 – 5:20pm, CMU 202 where there will be a discussion of intersections between public lecture, Roy’s publications and her public activism and scholarship.

3] A FILM is being made on NEOLIBERALISING INDIAN CITIES with Director of the South Asia Node of the Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network, Swapna Banerjee-Guha, from the School of Social Sciences, TISS, India. (further details forthcoming).

4] The book WHAT IS RADICAL POLITICS TODAY? (2009) Palgrave-MacMillan, edited by Jonathan Pugh, Newcastle University, is now available for £10 at some bookstores.

A crisis makes you re-think your life. The recent economic crisis is no exception. All of us are now thinking how the world could be run differently. Despite this, a radical alternative has hardly emerged to mobilise the masses, which begs the question: What is radical politics today? In this book, leading academics, politicians, journalists and activists attempt to pinpoint an answer, debating the issues facing radical politics in the 21st Century. Rarely united in their opinions, they collectively interogate the character and spirit of being radical in our times.

Including original contributions from Zygmunt Bauman, Will Hutton, Frank Furedi, Clare Short, Ken Worpole, Nick Cohen, Hilary Wainwright, Paul Kingsnorth, Chantal Mouffe, Terrell Carver, Edward W. Soja, David Chandler, Dora Apel, Doreen Massey, Jason Toynbee, James Martin, Michael J. Watts, Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, Gregor McLennan, Tariq Modood, Amir Saeed & David Bates, Alastair Bonnett, Nigel Thrift, Sheila Jasanoff, Saul Newman, David Featherstone, James Heartfield, Alejandro Colás and Jason Edwards, David Boyle, Saskia Sassen.”

* Explores the spirit and character of radical politics, at this pivotal moment in history.

* Thirty well known and influential commentators write original 3000 word essays.

* Offers thought provoking and often conflicting opinions.

* The only current wide ranging survey of the state of radical politics, post-crisis.

* Accessibly written for the general public and student audiences.

Recent reviews include:

“Provocative, authoritative and timely …” (New Statesman)

“This stimulating and impressively diverse collection of essays helps us to begin re-thinking our predicament. Anyone who finds themselves in agreement with all the authors here must be seriously confused, since several of the pieces offer directly contradictory analyses. But the strength of the book as a whole lies precisely in bringing different political traditions into productive dialogue” (Red Pepper)

“Jonathan Pugh gathers some of the most innovative and insightful voices from Britain and beyond to stage a series of debates on the central issues facing radical politics today.  This collection is a model for the kinds of discussion we need to move forward.” Michael Hardt (Duke University).

“This is a bold, brave and timely book. As we emerge, blinking into the light after three decades of neo-liberal darkness, Jonathan Pugh has put together a collection of essays that will provoke and provide clues to the question of what comes next; what indeed is radical politics today?” Neal Lawson (Director, Compass).

“This timely and well-planned collection of essays by distinguished and concerned scholars throws much new light on where we should be looking for new ideas. It represents a major contribution to the ongoing debate on the problems of our times.” Lord Bhikhu Parekh

5] A number of participants in the network have also contributed to the following special issue of the journal GLOBALIZATIONS

Special Issue: Globalization and Crisis
Volume 7, Issue 1-2, April 2010

This special issue of Globalizations consists of a set of analyses provided by leading international scholars in the field of both the theoretical and the practical relationship between ‘globalization’ – as each contributor interprets this concept – and ‘crisis’ both historically and in the present context i.e. the most severe global systemic crisis for a century. The articles are intended to provide substantial analytical critique, and contribute to the development of new
understandings of globalization.

Contributors: Editor:

Barry K. Gills, Newcastle University, UK
Foreword: ‘Fair Globalization in Crisis’
Mrs Tarja Halonen, President of Finland
Saskia Sassen
Walden Bello
Grahame Thompson
Ankie Hoogvelt
Henry Veltmeyer
Richard Falk
Craig N. Murphy
V. Spike Peterson
Mustapha Kamal Pasha
Heikki Patomaki
James H. Mittelman
Barry K. Gills
Francois Houtart
Susan George
Wazir Jahan Karim
M. Scott Solomon
Ronaldo Munck
Andreas Bieler
Ingemar Lindberg
Werner Sauerborn
Samir Amin
Jonathan Pugh
Nick Buxton
Gemma Bone

END

For “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network website: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/

For Radical Politics Today magazine: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/publications/magazine/magazine.html

For more on the book What is radical politics today?, published in 2009 by Palgrave MacMillan: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/resources_bookstoread.html

Jonathan Pugh
Senior Academic Fellow
Director “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
5th Floor Daysh Building
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
United Kingdom
Honorary Fellow, The Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster

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

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

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon Profile: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/

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

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

Wavering on Ether: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski

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

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon – Two New Tracks

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon

COLD HANDS & QUARTER MOON – TWO NEW TRACKS

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon entered two new tracks on their MySpace site today.

These are ‘Stagnant’ and ‘Slaves & Masters’

You can listed to these new tracks at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

There are various versions of ‘Stagnant’ now available:

Live at the Belle View, Bangor, north Wales:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ 

Session in the basement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StqTevvSQ_k

The Cold Hands & Quarter Moon Profile is at: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/

In addition, you can see ‘Daystar’, (an excellent video and song) by Will Roberts, who also plays in Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6f_pA5XUPk

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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