The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization – 7th Conference

SOCIAL PATHOLOGIES OF CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION

7^th CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PAPERS
Social Suffering in an Era of Resilience

October 19^th & 20^th 2017

Goethe-University Frankfurt, in co-operation with the Institute for Social Research
The seventh international conference on The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization once again explores the nature of contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and syndromes in their relation to cultural pathologies of the social body. Usually these conditions are interpreted clinically in terms of individualized symptoms and framed in demographic and epidemiological profiles. They are represented and responded to discretely, as though for the most part unrelated to each other; each having their own professional discourses of etiology, diagnostics, therapeutics, as well as their task forces developing health strategy and policy recommendations and interventions. However, these diseases also have a social and cultural profile, one that transcends the particularity of their symptomology and their discrete etiologies. These pathologies are diseases related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collective esprit de corps of contemporary society.
Multi-disciplinary in approach the conference addresses questions of how these conditions are manifest at the level of individual bodies and minds, as well as how the ‘bodies politic’ are related to the hegemony of reductive biomedical and psychologistic perspectives. Rejecting such a reductive diagnosis of contemporary problems of health and well-being, the central research hypothesis guiding the conference is that contemporary epidemics are to be analysed in the light of radical changes in our civilization and of the social hegemonization of the biomedical and psychiatric perspective. They arise from individual and collective experiences of profound and drastic social changes and cultural shifts.
More specifically – but not exclusively – this conference will focus on the social dynamics of suffering. In times where an increasing neglect of society is only asking for one’s resilience, we want to focus on the understanding how social and cultural conditions moderate the experience of suffering. Social Suffering as a concept comprises two things: first, collective suffering, for instance as a result of war or natural catastrophes; and second, individual suffering, insofar as it has primarily societal causes.

• The so called refugee crisis brings in also questions of morality: is the focus on resilience in light of collective suffering of any help? Could resonance as a concept on the other side help to a better understanding of the suffering?
• Psychic suffering and social inequality
• Due to the transformation of work and the psychosocial costs associated with these changes, as well as the increasing tendencies towards social exclusion, the issue of social suffering has entered the agenda of industrialized nations as well. The notion of social suffering highlights the fact, then, that the suffering in question is caused by structural conditions and remains embedded in them. It is suffering in society and because of it.
• Psychologization of Suffering. Is the notion of “social Pathologies” as well as the ongoing question for a diagnostic potential of the social sciences already part of an neglect of society itself and playing into the hands of psychology? What role plays therapy culture in this development?
• Common to all contributions to this field is both the interpretation of social suffering as an increasing effect of neoliberal capitalist socialization and its determination as a theoretical reference point for social critique. Whilst attending to the particular ways in which individuals struggle to make ‘the problem of suffering’ productive for thought and action, it also works to understand how, through to the level of collective experience, this contributes to wider dynamics of social change. Is the concept of resonance a starting point maybe?

The conference invites papers offering analyses, discussions and perspectives of the overall theme (and related themes) from faculty, students and researchers in fields such as psychiatry, philosophy, sociology, social theory, psychology, anthropology etc.

Abstracts (300 words) please, by Friday, December 23^rd 2016, to: socialpathologies2017@gmx.de

Web: http://socialpath.simplesite.com/

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

DARKMATTER

Mors Mystica

DARKMATTER

Announcing the publication of a special issue of Darkmatter Journal, “Reflections on Dispossession: Critical Feminisms” eds. Brenna Bhandar and Davina Bhandar, with contributions from Sara R. Farris, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Alyosha Goldstein, Leticia Sabsay and Rafeef Ziadah.

This collection traces a path for contemporary critiques of neoliberal capitalism and colonial dispossession. The authors show the compelling need for complex strategies and tools to evaluate the interlocking or intersectional practices of dispossession, and their particular effects on racialised, Indigenous, sexualized, and gendered subjects.

 

Darkmatter is an open access journal, and the special issue can be accessed here:

http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/issues/14-dispossession/

 

Praise for “Reflections on Dispossession”:

“Crossing centuries, oceans, continents, and disciplines, this ambitious and extraordinary collection shows how the logic of dispossession and its productions of difference reach into a present that avows colorblindness and erases coloniality. In its courtrooms, border checkpoints, intimacies, reform impulses, prisons, refugee camps, and regimes of accumulation, the neoliberal order is shown to draw on and recalibrate histories of gendered colonial oppression as long as they are deep.” – David Roediger (University of Kansas)

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/special-issue-of-the-journal-darkmatter-reflections-on-dispossession-critical-feminisms-out-now

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Why Study the Rich?

WHY STUDY THE RICH?

Public Programme

April 23, 2016: 12.30-5.30pm, Free

Rabbits Roads Institute

Old Manor Park Library

835 Romford Road

Manor Park

London

E12 5JY
Map

An afternoon of talks and discussion

Refreshments served. Older children and young adults welcome.

Book via eventbrite.co.uk or email info@rabbitsroadinstitute.org

‘Why study the Rich?’ is an event that brings together cross-disciplinary approaches to studying wealth in society. Come and listen to talks by activists, writers and artists whose scrutiny, investigation and differing perspectives attempt to challenge cultural narratives and societal structures that are intrinsically linked to the maintenance of power.

Open discussion with the audience is encouraged throughout the afternoon, as together we discuss how studies of ‘the rich’ might reveal a deeper understanding of the conditions of contemporary life and contribute to the debate about inequality in society.

 

Confirmed Speakers:

Roger Burrows, Professor of Cities at Newcastle University

Aditya Chakrabortty, senior economics commentator for The Guardian

Jeremy Gilbert, writer, researcher and activist & Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at UEL

Katharina Hecht, PhD student at LSE, on Economic Inequality

Jo Littler, Reader in Cultural Industries at City University London

Laure Provost, Artist, screening film ‘How to make money religiously’

 

‘Why study the Rich?’ culminates a project called The Rich as a Minority Group by artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck in collaboration with GCSE Sociology students from Little Ilford School in Newham.

Rabbits Road Institute: http://createlondon.org/event/rabbits-road-institute/ and http://oldmanorparklibrary.org/rri/

Sign up to the Rabbits Road newsletter

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

PASTORAL – Art @ Compotes – Forest Gate

PASTORAL – ART @ COMPOTES – FOREST GATE

By Robert White

Compôtes

118 Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, London, E7 0EW

Bakery, deli, café.

On Friday 12^th February 2016, I went to see the opening of the Pastoral art exhibition at Compôtes in Forest Gate, east London. There was some wonderful art on display. The exhibition was curated by Gabrielle Luca Iozzi and featured exhibits by the following artists: Giuseppe Iozzi, Sabela Mahlangu, Fungai Marima, Jose Pindian, and Robert White.

Pastoral is open free to view at Compôtes until March 12^th 2016.

The cakes and soup at Compôtes are particularly good. The freshly baked bread is top notch. Compôtes is close to both Forest Gate and Wanstead Park train stations.

Glenn Rikowski: 18^th February 2016

Giuseppe Iozzi

***END***

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

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Rights to Nature

RIGHTS TO NATURE

Conference & Call for Papers

“Rights to Nature: tracing alternative political ecologies to the neoliberal environmental agenda”.

This is a hybrid academic-activist event that aims to encourage a closer collaboration between scholars and activists working on the neoliberalisation of nature. The conference is sponsored by the GEOFORUM journal.

23rd and 24th June 2016

Keynes Hall, King’s College, University of Cambridge, UK

 

We are looking for activists and scholars engaged in environmental movements in Europe. We are interested in a wide variety of topics, including -but not limited- the privatization of natural resources and public assets, land grabbing, the dismantling of traditional forms of using natural resources, the neoliberalisation of nature (including biodiversity conservation), and expropriation of green spaces in both urban and rural areas. Instances of these movements include anti-fracking and anti-mining movements, housing struggles, anti-biodiversity offsetting initiatives, movements against the privatization of public nature assets, including forests and water, and struggles against gentrification, regeneration, urban redevelopment and/or large infrastructure projects with significant environmental impacts.

We would like to invite you to participate in the conference and also if possible to help us reaching people from outside academia that engage in this kind of work. We have some funding available to pay for travel and accommodation. We would be extremely grateful if you could pass them this information and the preliminary program and call for papers, please.

You can find the call for papers here: http://conservationandtransformation.com/2016/01/27/conference-rights-to-nature-tracing-alternative-political-ecologies-to-the-neoliberal-environmental-agenda/ and here (in the Facebook page you can also find the program): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985735908164832/

Deadline for Abstracts: 27^th March 2016

We would also like to let you know that our goal is to enable an in-depth discussion between scholars and activists and, therefore, this would be a rather small event with a limited number of participants.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/conference-rights-to-nature-tracing-alternative-political-ecologies-to-the-neoliberal-environmental-agenda

Old Nature

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

What is New Materialism? Marxism, New Materialisms and the Nature / Culture Divide

New Materialism

WHAT IS NEW MATERIALISM? MARXISMS, NEW MATERIALISMS AND THE NATURE / CULTURE DIVIDE

4th March 2016

Westminster Forum

5th Floor

University of Westminster

32-38 Wells Street

London

W1T 3UW
Tickets here 

Programme:

12 – 2: Plenary panel: David Chandler, Felicity Colman, Nicholas Kiersey, Phoebe Moore.
2.30 – 5.30: Speakers: Helen Palmer, Paul Rekret, Daniela Tepe–Belfrage, Michiel van Ingen. Discussant: Christian Fuchs

In response to a perceived prioritization of ‘mind over matter or culture over nature’ in the humanities and cultural studies, contemporary philosophers Braidotti and DeLanda separately named a shift in research that brings attention to the body or corporeal and explores immanence over transcendence in ontology as new materialism (or neo-materialism) in the 1990s. Since then, feminist, poststructuralist, historical materialist, science and technology, geography and critical realist researchers have begun to explore what it means to move away from the confines of discourse analysis and research that is limited to analysis of the cognitive, introducing research on human subjectivity as embodied, denying quantification of the affective field, rethinking categories of agency and causality and taking seriously questions around what it means to be human. New materialism is a critical ontological position that transcends thought traditions and advances studies that transgress mind-body dualism from the side of the mind and rejects research that eliminates possibilities for lived experiences except as efficient, rational, managed subjects.

The workshop ‘What is new in new materialism? Marxisms, new materialisms and the nature/culture divide‘ serves partly as an introduction to new materialism and partly as a space to critique and develop nascent work in this emerging area. We will ask, what is the difference between immanent, transcendental approaches and materialist ontology? Where do historical materialists stand on questions of nature and culture? What new questions of the human can we pose and what is the promise of the posthuman? Is this arena one where Marxist and poststr ucturalist agendas harmonise? What is the difference between mechanical materialism, historical materialism and new materialism? And, what is at stake in the connection between the human and materialism?

Co-organised with the Materialisms Reading Group run by David Chandler and & the CSE South Group run by Phoebe Moore and Martin Upchurch. (Capital & Class is the CSE journal.)

Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE): Two Spring Events: https://phoebevmoore.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/cse-south-group-two-spring-events/

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

New Materialism

Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology and Power – A Free Course!

Cultural Studies

INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL STUDIES: CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY AND POWER

A Free Course!

First Session: 23^rd February 2016

OPEN SCHOOL EAST

 

Open School East
The Rose Lipman Building
43 De Beauvoir Rd
London N1 5SQ

 

Details of a free course in Cultural Studies at Open School East in London, starting next week, can be found at https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/free-course-introduction-to-cultural-studies-culture-technology-power/

Please disseminate to anyone who might be interested
Thanks
Jeremy Gilbert
http://www.jeremygilbert.org
@jemgilbert

 

Free Course! Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power

From February to June this year, I’ll be teaching on a free fortnightly course at Open School East in Dalston which will be be covering a number of key issues in contemporary cultural politics – race, gender, sexuality, technology, neoliberalism, music, money, the future, etc. I’ll be taking most of the sessions – Stephen Maddison will do the one on queer politics.

Anyone is welcome and it should be very interesting.

These lectures / seminar are technically the second part of a free course titled ‘Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power’, but they should be accessible and interesting whether you are completely new to these things, or an advanced cultural theory postgrad, or anything in between.

Please do pass on to anyone who might be interested.

For more details about the course, the context, etc. see HERE and HERE

 

Open School East: http://www.openschooleast.org/

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Space, Identities and Memory

SPACE, IDENTITIES AND MEMORY

Birkbeck Institutes of Social Research and the Humanities Graduate Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

Space, Identities and Memory

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 11/03/2016.

Contact: bihbisrconference@gmail.com

We invite postgraduate researchers, academics, activists, artists, and practitioners from across disciplines to contribute to the Birkbeck Institutes’ (BIH/BISR) annual two day conference held from the 13th to the 14th  May 2016.

This year’s conference theme seeks to examine the interplay between identity, space and memory, exploring the ways in which identities may be created, formed and informed by spatial and temporal contexts. In particular, we seek to examine to what extent identities are performed in response to political, social and cultural pressures, including historical circumstances leading to the construction of acceptable and unacceptable identities.

The conference aims to capture the complex overlaying of identities in time and space, and the agency of individuals and communities as they address their own complex understandings of the temporality of identity. Conversely, we hope the conference will highlight how space and time are influenced and shaped by everyday life, sociabilities, mobilisations and processes of subjectivation. In particular we are seeking papers that engage with topics such as:

 

• The built environment: how are housing, architecture, urbanity and concepts of public and private space harnessed in the self-fashioning of individual and communal identity?
• Gender, sexuality and race, the politics of becoming and the deterritorialisation of the body;
• ’Home’, domesticity and concepts of solitude and isolation across time and space;
• Spaces of dissent and resistance: how is memory imbricated in public spaces as sites of encounters, direct action and creative practices?
• Displacements and borders: constructing or disassembling boundaries from local to global;
• Explorations in the use of maps, social cartography and critical geography;
• Exclusion and inclusion in institutional spaces: how have institutionalised spaces cemented or challenged contemporary and past perspectives on identity?
• Narrating the past: memorialisation, contestation and re-enactment
• Innovative methods and approaches in the investigation of the intersections between space, identity and memory

 

Our first confirmed keynote speaker is Andy Merrifield. The conference will conclude with a round table bringing together activists, practitioners and academics.

This is an interdisciplinary conference, designed to foster creative thinking and new research agendas. To this end, we encourage papers from a diversity of disciplinary backgrounds that explore the interconnections of space, identity and memory.

We are particularly interested in receiving contributions from artists and practitioners in education, the heritage sector or related fields to participate in this interdisciplinary conference.

Proposals

We warmly welcome abstracts for 20-minute panel papers. Abstracts should be between 200-300 words in length. Please include a short biography with your submission.  The deadline for submission of abstracts is the 11/03/2016. Authors will be notified regarding the acceptance of their paper after submissions have been reviewed and no later than 31/03/2016.

Contact Details

Please send enquiries and proposals to Beth Hodgett, Calum Wright, Eva Lauenstein & Moniza Rizzini at:

bihbisrconference@gmail.com

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

 

London Materialisms Reading Group Meetings + Other Events

LONDON MATERIALISMS READING GROUP MEETINGS

We are very pleased to announce an exciting series of events co-sponsored/co-organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster:

1) The next London Materialisms Reading Group meeting is:

Thursday 3 December 2015 – Nick Srnicek (co-author of the Verso manifesto Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work) will be introducing Graham Harman’s Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Political

Future dates for your diary:

21. Thursday 21 January 2016 – Philip Cunliffe (University of Kent) will be introducing Alexander Wendt’s Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology

22. Thursday 25 February 2016 – introduction (tbc) we will be discussing Chapter 1 ‘Introduction: Rhizome’ of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus

23. Thursday 31 March 2016 – Michiel van Ingen (University of Westminster) will be introducing Kate Soper’s What is Nature: Culture, Politics and the Non-Human

Reading group meetings are open to all and take place Thursdays 6.30-8.00pm, Westminster Forum, Department of Politics and International Relations, 5th Floor, 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW (5 minutes from Oxford Circus tube). Wine and nibbles are provided.

 

If you wish to be on the Materialisms Reading Group mailing list please email me at d.chandler@wmin.ac.uk. Further information available here: http://www.davidchandler.org/materialisms/.

2) The next in the Living in the Anthropocene series of workshops is:

Decolonising the Anthropocene
Friday 27 November, 1-5pm, Westminster Forum, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW (5 minutes walk from Oxford Circus tube station)

Convenors: Olivia Rutazimbwa (University of Portsmouth), Angela Last (Glasgow University), Kathryn Yusoff (Queen Mary)

Speakers and roundtable discussants: Patricia Noxolo (Birmingham), Robbie Shilliam (Queen Mary), Kathryn Yusoff (Queen Mary), Olivia Rutazibwa (Portsmouth), Angela Last (Glasgow).

The concept of the Anthropocene involves the rejection of one of modernity’s most important tenets: the nature/culture divide. Yet from a post-western perspective this can hardly be seen as a ground-breaking discovery. The colonial experience has for long evidenced the destructive nature of this divide while indigenous cosmologies, religious worldviews as well as other (non-western) philosophies have provided alternatives to the nature/culture divide and continue to do so. Does the holistic and relational understanding of reality entailed in the idea of the Anthropocene present an opportunity to rethink the sources of our knowledge production and work towards a more inclusive and sustainable use and distribution of the available planetary resources; or is the ‘discovery’ of the Anthropocene yet another stage of Eurocentric knowledge production?

Who sets the agenda, which voices and topics continue to be silenced and do they consolidate or dissipate existing inequalities? How much space is there for the ‘pluriversality’ Walter Mignolo calls for in the potentially totalising proclamation of the Anthropocene? What does the attention to complexity and non-linearity mean for post- and decolonial understandings and attachment to issues of agency, autonomy and self-determination? This workshop will examine these and other questions, both theoretically and empirically, to explore the merits and challenges of the Anthropocene to decoloniality and vice versa. Understood as a triple invitation to de-mythologise, de-silence and de-colonise, decoloniality combines both a deconstructive toolbox for critique at the epistemological level and a constructive imperative to counter the colonial (material) forms of extreme power inequality.

Information and registration here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decolonising-the-anthropocene-tickets-19330332545 further information on the series: http://rethinkingtheanthropocene.blogspot.co.uk/

3) Call for papers, Centre for the Study of Democracy and Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment joint University of Westminster workshop:

Design After Planning: Examining the Shift from Epistemology to Topology https://designafterplanning.wordpress.com/

10.00 – 17:30, Friday 5 February 2016, University of Westminster, London

Confirmed keynote speakers:  Filip de Boeck (KU Leuven) & Erik Swyngedouw (University of Manchester)

The question of how different types of ‘planning’ should deal with uncertainty has taken on fresh importance. On the one hand, existential threats such as climate change, overpopulation, and new forms of global conflict expand the temporal and spatial horizons of our sense of responsibility as never before. On the other, the world is constructed increasingly as emergent, complex and non-linear; the ‘wicked’ problems it throws up are not amenable to modernist, top-down solutions. The intelligence required to tackle contemporary problems is understood to be dispersed and enacted, rather than a pre-given object to be gathered by the state. In Mol’s (2002) formulation, epistemological questions (‘how can we be sure?’) are increasingly usurped by pragmatic ones (‘how can we live with doubt?’).

In this embrace of uncertainty, concerns over the limitations of representational ‘modelling’ are being dislodged by an ideal of unmediated, dynamic problem-resolution whereby the ‘topologies’ of complex reality continually reveal themselves. In practical terms, this has entailed a shift towards iterative processes of dispersed governance; policy makers no longer attempt to impose order on a chaotic outside, but rather attempt to ‘see’ through the emergent systems themselves. Thus, goals of international developmental aid are no longer determined from the centre so much as coproduced in specific locations with the aid of the internet of things and the citizen as sensor; top-down planning of the built environment has given way to localised, discursive decision-making alongside an embrace of informality; the residual modernism of sustainable development is increasingly inflected with ‘resilience’.

If the broad project here is to work with emerging, complex systems, rather than against or in spite of them, might it then be productive to conceptualise the role of governing and city-making in terms of ‘design’ rather than planning?  If so, is there value in retheorising design so as more explicitly to capture contemporary interactive logics of emergent causality and agency?  Or, alternatively, does linear planning have a newly important role to play? Might it function as a type of normative resistance to the ‘market logic’ with which these new forms of governance are perhaps aligned?

We plan to include three panels on: • disaster and risk design – examining the rise of topological approaches to international aid and disaster relief, digital humanitarianism, crowd-sourcing and citizens as sensors • designing with emergent urban systems – exploring the potential for iterative and decentred modes of governance and urban design to overcome the shortcomings of liberal-modernist planning • resilience versus sustainability – investigating the theoretical and practical purchase of resilience and sustainability in relation to the ‘topologies’ of complex reality, and the problematic theoretical interface between the two concepts.

Submitting abstracts: We invite papers relating to any of the panels above, which contribute to a theorisation of spatial planning and urban, national, or international governance as processes of design, as well as those which question this endeavour. Speakers from all academic disciplines are welcome to participate (and there will be no registration fee).Please send your abstract (c.350 words) to: Isis Nunez Ferrera (i.nunez-ferrera@psi.org.uk), Tudor Vilcan (tudorvilcan@gmail.com), and Rob Cowley (robert.cowley@kcl.ac.uk) by 1 December 2015.

Best wishes,
David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW. Tel: ++44 (0)776 525 3073.
Journal Editor, Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/resi20

Amazon books page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Chandler/e/B001HCXV7Y/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Personal website: http://www.davidchandler.org/
Twitter: @DavidCh27992090

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Mapping Alternative Routes Out of Capitalism

MAPPING ALTERNATIVE ROUTES OUT OF CAPITALISM

See below a call for panels and papers for a section in the European International Studies Association conference, Izmir, Turkey, 7-10 September 2016.

The section seeks panels and papers on alternatives to capitalism, and how we might achieve them, both within the capitalist present and on the route to a post-capitalist society.

The deadline for proposals is 8 January 2016 and must be done online through the EISA conference tool website – https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/

Please feel free to contact us first to discuss informally ahead of submitting proposals: David Bailey (d.j.bailey@bham.ac.uk) and Phoebe Moore (p.moore@mdx.ac.uk)

Section title: Mapping Alternative Routes Out of Capitalism

Section abstract: The critical study of global capitalism and the hegemony of neoliberalism are both central to the study of international relations and international political economy. International studies has focused less, however, on questioning how (if at all) we might go beyond capitalism. This is despite global capitalism remaining dangerously unstable, not least because the global economic crisis that began in 2008 continues to linger without any obvious resolution to it. The aim of this section, therefore, is to bring together those with an interest in the rise of alternatives at varied positions along the ideological spectrum; mapping, studying, theorising, highlighting, judging and assessing practices which form contemporary alternatives to, and problems for, global capitalism. This includes pathways in local, regional and global contexts.  In particular, we note two emerging types of response, each of which expose the ever-present possibility and presence of sometimes surprising and contradictory routes outside of capitalism, as well as raising the question of technology in contemporary social change. On the one hand, we see various modified projects seeking alternative routes to social justice and rights: futurist, anti-proprietary or gift culture movements, survivalism, cooperatives, DIY culture, permaculture, experimentation with cybernetics and post-humanist ideals, as well as revived institutional interests in wellbeing. On the other hand, we see the explicit contestation of capitalism through varyingly autonomous forms of struggle: Occupy, the indignados, the Greek grassroots projects, Rojava, and, then, the electoral manifestation of some of these trends within Syriza, Podemos, Barcelona en Comú, and Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Section convenors: David Bailey (d.j.bailey@bham.ac.uk) and Phoebe Moore (p.moore@mdx.ac.uk).

Submissions to be made here: https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/

Deadline for submissions: 8 January 2016

Conference website and more details: http://www.paneuropeanconference.org/2016/

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-alternatives-to-capitalism

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

The End of Progressive Hegemony

Hegemony

THE END OF PROGRESSIVE HEGEMONY: REGRESSIVE TURN IN THE PASSIVE REVOLUTIONS OF LATIN AMERICA

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Evening Guest Lecture in the School of Politics and International Relations,

Queen Mary University of London

The End of Progressive Hegemony: Regressive Turn in the Passive Revolutions of Latin America

Massimo Modonesi, Professor of Sociology, UNAM, Mexico City

The experience of the so-called progressive governments in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela) seems to have entered an impasse that some authors have labelled the end of a cycle. Starting from their characterization as passive revolutions we can analyse the current processes of these governments according to a shared, defining feature: the relative loss of hegemony, that is to say of the capacity to construct cross-class consensus. This loss is traceable to a shift from a progressive profile to a more regressive one in these governments and their actions, perceptible as much in new equilibriums in their constituent blocs and social alliances, as in their public policy orientation and relationships to social movements. In the short term horizon, it does not appear that there will be an imminent break with the political-institutional order and a return of the Right, but  there is an observable conservative turn in the region ̵ 1; more perceptible in some countries (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador) than in others (Venezuela and Bolivia). On the other hand, alongside this emerging context of an offensive by the national and international Right within Latin America, there is also a clear reactivation of protest on the part of popular actors, organizations and movements; they are emphasizing their antagonistic profile once again, against the grain of the subordination they experienced during the progressive cycle of Latin American passive revolutions.

What: Lecture on the present state of progressive governments in Latin America, and the simultaneous reactivation of the Right and popular social movements of the Left.

When: Wednesday 2 December 2015, 18:00-20:00

Where: David Sizer Lecture Theatre (Francis Bancroft), Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus

Massimo Modonesi is a Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous National University of Mexico / Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City. He is an editor of arguably the most important sociological journal in Latin America, Observatorio social de América Latina (OSAL), and sits on the editorial board of the leading leftist magazine in Mexico, Memoria. Modonesi is also an authority on the political writings of Antonio Gramsci, and an expert in both contemporary Marxist theory and socio-political movements and the Left in twentieth and twenty-first century Latin America. He is the author of Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy (Pluto, 2013), as well as several influential books in Spanish.

Attendance is free of charge, but please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/massimo-modonesi-the-end-of-progressive-hegemony-tickets-19634320782

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/lecture-at-qmul-december-2-the-end-of-progressive-hegemony-regressive-turn-in-the-passive-revolutions-of-latin-america-massimo-modonesi

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

The Making of Humanities V

THE MAKING OF THE HUMANITIES V

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

5–7 October 2016

The fifth conference on the history of the humanities, ‘The Making of the Humanities V’, will take place at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA), from 5 till 7 October 2016.

Goal of the Making of the Humanities (MoH) Conferences

The MoH conferences are organized by the Society for the History of the Humanities and bring together scholars and historians interested in the history of a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeology, art history, historiography, linguistics, literary studies, musicology, philology, and media studies, tracing these fields from their earliest developments to the modern day.

We welcome panels and papers on any period or region. We are especially interested in work that transcends the history of specific humanities disciplines by comparing scholarly practices across disciplines and civilizations.

Please note that the Making of the Humanities conferences are not concerned with the history of art, the history of music or the history of literature, etc., but instead with the history of art history, the history of musicology, the history of literary studies, etc.

Structure of the Conference

MoH-V will feature three days of panel and paper sessions, next to three keynote speakers and a closing panel on the Status of the Humanities. A reception will take place on the first day in the magnificent Peabody Library, and a banquet on the second day. An overview of the previous conferences and resulting publications is on the Society’s homepage.

Keynote Speakers MoH-V

Karine Chemla (ERC project SAW, SPHERE, CNRS & U. Paris Diderot): “Writing the history of ancient mathematics in China and beyond in the 19th century: who? for whom?, and how?”

Anthony Grafton (Princeton U.): “Christianity and Philology: Blood Wedding?”

Sarah Kay (New York U.): “Inhuman Humanities and the Artes that Make up Medieval Song”

Abstract Submissions

Abstracts of single papers (25 minutes including discussion) should be in Word format and contain the name of the speaker, full contact address (including email address), the title and a summary of the paper of maximally to historyhumanities@gmail.com.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2016

Notification of acceptance: End of June 2016

Panel Submissions

Panels last 1.5 hours and can consist of 3-4 papers including discussion and possibly a commentary. Panel proposals should be in Word format and contain respectively the name of the chair, the names of the speakers and commentator, full contact addresses (including email addresses), the title of the panel, a short (150 words) description of the panel’s content and for each paper an abstract of maximally 250 words. Panel proposals should be sent (in Word) to historyhumanities@gmail.com.

Deadline for panel proposals: 30 April 2016 Notification of acceptance: End of June 2016

Registration and Accommodation

Registration for the conference will be possible from April 2016. The conference fee will be kept as low as possible (the exact fee and information on student discount will be published in April 2016). Details about the conference fee and accommodation will also be posted in April 2016.

Organization and Support

Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Heritage and Identity

The Humanities Center, JHU

The Sheridan Libraries, JHU

Institute for Logic, Language and Computation

Huizinga Institute of Cultural History

MoH International Committee

Rens Bod (U. of Amsterdam), Christopher Celenza (JHU, Baltimore), Hent de Vries (JHU, Baltimore), Julia Kursell (U. of Amsterdam), Fenrong Liu (Tsinghua University), Jaap Maat (U. of Amsterdam), Helen Small (U. of Oxford), Thijs Weststeijn (U. of Amsterdam)

MoH Local Organizing Committee

Stephen Nichols (JHU), Hent de Vries (JHU), Christopher Celenza (JHU)

History of Humanities Journal

Selected conference papers will be published in the new journal History of Humanities. The first issue is due to appear in March 2016.

History of Humanities Journal: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/journals/journal/hoh.html

The Making of the Humanities Conferences: http://makingofthehumanities.blogspot.co.uk/

Society for the History of Humanities: http://www.historyofhumanities.org/2015/10/29/call-for-papers-and-panels-the-making-of-humanities-v/

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/