New Academia Posts – Ruth Rikowski

Richmond, River Thames, May 2016

NEW ACADEMIA POSTS – RUTH RIKOWSKI

 

Ruth Rikowski has posted some new papers to Academia. These are as follows:

 

Rikowski, R. (2005) Traditional Knowledge and TRIPS, Information for Social Change, winter, Issue No. 22, at: http://www.academia.edu/27738384/Traditional_Knowledge_and_TRIPS

 

Rikowski, R. (2004) On the impossibility of determining the length of the working-day for intellectual labour, Information for Social Change, summer, Issue No.19, at: http://www.academia.edu/27738919/On_the_impossibility_of_determining_the_length_of_the_working_day_for_intellectual_labour

 

Rikowski, R. (2003) TRIPS into the Unknown: libraries and the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, IFLA Journal, Vol.29 No.2, pp.141-151, at: http://www.academia.edu/27738723/TRIPS_into_the_Unknown_libraries_and_the_WTO_Agreement_on_Trade-Related_Aspects_of_Intellectual_Property_Rights

 

Rikowski, R. (2003) Library Privatisation: Fact or Fiction? Information for Social Change, summer, Issue No.17, at: http://www.academia.edu/27765073/Library_Privatisation_Fact_or_Fiction

 

Rikowski, R. (2002) Globalisation and Libraries – Summary Paper, House of Lords, Select Committee on Economic Affairs, Inquiry into the Global Economy, 22^nd January, London, at: http://www.academia.edu/27768077/Globalisation_and_Libraries_-_Summary_Paper

 

Rikowski, R. (2002) The WTO, the GATS and the meaning of ‘services’, Public Library Journal, Vol.17 No.2, summer, pp.48-50, at: http://www.academia.edu/26196746/The_WTO_the_GATS_and_the_meaning_of_services

 

For all of Ruth Rikowski’s papers at Academia, see: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

 

Glenn Rikowski also has a new post at Academia:

 

Rikowski, G. (2002) The great GATS buyout, Red Pepper, No.101, November, pp.25-27, at: https://www.academia.edu/27735716/The_great_GATS_buyout

 

For all of Glenn Rikowski’s papers at Academia, see: 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

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‘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 Arts of Logistics

THE ARTS OF LOGISTSICS

Call for Papers

3^rd and 4^th June 2016

Queen Mary University of London

Keynote Presentations: Deborah Cowen (University of Toronto) and Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths, University of London)

The so-called “logistics revolution” and its attendant technologies have made possible capitalism’s reproduction and restructuring over the past half century. Among other things, logistics sped up the loading and unloading of ships and helped establish the “global factory,” thereby drastically reducing the labor time required to produce and circulate commodities. This allowed capitalism to expand its economies of scale and relocate manufacturing to wherever worker militancy and the costs of labor were lowest. While the logistics infrastructure has transformed social life the world over, it also has opened up new opportunities for resistance to exploitation. Since the onset of the financial crisis, an array of movements internationally have turned to logistics as a terrain of political struggle, from the work slowdowns of logistics employees to the port and highway blockades of social movements as various as Occupy, the “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” campaign, and BlackL ivesMatter. Logistics is also increasingly material for art, from representations of global trade in photography and literature to the use of actual shipping containers as performance spaces and pop-up galleries.

“The Arts of Logistics” brings together scholars, activists, and artists from across the humanities and social sciences to interrogate how social movements and the arts respond to a world remade by logistics. Long an important topic for economists, management theorists, and sociologists, logistics is only recently emerging as an object of substantive study by artists and researchers in the humanities. Thus, this conference seeks to further define scholarly, political, and artistic conversations on the nexus of political economy, anti-capitalist struggle, and art.

 

Possible topics participants could engage include the following:

-The politics and aesthetics of mapping logistics or infrastructure – Container art and architecture

-Historical representations of empire, trade, and commodity flows

-The emergence of counter-logistics as an anti-capitalist strategy

-Cultures of surveillance and security

-Labour and consumer activism around the “global factory”

-Data and network visualisation

-Queering logistics

 

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers in a variety of formats. As an interdisciplinary conference, we also welcome practical demonstrations by artists, performances lectures, roundtables, and more.

Please submit an abstract of 300 words (max) and a short bio of 50 words (max) to both conference organisers: Shane Boyle (m.s.boyle@qmul.ac.uk) and Aylwyn Walsh (awalsh@lincoln.ac.uk) by February 22. Please make sure to include your preferred contact information and specify ‘The Arts of Logistics’ in your subject line. If you are interested in making a proposal that involves multiple contributions or lasts longer than 20 minutes (like a roundtable or screening) please be in touch with the organisers as soon as possible.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-the-arts-of-logistics

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‘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

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‘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/

Ellen Meiksins Wood Symposium

Ellen Meiksins Wood

ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD SYMPOSIUM

November 4th, 2015

Birkbeck, London

Symposium on the work of Ellen Meiksins Wood

Wednesday 4th November

13:30 – 17:00

Lecture Theatre B34 Main Building,

Birkbeck, Torrington Square, London

Event is free to attend

The symposium will contain discussions on the politics and historiography of Ellen’s work from Robert Brenner, David McNally, Benno Teschke, Maia Pal, Samuel Knafo and Charles Post.

To mark Verso’s republication of Ellen Meiksins Wood’s The Pristine Culture of Capitalism and Peasant-Citizen and Slave, Birkbeck Politics Department, the Sussex PM group and Verso are hosting a symposium to celebrate the work of this great historian and political thinker.

Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading political theorist and one of the world’s most influential historians. Her wide-ranging and original work, covering topics which range from examinations of Athenian democracy to contemporary American imperialism, has, alongside Robert Brenner, inaugurated the ‘Political Marxist’ approach to history. Political Marxism is founded upon a critique of the teleology and formalism of many forms of Marxism in an attempt to re-historicising and re-politicising the Marxist project. The influence of Ellen’s distinctive work can be seen across the social sciences and has marked generations of scholars.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1148733385154308/

Verso Books page: http://www.versobooks.com/events/1240-symposium-on-the-work-of-ellen-meiksins-wood

The Pristine Culture of Capitalism

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‘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/

Rules for the World Market

RULES FOR THE WORLD MARKET

Professor Paul Cammack

Tuesday, 27 October 2015, 5-7 PM

Room G3 (SOAS Main Building)

Discussant: Dr Alessandra Mezzadri (SOAS)

Abstract: It is too often forgotten that some of the first calls for structural adjustment from the late 1970s on came from the OECD and the World Bank, and were directed towards the advanced Western economies. These organizations urged them to reform their welfare regimes and to open their economies to exports from the newly industrialised countries in particular. This paper characterises them primarily as producers of rules for the world market, and follows the evolution of the ‘world market project’ through to the present, with reference to the successive conjunctures of 1989-91 and 2008-2009. The principal focus is on the promotion of competitiveness, and the reform of labour markets and social protection. It is argued that the project is best understood as centrally concerned with the development of capitalist relations of production on a global scale.

Professor Paul Cammack received his PhD from the University of Oxford. He was until recently a faculty member in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong, China where he taught Global Political Economy. Professor Cammack has recently published “World Market Regionalism at the Asian Development Bank” in the Journal of Contemporary Asia and a series of Working Papers on the multilateral development banks and the Global Financial Crisis. Professor Cammack’s research interests include the response of multilateral development banks to the financial crisis, the political economy of Latin America, Marxism, south-south cooperation and the politics of development.

ALL WELCOME, NO NEED TO BOOK.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/professor-paul-cammack-rules-for-the-world-market-soas-ocober-27

We Are the Crisis

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‘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/

Contradictions: A Journal for Critical Thought

CONTRADICTIONS: A JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL THOUGHT

Call for Papers
A New Journal
Kontradikce /Contradictions: A Journal for Critical Thought

We are seeking submissions of scholarly articles and theoretical essays that skirt the disciplinary boundaries of political philosophy, social theory, and cultural critique. This peer-reviewed journal, based in Prague, aims to critically revive and update Central and Eastern European traditions of radical thought, bringing them to bear on the historical present and bringing them into international discussions of the theoretical problems involved in emancipatory social change.

The journal is therefore especially interested in 1) articles that delve into the often overlooked or forgotten history of radical left thought in our part of the world and assess this legacy’s contemporary significance; 2) articles that describe and develop related and parallel traditions of thought originating in other regions, bringing these traditions into conversation with the traditions of Central and Eastern Europe; 3) articles that analyze Soviet-type societies and their troubled relationship to historical and contemporary movements for social emancipation; and 4) articles that critically engage with the ideological assumptions and social conditions of “post-communism,” that is, of the discursive association of the communist project with Soviet-type societies and, thus, with a “failed” and irretrievable past.

With these thematic problems in mind, we ask what specific contributions to critical social theory can arise out of the post-Communist experience—that is, out of the historical conflation of communism (the idea and project) with Communism (the party and party-run states) and the subsequent de-legitimation of the former along with the latter. Our focus is thus both geographically specific and global, as we aim to bring together the specific intellectual legacy of those parts of Europe formerly under Communist Party rule with w orldwide reflections of the “fall” of communism as a leading political and intellectual force. Out of this situation, we ask what new visions can emerge.

The journal will be published once a year as a double issue in multilingual format, with one part in English and one part in Czech and Slovak. Submissions are welcome in any of these three languages (English, Czech, or Slovak).

The first issue, with a submission deadline of October 31, 2015, will focus thematically on assessing the current moment and the state of critical social—and in particular Marxist—thought a quarter century after the fall of governments in Central and Eastern Europe that officially sanctioned Marxism while also constraining its development as a tradition of social critique. Submissions are encouraged, but not required, to take this focus into account.

Articles are welcome in the following categories:

· “Studies” and “essays”: These may be articles of a more or less traditional academic character, but with an emphasis on the social significance of the material presented and on original and provocative argumentation. But we also welcome more essayistic contributions that break with some of the conventions of scholarly form. We are interested in rigorously theoretical essays, works of high scholarly value but which might not find a place in other scholarly journals. In this kind of writing, insightful generalization and shrewd observation will be given more weight than an exhaustive accounting for “existing literature” or a detailed description of research methodology. In other words, we have in mind essays that continue in the genre of most classic works in the modern history of ideas, from Rousseau’s Discourses through Benjamin’s “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Karel Kosík’s Dialectics of the Concrete. More traditionally scholarly articles should be about 4000-9000 words long. Essays can range from 3000 to 10,000 words.

· “Translations” and “materials”: Here we include important contributions to Central/Eastern European social thought that can be brought to international attention in English translation; internationally important works in new Czech or Slovak translations; and previously unpublished or long-unavailable “materials,” accompanied by annotation that presents the materials’ significance to contemporary readers (these may be submitted in English, Czech, or Slovak). 3000-10,000 words.

· “Reviews” of recent publications in critical social thought. Reviews may be brief (500-2000 words) or may constitute longer “review studies” (2000-5000 words).

Send all submissions to jgrimfeinberg@gmail.com.
Further information available on www.facebook.com/kontradikce.
First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-journal-contradictions

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‘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/

Historical Materialism London Conference 2015 – Online Registration Now Open

Karl Marx

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM LONDON CONFERENCE 2015 – ONLINE REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

 

 

 

HM 2015 Online Registration open at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual12/register
All queries: historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk
Programme online this week.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

 

Discussion on the Education White Paper for England and Extensions of the Commodification Process in Libraries and Schools

Ruth Rikowski

DISCUSSION ON THE EDUCATION WHITE PAPER FOR ENGLAND AND EXTENSIONS OF THE COMMODIFICATION PROCESS IN LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS

This, rather long title, pertains to the only paper / article written by us (Ruth and Glenn Rikowski) jointly. It appeared in the winter 2005/06 edition of Information for Social Change, Issue 22. We were both mightily concerned with processes and policies relating to the commodification of public services at the time, with Ruth focusing on libraries and Glenn on schools in England.

Furthermore, at the time, both of us were interested in the international dimension to the commodification of public services. Specifically, we were concerned with the likely impact of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This joint interest brought us together in a practical political sense too, when we became members of Attac London in 2000 and along with others organised a conference on the commodification of state services.

Of course, these topics have gained renewed importance with the current development of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Maybe the halting of significant advances in the WTO’s GATS process since Seattle 1999 in some way precipitated this development.

It is a shame that we have not written more together, and this is something that we aim to rectify in the future.

Meanwhile, this ‘Discussion’ piece can now be found at Academia:

For Glenn, it is at: http://www.academia.edu/12010645/Discussion_on_the_Education_White_Paper_for_England_and_Extensions_of_the_Commodification_Process_in_Libraries_and_Schools

For Ruth, it is at: http://www.academia.edu/12010645/Discussion_on_the_Education_White_Paper_for_England_and_Extensions_of_the_Commodification_Process_in_Libraries_and_Schools

Glenn Rikowski’s papers and articles at Academia can be viewed at: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski’s papers and articles at Academia can be viewed at: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

 

Ruth and Glenn Rikowski

London

September 2015

Radical Histories / Histories of Radicalism

The Usual Suspects

RADICAL HISTORIES / HISTORIES OF RADICALISM

CALL FOR PAPERS

RADICAL HISTORIES/HISTORIES OF RADICALISM

A MAJOR CONFERENCE AND PUBLIC HISTORY FESTIVAL

1-3 July 2016, Queen Mary University of London

This international event commemorates twenty years since the death of the leftwing social historian Raphael Samuel and forty years since the founding of History Workshop Journal. The event will explore radical approaches to the past and histories of radical ideas and action through lectures, panels, performances, screenings, workshops and exhibitions.

The event is hosted by Queen Mary University of London and organised by the Raphael Samuel History Centre (www.raphael-samuel.org.uk). It is intended to engage a diverse audience, and to bring together practitioners of many varieties of historical research, curatorship, writing and performance, from both inside and outside the academy. Other venues and partners for the event include Bishopsgate Institute, the London Metropolitan Archives and Tower Hamlets Local Studies Library.

The event will open on the evening of Friday 1st July with a plenary session ‘Radical history then and now’ involving radical historians, historians of radical movements and movement activists, past and present. It will close with a panel discussion on ‘Raphael Samuel and his Legacies’. In between these plenary sessions, there will be papers, film screenings, workshops, meetings and performances, all exploring a wide range of themes and ideas in radical history.

We have grouped these themes as follows:

1. Radical movements:
   History of radical movements and organisations; parties; left-wing activism; working-class radicalisms; national liberation struggles; popular mobilisations, past and present.
2. Diversity, difference and beyond:
   Histories of feminism, gender and sexuality; histories and activism of race and ethnicity; disability politics.
3. Local and global histories:
   Radical London; migration/movement of peoples; empire/post-colonial histories; globalisation; internationalism in a global age.
4. Culture, art and environment:
   Heritage and public history; radical arts; environmental activism; housing politics.
5. History, policy, and the idea of politics:
   Europe; government; elites; the move to the right; austerity; neo-liberalism; the politics of the academy

How to contribute:
Contributions that reflect on any of these themes in relation to any period of history are invited from academic and non-academic historians, and from those working or practising in the arts, education, heritage and culture, as well as activists campaigning in any of these areas.

The themes are indicative only, and we will consider proposals that fall outside them so long as these relate to the overall conference theme. We welcome offers of traditional academic papers but would particularly like to encourage proposals for other session formats likely to engage a varied audience, for example panel discussions, interactive hands-on workshops (for example, around primary source materials), photo-essays, exhibitions and performances. Contributions that focus on any period of history are welcome, as are contributions that offer reflections on methodologies (whether of the historian or the activist).

Please send a 250 – 500 word proposal, including a description of the format and content of the proposed paper, session, workshop, meeting, screenings, or performance. Include an abstract if appropriate, and the names of any other speakers or participants. AT THE TOP OF YOUR PROPOSAL PLEASE INDICATE THE CONFERENCE STRAND (A –E above) TO WHICH YOU THINK YOUR PROPOSAL RELATES MOST CLOSELY.

Please submit your proposal to Katy Pettit, Raphael Samuel History Centre administrator (k.pettit@uel.ac.uk) by Monday September 14th. Proposers will be notified by November 30th.

***

About the Raphael Samuel History Centre (RSHC)
Originally founded by the historian Raphael Samuel at the University of East London in 1996 as the Centre for East London History, and renamed after him in 2008, the Raphael Samuel History Centre has since expanded into a partnership between UEL, Birkbeck College University of London, Queen Mary University of London and Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.

An extensive range of events, projects and research activities operates under our umbrella as we seek to stimulate debate about the continuing force of the past in the present. Our dynamic and engaged approach to history goes beyond the limits of the academy to include people of all ages and backgrounds.

The Centre is recognised nationally and internationally as the hub for intelligent debate that links history to present-day concerns and crosses boundaries between academic and public/popular history. We aim to put history in conversation both with other disciplines, and with contemporary activism and politics. In the spirit of Raphael Samuel and more broadly of the History Workshop movement, we are committed to a democratic, non-elitist and inclusive approach to history. We aim to support, nurture and encourage both new-career academic historians and those working in history outside academia. We provide a forum for debate about the place of history in public life, in schools, heritage organizations and the media. We enter into partnership with other organizations – large and small – in order to stimulate interest in and discussion of history.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-radical-histories-histories-of-radicalism

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‘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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Social Movements, Resistance and Social Change II: Possibilities, Ideas, Demands

Social Movements

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, RESISTANCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE II: POSSIBILITIES, IDEAS, DEMANDS

Second Annual Conference and Social Change Forum
University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2-4 September 2015

Call
Elites are delighted to be reassured that there never was a crisis and indeed there never will be. No financial crisis, which might interrupt profitability. No ecological crisis, which might despoil their inner compounds. No housing crisis, which might involve them becoming permanent tenants. No food crisis, which might mean that their plates and cups were not brimming over. If there was a crisis then it was a crisis for others, which as usual for the callous meant no crisis at all.

At the same time, we have seen the rise of radical new possibilities, ideas and demands. Democratically elected states contested the technocratic puppets governing them; those who had built nations asked that they no longer be routinely murdered in t he streets; students reclaimed their universities from their twisted administrators; tribunal deliberations confirmed that tangata whenua had never ceded rangatiratanga; mass demonstrations rose against ‘austerity’; economists demanded confiscatory taxes on capital; novelists called the bluff on their illiterate rulers; socialist and feminist parties confronted arms traders.

This conference and social change forum invites participants to share their learning about the possibilities, ideas and demands actually existing in present economic, political and cultural arrangements. The event will be equally scientific and programmatic, combining the most important ideas and analyses of the present with concrete programmes for social change. Rejecting the alternatives of academic conference, political rally and direct action, this meeting intends to be none of these but all, and more.

This meeting will build on the 2014 Social Movements, Resistance and Social Change conference which brought together and provided a mapping of social movements locally and globally. That meeting provided a valuable overview of resistance and social change on behalf of responsibility, sustainability and social equality, the results of which will appear in a forthcoming issue of Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online. The 2014 conference created sustained relationships across the left including the establishment of an eSocSci social movements network for developing and continuing these conversations. The 2015 event will extend this work of mapping and understanding social movements, resistance and social change. Beyond this, it invites discussion around questions of what is possible, what can be thought and what can be demanded today.

Participation
We invite participation in a variety of forms. The three days will provide considerable time for open discussion and debate. We therefore welcome particip ants who would rather not present a formal academic paper but can instead share their experience and learning with others. Participants wishing to attend but not present a paper are invited to email with an indication of interest.

At the same time, we invite formal theoretical and scientific contributions that will provide rigorous analyses of our present conjuncture. Formal papers can deal with any aspect of questions relating to social movements, resistance and social change, but we particularly invite considerations on questions of the new possibilities, ideas and demands that present themselves today. Papers might address, but are not restricted to, the following themes:

• Founding political acts
• The shapes and forms of politics
• Struggles for sovereignty
• The rise of social movements in Aotearoa and beyond
• New logics of emancipation
• Contesting power, contesting knowledge
• The role of the academy in social movements and activism
• Why thought matters
• Logical revolts
• Science, knowledge, truths
• The fragility of power
• Legal struggles and change at the level of the state
• Art and politics – the aesthetics of politics
• What ideas can do
• What we do when we win
• Thinking beyond capitalism, patriarchy and racism
• Possibilities for new political subjects
• Actually existing alternatives within economy and society today
• Counterhistories and counterfutures

We invite submissions from presenters in the form of an abstract of no more than 500 words. Abstracts are due 15 June 2015 and notification of acceptance will be made by the end of June.

Please email submissions as a document attachment to resistanceandsocialchange@gmail.com

Outcomes
We envisage four principal results of the conference and forum:

To strengthen existing relations and develop new forms of collaboration. Working on social bonds amongst those in resistance movements is our first objective.

To develop concrete programmes for social change, whether in the form of new ideas, social practices, laws and/or institutions. Our goal is to develop all of these, in part and in whole, ultimately in concert together .

Scholarly papers presented at the conference and forum will be invited for consideration for publication in a special issue of the journal New Zealand Sociology. Full length papers should be prepared for the September meeting, after which there will an opportunity to take on board feedback. The deadline for final submissions for the special issue is 31 October 2015.

Conference participants are also invited to consider publishing their work in the new journal Counterfutures: Left Thought and Practice Aotearoa. For further details visit: http://counterfutures.blogspot.co.nz.

Contact
To make an indication of interest in participation, to submit a paper, or for any queries please email resistanceandsocialchange@gmail.com

Nathalie Jaques, Campbell Jones and Shannon Walsh
School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/social-movements-resistance-and-social-change-ii-2013-auckland-2-4-september-2015

Movemets of the Social

 

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‘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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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