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Category Archives: Historical Materialism

Capitalism: Concept & Idea

CAPITALISM: CONCEPT & IDEA

 

Friday 13 October – Saturday 14 October 2017

Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Price: £5 – £35

Book now > https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/capitalism-concept-idea-tickets-35934618411

Please note changing venues:

The Friday event will be held at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL
The Saturday event will be held at the Old Lecture Theatre, LSE, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE

 

Capital: Concept & Idea

150 Years of Marx’s /Capital/: The Philosophy and Politics of Capital Today

As a counterpoint to the retreat of the concept of communism from history to ‘idea’, this conference will mark the 150th anniversary of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by asking the question of the meanings of ‘capital’ and ‘capitalism’ today as at once (explanatory structural-historical) concepts and (political) ideas.

In particular: What is the current standing of the different philosophical interpretations of Marx’s Capital? What light do they thrown on capitalism today? How have historical developments since Marx’s day changed the concept of capitalism? Has ‘neo-liberal’ capitalism rendered the concept of crisis redundant, for example? Is capitalism governable? Or is capital itself now the main form of governmentality? What is the precise character of Capital as a text – in terms of theory and in terms of literature? What does it mean to be ‘against capitalism’ today?

 

Speakers

Éric Alliez (CRMEP, Kingston University/University of Paris 8)
Cinzia Arruzza (New School for Social Research, NY)
Leigh Claire La Berge (CUNY)
Tithi Bhattacharya (Purdue University)
Werner Bonefeld (University of York)
Boris Buden (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
Michael Heinrich (Prokla, Berlin)
Anselm Jappe (Academy of Fine Arts, Sassari)
John Kraniasukas (Birkbeck, University of London)
Elena Louisa Lange (University of Zurich)
Maurizio Lazzarato (Paris)
Jason W. Moore (Binghamton University, NY)
Antonio Negri (Paris)
Peter Osborne (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Judith Revel (University of Paris 10)
Gayatri C. Spivak (Columbia University, NY)
Keston Sutherland (University of Sussex)

Sessions

Capital and Capitalism 1: Value-form and Politics
Capital and Capitalism 2: Capital, Science and Ecology
Capital, Feminism and Social Reproduction
Capitalism and Freedom
Subjectivation and War (Marx and Foucault)
Poetics of Capital/Capital
Capital’s Destinerrance: Event and Task
Marxian Ontology, Today

 

View the programme (subject to change) >
View the paper titles, abstracts and speakers’ biographies >

Booking is essential to attend this event.

The Failure of Capitalism

 

Further Information:

Conference website: http://kingston.ac.uk/cap17

Contact: Eric-John Russell
Email: k1543754@kingston.ac.uk

 

 

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Living Fire

JAPMARXIST THEORY AND THE POLITICS OF HISTORY IN MODERN JAPAN

The Center for Social Theory and Comparative History will host its next event on: Marxist Theory and the Politics of History in Modern Japan

Thursday, June 2nd
4:00pm – 6:00 pm
6275 Bunche Hall
Basing himself on his new book, The Sublime Perversion of Capital (Duke University Press, 2016), Gavin Walker will examine the Japanese debate about capitalism from the 1920s to 1950s, using it as his point of departure to consider current discussions of uneven development and contemporary topics in Marxist theory and historiography. Walker locates the debate’s culmination in the work of Uno Kozo, whose investigations into the development of capitalism and the commodification of labour power are essential for rethinking Marxism today. Walker’s analysis of the Japanese debate shows how Marxist thought was globalized from the start.

Gavin Walker teaches in History and East Asian Studies at McGill University. He has written extensively on modern Japan, on Marxism, and on contemporary questions of political organization.

For more information, contact the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at (310) 206-5675 or abenanav@ucla.edu.

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cstch-lecture-june-2nd-gavin-walker-on-japanese-marxism

 

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

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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/

 

Mors Mystica

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

 

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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/

Alexander Bogdanov

Alexander Bogdanov

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING EXPERIENCE

Alexander Bogdanov

Translated, edited and introduced by David G. Rowley, University of Wisconsin – Platteville

The Philosophy of Living Experience is the single best introduction to the thought of Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), a Russian polymath who was co-founder, with Lenin, of the Bolshevik Party. His landmark achievements are Empiriomonism (1904–6), a philosophy of radical empiricism that he developed to replace what he considered to be the crude materialism of contemporary Marxists, and Tektology: Universal Organisational Science (1912–17), a precursor of cybernetics and systems theory.

The Philosophy of Living Experience (1913) was written at a transitional point between the two; it is a final summing up of empiriomonism, an illustration of his theory of the social genesis of ideas, and an anticipation of Tektology.

See: http://www.brill.com/products/book/philosophy-living-experience

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-from-brills-historical-materialism-book-series-the-philosophy-of-living-experience-popular-outlines

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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/

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROSA LUXEMBURG

Support the ongoing effort to produce:

The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg

The effort to issue The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg (issued by Verso Books) has reached a critical phase, and we appeal for your help in enabling future volumes to be published.

The Complete Works was inaugurated in March 2011 with the 600-page Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, the largest collection of her correspondence ever published in English. Volume I of the Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, was published in 2013 and contains the first full English translation of one of her most important books, Introduction to Political Economy, as well as eight newly-discovered manuscripts on anthropology, economic history, and the theory of crises. Volume II, entitled Economic Writings 2, was published in 2015 and contains a new translation of The Accumulation of Capital and the Anti-Critique.

We are now raising funds to cover the costs of translation of her Political Writings, beginning with three volumes (Vols. 3, 4 and 5) devoted to “On Revolution.” They will contain all of her writings on the 1905-06 Russian Revolution, 1917 Russian Revolution, and 1918-19 German Revolution. These reveal Luxemburg at her finest—as a fierce supporter of revolutionary democracy, with a sensitive grasp of spontaneous freedom struggles as well as of non-hierarchical forms of organization. Many of these writings—a large number of them translated from Polish—have never appeared in print since their initial publication, and most have never before appeared in English.

The Complete Works will make her entire body of work available for the first time in any language. All of the writings will be newly translated, with the highest level of scholarly editing. But we cannot continue to commission translations without your support. We need to raise an additional $35,000 to help pay for the translation costs of the next three volumes.

We urge you to make a contribution to the Rosa Luxemburg page of the Toledo Fund, at https://toledo.nationbuilder.com/complete_works_rosa_luxemburg

There are few better ways of celebrating International Women’s Month!

—The Editorial Board, Rosa Luxemburg Complete Works.

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/please-support-the-complete-works-of-rosa-luxemburg

 

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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/

 

New Materialism

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/

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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/

New Materialism

New Materialism

Class Struggle

Class Struggle

WHERE ARE WE? THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE WORLD TODAY

XI Congress of Historical and Social Research of CEICS – Center for Study and Research in Social Sciences
International Meeting of the Revolutionary Left
– Call for Papers –
Where are we? The Revolutionary Left and the class struggle in the world today
Buenos Aires, from September 1 to 3 of 2016

The world burns: Africa is affected by the violence product of a growing social decay that deepens from the crisis of the Arab Spring to Boko Haram.  In the extremely pauperized Asia new conflicts arise from the economic slowdown; Europe moves from recession to mass mobilizations and struggles against the capitalist adjustment. USA swings between post-Obama political apathy and the radicalization of the Republican right; Middle East is, today, a seething cauldron; Latin America undergoes the crisis of the Bonapartist regimes that formerly appeased the almost revolutionary crisis of the end of last century.
Everywhere are to be seen these multifaceted expressions of a general crisis of global political relations. However, nowhere are to be seen the formation and development of revolutionary parties, let alone international coordination. Why doesn’t the crisis beget its own gravedigger? Furthermore, how is the class struggle today? What’s the role of the revolutionary vanguard? Is it carrying out the political task of building a revolutionary party? Those are the questions that we want to pose on the eve of the anniversary of the Russian Revolution:
For this purpose, we call, in the frame of the XI Congress of Historical and Social Research, the International Meeting of the Revolutionary Left. Its aim is to foster the scientific study of reality to further advance in the construction of the strategy and development of the organizations necessary to change that reality.  As in previous editions we invite researchers and activists of all tendencies to forge the necessary unity between reason and revolution.

The conference will be organized around four themes:

1. The global crisis
a. The economy
b. The society
c. The politics

2. The political alternatives
a. The religious fundamentalism
b. The nationalist movements
c. The crisis of Latin American populism
d. The emergence of alternatives in Europe
e. The anti-systemic movements

3. The current situation of the revolutionary left
a. What remains of Maoism and Guevarism?
b. Trotskyism today
c. The non-marxist left
d. Many strategies or no strategies?
e. Do we need a new international?

4. Marxism in the XXI century
a. Is the crisis of Marxism gone?
b. Marxism and modern science
c. Balance and prospects

Closure meeting:  Debate and discussion with revolutionary organizations

The themes are suggested as a guide for participants. However, this list is not exhaustive. Proposals are expected to be focused on these issues, either in current or historical perspective; empirical analysis and theoretical reflections are both welcome.

Timetable and format:
1. Deadline proposals for symposiums, Panel discussions and book presentations:  30th April 2016 proposals.
2. Deadline Abstracts: 30th, June 30 abstracts.
3. Deadline for presentations: 20th August.
4. Papers should not exceed 20,000 characters with spaces.

For more information please contact   <mailto:jornadas@razonyrevolucion.orgjornadas@razonyrevolucion.org
Website: http://jornadasceics.com.ar

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/xi-congress-of-historical-and-social-research-of-ceics-.-i-international-meeting-of-the-revolutionary-left

images (1)

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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/

images

Mike Cole

Mike Cole

RACISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

A new book by Mike Cole

Paperback: 272 pages

Publisher: Pluto Press (20 Nov. 2015)

Language: English

Paperback: £17.50 from Pluto Press: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745334714

ISBN-10: 0745334717

ISBN-13: 978-0745334714

The book traces the legacy of racism across three continents, from its origins to the present day. With a wide-ranging yet closely-argued style, it brings a sophisticated neo-Marxist analysis to bear on controversial political issues.

Mike Cole tackles three countries in-depth: the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. In the UK, he focuses on the effects of colonialism as well as looking at non-colour-coded racism, such as anti-Gipsy, Roma and Traveller racism and xeno-racism – directed at Eastern Europeans. Turning to the United States, Cole charts the dual legacies of indigenous genocide and slavery, as well as exploring anti-Latina/o and anti-Asian racism. Finally, in Australia, he interrogates the idea of ‘Terra Nullius’ and its ongoing impact on the indigenous peoples, as well as other forms of racism, such as that experienced by South Sea Islanders, anti-Asian racism, and that which targets migrants. The Pauline Hanson phenomenon is also addressed. Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Irish racism are also dealt with in the book, as is that aimed at asylum-seekers.

Cole demonstrates that racism is both endemic and multifaceted. This book will undoubtedly establish itself as required reading for students and other critical readers looking for a comprehensive, critical overview of the study of racism in Anglophone countries.

“Mike Cole reminds us of the histories of racism across America, Australia and the UK, at the same time urging us to re-engage with arguments about the central role of capitalism in perpetuating the most vicious of inequalities. This is an important reminder of the need to take a long view as we renew our shared struggle against the racism still scarring human lives across the globe.” (Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, author of Tales Of Dark Skinned Women and Dangerous Brown Men)

 

About the Author:

Dr Mike Cole is Professor in Education, University of East London; and Emeritus Research Professor in Education and Equality, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln. His latest books are Racism and Education in the UK and the US: Towards a Socialist Alternative (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Critical Race Theory and Education: a Marxist Response (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

 

9780745334714

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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/

Crisis

Crisis

CRISES? WHAT CRISES?

Call for Papers for a Session on:

Crises? What Crises?

Society for Socialist Studies (SSS)

Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2016

University of Calgary

May 31 – June 3, 2016

 

 

Economists aren’t sure the world economy ever got over the 2008/9 crisis but already warn of new financial and sovereign debt crises. Secular stagnation has become common parlance in economic circles.

Only environmentalists, pointing at climate change, the decline of biodiversity, water shortages and concomitant desertification, paint an even gloomier picture of the state and future of the world.

Not surprisingly, political scientists register a crisis of legitimation but also various crises of representation making it difficult for the discontented to articulate their concerns and mount movements for social and ecological change.

For the most parts, the left with its tradition of seeing itself as socialist heir of capitalist crises can’t capitalize on the overabundance of such crises. The crisis of the left, one might think, is even deeper than the various crises of capitalism.

  • The session “Crises? What Crises?” invites papers discussing any of the following questions:
  • Which kinds of crises is capitalism facing these days? Crises of the economy, ecology, legitimation, representation and/or hegemony?
  • Do these crises affect only subsystems of capitalism or do they add up to an organic or general crisis of capitalism?
  • Are these crises structural or conjunctural?
  • What role could the left play in overcoming capitalist crises?
  • Is the left in crisis, too? If so, what kind of crisis is that and how might it be overcome?

Session organizer:

Ingo Schmidt, ingos@athabascau.ca

Paper titles and abstracts (maximum of 100 words) should be submitted by Friday, January 29, 2016.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-crises-what-crises-socialist-studies-session-calgary-may-31-june-3-2016

 

Work on Crisis (and Education) by Glenn Rikowski:

Rikowski, G. (2014) Crises in Education, Crises of Education, A paper prepared for the Philosophy of Education Seminars at the University of London Institute of Education 2014-15 Programme, 22nd October 2014. Available at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8953489/Crises_in_Education_Crises_of_Education

Rikowski, G. (2015) Crises, Commodities and Education: Disruptions, Eruptions, Interruptions and Ruptions, a paper prepared for the Research in Critical Education Studies (RiCES) Seminar, School of Education, University of Lincoln, 19th November 2105 (Revised 2nd December, 2015). Available at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/18511424/Crises_Commodities_and_Education_Disruptions_Eruptions_Interruptions_and_Ruptions

images (5)

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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/

CRISIS

CRISIS

clip_image008MAPPING 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/

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

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

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/