THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CAPITAL

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CAPITAL

This is my latest article, published in New Understanding of Capital in the 21^st Century, edited by Vesna Stanković Pejnović and Ivan Matić, and published by the Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade, December 2020.

ABSTRACT:

There is an antagonistic dynamic within the human in contemporary society: the struggle of labour and capital, the capital relation, is within us. This is the psychology of capital, which also entails that the class struggle – as the capital relation – also runs through us and fractures and divides our personhoods. It is argued that this monstrous psychology must be dissolved within capital: there is no outside or beyond to appeal to. We must side against ourselves as currently constituted. This can be achieved through forming and strengthening alternatives within and alien to capital, in collective and communising practices, and intellectual attacks. The argument has significant consequences for class and freedom in the project of leaving capital behind.

Keywords: capital, psychology, class, freedom, dissolution, alternatives, communisation

It is now available at ResearchGate and Academia:

The Psychology of Capital @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346627387_The_Psychology_of_Capital

The Psychology of Capital @ Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44634483/The_Psychology_of_Capital

***END***

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Radical Thinkers: SET 10

CLR James

RADICAL THINKERS: SET 10

OUT NOW: RADICAL THINKERS: SET 10

The tenth set in the series features four books on the history and development of psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

 

THE DIALECTICS OF LIBERATION edited by DAVID COOPER

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1933-the-dialectics-of-liberation

 

FREUD: THEORY OF THE UNCONCIOUS by OCTAVE MANNONI

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1937-freud

 

READ MY DESIRE: LACAN AGAINST THE HISTORICISTS by JOAN COPJEC

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1939-read-my-desire

 

THE WEARY SONS OF FREUD by CATHERINE CLEMENT

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1935-the-weary-sons-of-freud

 

————

LONDON EVENT

DIALECTICS OF LIBERATION

A contemporary revisiting of the now legendary 1967 Congress, with guest speakers including Selma James and Lynne Segal

15th July, 7pm, Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH

The Dialectics of Liberation Congress was held at the Roundhouse in July 1967. The now legendary meeting of minds was a unique expression of the politics of modern dissent. Existential psychiatrists, Marxist intellectuals, anarchists and political leaders met to discuss the key social issues of the next decade.

Against the backdrop of rising student frustrations, racism, class inequality, and environmental degradation, this conference aimed to create genuine revolutionary momentum by fusing ideology and action on the levels of the individual and of mass society.

Taking ‘the demystification of violence’ in all its expressions, and bridging theory and practice, speakers included Herbert Marcuse and Lucien Goldmann to represent the theoretical pole, and Stokely Carmichael on Black Power as an activist, and Carol Schneeman, Allen Ginsberg and R.D. Laing in between.

Verso Books presents an event revisiting some of the issues discussed in light of the sweeping political, economic and technological changes that the world has seen since, on the 48th anniversary of the congress and the publication of a new edition of The Dialectics of Liberation, compiling interventions from contributors as part of Verso’s Radical Thinkers series.

Join Selma James, Lynne Segal, Nina Power, Ewa Jasiewicz, Benjamin Noys and Mark Fisher to discuss the legacy of the meeting and contemporary social issues surrounding the forms of struggle, feminism and anti-racism, sexuality, mental health, education, the environment and climate change and activism.

Tickets are £5 (with £1.95 fee per transaction) and available from the Roundhouse website – https://tickets.roundhouse.org.uk/booking/production/bestavailable/17555?performance=

————

THE DIALECTICS OF LIBERATION edited by DAVID COOPER

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1933-the-dialectics-of-liberation

A revolutionary compilation of speeches which produced a political groundwork for many of the radical movements in the following decades, featuring Stokely Carmichael, Herbert Marcuse, R. D. Laing, Paul Sweezy, and others.

DAVID COOPER (1931-1986) was a South African–born theorist and existential psychiatrist.

FREUD: THEORY OF THE UNCONCIOUS by OCTAVE MANNONI

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1937-freud

A clearly written and highly organized introduction of the work of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers.

OCTAVIO MANNONI (1898-1989) was a leading thinker in the French psychoanalytical tradition inspired by Jacques Lacan.  After travelling to Africa and residing for more than twenty years in Madagascar, where he held various positions while working as an ethnologist, Mannoni returned to France to develop his influential work on colonization.

READ MY DESIRE: LACAN AGAINST THE HISTORICISTS by JOAN COPJEC

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1939-read-my-desire

Pits the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan against the historicist approach of Michel Foucault to develop a profound critique of historicism.

JOAN COPJEC is a Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.  She has written or edited eleven books, including ‘Supposing the Subject’ and ‘Radical Evil’

THE WEARY SONS OF FREUD by CATHERINE CLEMENT

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1935-the-weary-sons-of-freud

A Communist, feminist, and analysand asks what the social function of psychoanalysis should be and condemns what it has become.

CATHERINE CLEMENT is a prominent French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic. After studying at the Ecole normale superieure under Claude Levi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan, she became a leading member of the school of French feminism and ecriture feminine.

————

Verso, originally founded in 1970 to publish continental theory in translation for the first time, brought the work of radical thinkers such as Jacques Lacan and Jean-Paul Sartre to a wider English-speaking audience. The Radical Thinkers series continues to bring philosophy to new audiences as part of Verso’s broader intellectual and political project. The series of beautifully designed and affordable editions of classic works of theory now exceeds 100 published titles and counts over 300,000 copies sold.  This tenth set in the series features four books on the history and development of psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

“A golden treasury of theory.”—Eric Banks, Bookforum

“Verso’s beautifully designed Radical Thinkers series, which brings together seminal works by leading left-wing intellectuals, is a sophisticated blend of theory and thought.”—Ziauddin Sardar, New Statesman

————

All books are PAPERBACK, priced £9.99/$16.95/$19.95CAN

————

Visit Verso’s website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

Sign up for the Verso mailing list:

https://www.versobooks.com/users/sign_up

Follow us online:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VersoBks

Twitter: http://twitter.com/VersoBooks

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/out-now-radical-thinkers-set-10-four-books-on-the-history-and-development-of-psychoanalysis-and-psychiatry

 

***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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

 

Esoterism and the Cognitive Science of Religion

ESOTERICISM AND THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

CALL FOR PAPERS

An Aries Special Issue

Together with Markus Altena Davidsen (Leiden University), I am setting up a special issue of Aries on “Esotericism and the Cognitive Science or Religion”. At this stage we are looking for abstracts from people who might be interested in contributing a full research article.

Please find details in the CfP, linked here and pasted below. Feel free to spread the word to anyone who might be interested in this project.

Call for Abstracts, Aries special issue on Esotericism and the Cognitive Science of Religion

(Edited by Egil Asprem and Markus Altena Davidsen)

The cognitive science of religion (CSR) and the academic study of Western esotericism have both made a significant impact on religious studies over the past two decades. The study of esotericism continues to deepen our understanding of the historical complexities of religion in the West, and has identified a number of blind-spots related to heterodox religion, radically experiential practices, and overlaps between “religion”, “magic”, and “science”.

Meanwhile, CSR is rapidly changing the way scholars think about and approach key processes of religious practice, adding important new experimental and analytic tools to the scholar’s toolbox. This special issue of Aries aims to explore the potential of bringing these two fruitful fields together. What happens when we apply CSR approaches to the empirical material studied by esotericism scholars? How can key areas of interest in the study of esotericism, such as the notion of (experiential) gnosis, correspondences, imagination, higher knowledge, rejected knowledge, magical thinking, secrecy, and initiation contribute to the development of new approaches in CSR? How can we think about ritual practices such as theurgy, divination, healing, and ceremonial magic in terms of CSR approaches to ritual? Moreover, how can we use CSR approaches to these issues to integrate the study of esotericism more firmly in the broader comparative study of religion?

We are looking to curate research articles that deal with these and related questions. We take an inclusive view of CSR, and are happy to consider approaches from e.g. personality- and social psychology. We are especially interested in hands-on approaches that demonstrate the use of CSR inspired methodology to esoteric subject matters. We look in particular for articles based on contemporary ethnographies, interview or experimental data, but are also open for articles that bring CSR to bear on historical sources. The important thing is that studies should be able to integrate cognitive and psychological perspectives with existing state-of-the-art scholarship on esotericism.

If you want to take part in this special issue, please send us an abstract of your proposed topic by June 15 2015. Please specify as far as possible the empirical scope of your proposed article, as well as the CSR approaches you plan to work with. Include a short bibliography of the key literature you intend to draw on. On the basis of received abstracts, we will invite authors to submit their completed articles for peer review. The deadline for receiving finished manuscripts will be February 1 2016.

 

Relevant subject matter includes but is not limited to:

• New Age movement
• Ritual magic
• Channeling
• Healing/holistic health
• Correspondence thinking
• Kabbalah / esoteric hermeneutics
• Sex magic
• Spiritualism
• Neoshamanism
• Contemporary paganism
• Astrology
• Alchemy
• Western initiatory societies

 

Relevant CSR approaches include but are not limited to:

• Epidemiological approaches to the spread of esoteric representations
• Cognitive optimality theory (e.g., agency detection, promiscuous teleology, minimal counter-intuitiveness, theological correctness)
• Cognitive ritual theory (e.g., ritual form hypothesis, two modes theory, cognitive resource depletion theory)
• Embodied cognition
• Neurocognitive, experimental, and psychological approaches to experiential practices
• Personality and individual difference correlates for esoteric practitioners (e.g. positive schizotypy, absorption, hypnotizability)
• Conceptual blending theory

 

Please email your proposed abstract to Egil Asprem (easprem@gmail.com) and Markus Altena Davidsen (m.davidsen@hum.leidenuniv.nl). If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

***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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

PsychoPolitics in the Twenty First Century

PsychoPolitics

PSYCHO-POLITICS IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY: PETER SEDGWICK AND RADICAL MOVEMENTS IN METAL HEALTH

Wednesday 10th June 2015 9.45am – 5.30pm

EDEN Building, Liverpool Hope University, Taggart Avenue, Liverpool L16 9JD

Speakers include: Professors Ann Davis and Peter Beresford, campaigners from Psychologists Against Austerity, reVision and Social Work Action Network

The work of Peter Sedgwick and in particular his classic text PsychoPolitics (1982) has a renewed relevance in the context of ‘austerity’, the privatisation of welfare provision and emergent forms of radical activism in mental health. This conference will provide an opportunity to explore Sedgwick’s ideas and assess his legacy in light of these contemporary developments.

The conference will include papers from academics, service users/survivors, mental health practitioners and activists on the following themes:

• The politics and sociology of mental health
• Reading Sedgwick in 2015
• Neoliberalism, austerity and alliances of resistance between service user/survivor movements, practitioners, trade unions and campaigners
• Links between mad studies and the work of Sedgwick
• Contemporary applications of PsychoPolitics in mental health movements and front line practice
• Marxism, materialism, alienation and mental health
• Representations of psychiatry and anti-psychiatry
• Basaglia and movements for psychiatric de-institutionalisation in Europe
• Revisiting the Sedgwick archive

Prices (including lunch and refreshments):

Waged/Practitioners/academics (institutional funding): £60

Waged/Practitioners/academics (self-funding): £35

Service users/survivors/carers/students/unwaged: £10

To book your place and download provisional programme go to: www.hope.ac.uk/psychopoliticsc21 (‘Registration’ tab to book, ‘Overview’ tab for programme).

For mailing list and other information contact: sedgwickconf2015@hope.ac.uk

This event has been organised by: British Sociological Association (BSA) Sociology of Mental Health Study Group and Department of Social Work, Care and Justice, Liverpool Hope University

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/psychopolitics-in-the-21st-century-conference-details-announced

***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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Social Imaginaries

Social Imaginaries

SOCIAL IMAGINARIES

A NEW JOURNAL AT: http://www.zetabooks.com/journals/social-imaginaries.html

Issue 1 (May, 2015)

 

Table of Contents (with Abstracts)

 

1. Editorial by the Social Imaginaries Editorial Collective

 

2. Social Imaginaries in Debate by Suzi Adams, Paul Blokker, Natalie J Doyle, John Krummel, and Jeremy C A Smith

Investigations into social imaginaries have burgeoned in recent years. From ‘the capitalist imaginary’ to the ‘democratic imaginary’, from the ‘ecological imaginary’ to ‘the global imaginary’ – and beyond – the social imaginaries field has expanded across disciplines and beyond the academy. The recent debates on social imaginaries and potential new imaginaries reveal a recognisable field and paradigm-in-the-making. We argue that Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor have articulated the most important theoretical frameworks for understanding social imaginaries, although the field as a whole remains heterogeneous. We further argue that the notion of social imaginaries draws on the modern understanding of the imagination as authentically creative (as opposed to imitative). We contend that an elaboration of social imaginaries involves a significant, qualitative shift in the understanding of societies as collectively and politically-(auto)instituted formations that are irreducible to inter-subjectivity or systemic logics. After marking out the contours of the field and recounting a philosophical history of the imagination (including deliberations on the reproductive and creative imaginations, as well as consideration of contemporary Japanese contributions), the essay turns to debates on social imaginaries in more concrete contexts, specifically political-economic imaginaries, the ecological imaginary, multiple modernities and their inter-civilisational encounters. The social imaginaries field imparts powerful messages for the human sciences and wider publics. In particular, social imaginaries hold significant implications for ontological, phenomenological and philosophical anthropological questions; for the cultural, social, and political horizons of contemporary worlds; and for ecological and economic phenomena (including their manifest crises). The essay concludes with the argument that social imaginaries as a paradigm-in-the-making offers valuable  means by which movements towards social change can be elucidated as well providing  an open horizon for the critiques of existing social practices.

 

3. Introduction to Castoriadis’s “The Imaginary As Such” by Johann P Arnason

 

4. The Imaginary As Such by Cornelius Castoriadis (translated by Johann P Arnason)

This text is a draft introduction to a planned work on imagination in society and history. It begins with reflections on the abilities and activities that set human subjects apart from other living beings and thus at the same time enable the ongoing creation of society and history. This is to be understood as an exploration within the “order of facts”, on the level of anthropological preconditions. The most elementary precondition is the human capacity to add an “unreal extension” to reality, and thus to put the latter at a distance; considered as an activity, this is what defines the imagination, but considered as a dimension of human existence, it is the realm of the imaginary. The two concepts are strictly complementary. To clarify their role in the proposed rethinking of social-historical being, we must link them to closer analysis of the latter’s two main components, representing and doing. On both sides, Castoriadis emphasizes the imaginary element as a decisive point against empiricist and rationalist reductions. Representing is as irreducible to perception as it is to thinking, and taking the argument one step further, both perception and thinking can be shown to be dependent on the imaginary. Similarly, on the level of doing, human action can neither be understood as a response to given needs nor as an application of pre-given representations; its creative potential presupposes an imaginary horizon. Finally it is argued that language – closely related to both representing and doing- has an imaginary dimension, central to the emergence and the enduring innovative capacity of meaning. The basic flaw of structural linguistics was its refusal to take the imaginary source into account.

 

5. Introduction to Nakamura Yūjirō and his Work by John Krummel

 

6. “The Logic of Place” and Common Sense by Nakamura Yujiro (translated by John Krummel)

The essay is a written version of a talk Nakamura Yūjirō gave at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris in 1983.  In the talk Nakamura connects the issue of common sense in his own work to that of place in Nishida Kitarō and the creative imagination in Miki Kiyoshi. He presents this connection between the notions of common sense, imagination, and place as constituting one important thread in contemporary Japanese philosophy. He begins by discussing the significance of place (basho) that is being rediscovered today in response to the shortcomings of the modern Western paradigm, and discusses it in its various senses, such as ontological ground or substratum, the body, symbolic space, and linguistic or discursive topos in ancient rhetoric. He then relates this issue to the philosophy of place Nishida developed in the late 1920s, and after providing an explication of Nishida’s theory, discusses it further in light of some linguistic and psychological theories. Nakamura goes on to discuss his own interest in the notion of common sense traceable to Aristotle and its connection to the rhetorical concept of topos, and Miki’s development of the notion of the imagination in the 1930s in response to Nishida’s theory.  And in doing so he ties all three—common sense, place, and imagination—together as suggestive of an alternative to the modern Cartesian standpoint of the rational subject that has constituted the traditional paradigm of the modern West.

 

7. Interpreting the Present – a Research Programme by Peter Wagner

Sociologists have increasingly adopted the insight that “modern societies” undergo major historical transformations; they are not stable or undergoing only smooth social change once their basic institutional structure has been established. There is even some broad agreement that the late twentieth century witnessed the most recent one of those major transformations leading into the present time – variously characterized by adding adjectives such as “reflexive”, “global” or simply “new” to modernity. However, neither the dynamics of the recent social transformation nor the characteristic features of the present social constellation have been adequately grasped yet. Rather than assuming a socio-structural or politico-institutional perspective, as they dominate in sociology and political science respectively, this article concentrates on the way in which current social practices are experienced and interpreted by the human beings who enact them as parts of a common world that they inhabit together. It will be suggested that current interpretations are shaped by the experience of the dismantling of “organized modernity” from the 1970s onwards and of the subsequent rise of a view of the world as shaped by parallel processes of “globalization” and “individualization”, signalling the erasure of historical time and lived space, during the 1990s and early 2000s. In response to these experiences, we witness today a variety of interconnected attempts at re-interpretation of modernity, aiming at re-constituting spatiality and temporality. The re-constitution of meaningful time concerns most strongly questions of historical injustice, in terms of the present significance of past oppression and exclusion and in terms of the unequal effects of the instrumental transformation of the earth in the techno-industrial trajectory of modernity. The re-constitution of meaningful space focuses on the relation between the political form of a spatially circumscribed democracy and the economic practices of expansionist capitalism as well as on the spatial co-existence of a plurality of ways of world-interpretation.

 

8. Introduction to Johann P Arnason’s “The Imaginary Dimensions of Modernity” by Suzi Adams

 

9. The Imaginary Dimensions of Modernity by Johann P Arnason (translated by Suzi Adams)

This paper discusses the formation of Castoriadis’s concept of imaginary significations and relates it to his changing readings of Marx and Weber. Castoriadis’s reflections on modern capitalism took off from the Marxian understanding of its internal contradictions, but he always had reservations about the orthodox version of this idea. His writings in the late 1950s, already critical of basic assumptions in Marx’s work, located the central contradiction in the very relationship between capital and wage labour: Labour power was not simply transformed into a commodity, as Marx had argued; rather, the instituted attempt to treat it as a commodity was a contradiction in itself, between the subjectivity and the objectification of labour. Castoriadis then moved on to link this claim to Weber’s analysis of  the interconnections between capitalism and bureaucracy. The main contradiction of modern capitalism, whether wholly bureaucratized as in the Soviet model or increasingly bureaucratized as in the West, now seemed to be a matter of  incompatible systemic imperatives: the need to control and to mobilize the workforce. Finally, difficulties with this model – and with the revolutionary expectations based on it – led to a more decisive break with classical theories and to the formulation of a bipolar image of modernity, where the vision of an autonomous society is opposed to the logic of calculation and domination, embodied in capitalist development. On both sides there is an imaginary component, irreducible to empirical givens or systemic principles. In this regard, Castoriadis remained closer to Weber than to Marx, but he also anticipated, in a distinctive way, later emphasis on the cultural dimension of modernity, and more specifically the notion of modernity as a new civilization.

 

10. Introduction to Marcel Gauchet’s “Democracy: From One Crisis to Another” by Natalie J Doyle

 

11. Democracy: From One Crisis to Another by Marcel Gauchet (translated by Natalie J Doyle)

Democracy is in crisis. This crisis is the paradoxical outcome of its triumph over its erstwhile rivals. Having prevailed over the totalitarian projects of the first half of the 20th Century it has developed in such a way that it is now undermining its original goals of individual and collective autonomy. Modern liberal democracy – the outcome of an inversion of the values of tradition, hierarchy and political incorporation – is a mixed regime. It involves three different dimensions of social existence, political, legal, historical/economic, and organizes power around these. A balance was achieved after the upheaval of World War II in the form of liberal democracy, on the basis of reforms which injected democratic political power into liberalism and controlled the new economic dynamics it had unleashed. This balance has now been lost. Political autonomy, which accompanied modern historicity and its orientation towards the future, has been overshadowed by economic activity and its pursuit of innovation. As a result, the very meaning of democracy has become impoverished. The term used to refer to the goal of self-government, it is now taken to be fully synonymous with personal freedom and the cause of human rights. The legal dimension having come to prevail over the political one, democratic societies see themselves as “political market societies”, societies that can only conceive of their existence with reference to a functional language borrowed from economics. This depoliticisation of democracy has facilitated the rise to dominance of a new form of oligarchy.

 

12. Modern Social Imaginaries: A Conversation by Craig Calhoun, Dilip Gaonkar, Benjamin Lee, Charles Taylor and Michael Warner (edited by Dilip Gaonkar)

The conversation seeks to extend and complicate Charles Taylor’s (2004) account of three constitutive formations of modern social imaginaries: market, the public sphere, and the nation-state based on popular sovereignty in two critical respects. First, it seeks to show how these key imaginaries, especially the market imaginary, are not contained and sealed within autonomous spheres. They are portable and they often leak into domains beyond the ones in which they originate. Second, it seeks to identify and explore the new incipient and/or emergent imaginaries vying for recognition and demanding consideration in the constitution (as well as analysis) of contemporary social life, such as the risk-reward entrepreneurial culture.

 

**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: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Capital As Computation & Cognition

Knowledge

CAPITAL AS COMPUTATION & COGNITION

 

Capital as Computation & Cognition: From Babbage’s Factory to Google’s Algorithmic Governance

Seminar syllabus [draft, in progress]

New Centre for Research and Practice, 3-24 March 2015.

Enroll –› thenewcentre.org/seminars/capital-as-computation-cognition

Instructor: Matteo Pasquinelli –› matteopasquinelli.org

 

Since the times of Smith, Ricardo and Marx, if not for even longer, capital has functioned as a form of computation constituted by and as a complex mathematical system. As Simondon noticed, the industrial machine was already an informational relay, that was separating the source of energy (nature) from the source of information (the human). After WWII the numeric essence of capital has been coupled with the informational dimension of cybernetics and computing machines, while also subsuming emergent forms of augmented intelligence. Capitalism, as a form of accounting and as an exterior mnemonic technique, is in itself a form of transhuman intelligence. Cognitive capitalism, Specifically, on the basis of its infonumeric procedures, from layman’s accounting to sophisticated algotrading, as well as from immaterial labour to scientific research, is an institution of computation.

The aim of the seminar is twofold: on the one hand, it will provide an introduction to some critical keywords (such as abstract labour, general intellect, cybernetic loop, calculation problem, immaterial labour, cognitive capitalism, augmented intelligence, computational limit, etc.) and to more recent debates around the technological form (on Accelerationism and algorithmic governance, for instance). On the other hand, the seminar wants to provide a compact and accurate bibliography about the canonical approaches to the relation between capital, technology, knowledge and labour. A specific attention will be given to the precise historical contexts in which fundamental ideas were originated and crucial books published. All the bibliographies are therefore compiled in chronological order to make genealogies and the circulation of ideas more comprehensible (and to clarify also epic misunderstandings, weak intepretations and harsh criticism).

The seminar in structured in four parts that correspond roughly to four different historical periods and to their relative types of machinic assemblage. The seminar aims to illuminate each historical moment according to a specific composition of the three variables: capital, computation and cognition. The first technological assemblage to be covered is Marx’s industrial machine, that inaugurated the bifurcation between energy and information. The second one is the cybernetic machine, distinguished by the feedback loop system and by the first experiments at the scale of national economy. Third, the Turing machine more in general will be taken as the basic diagram of cognitive capitalism and the network society and as the terrain of a further bifurcation, that is of the split between data and metadata. Fourth, algorithms for data mining will be discussed as models of the last stage of capitalism and its algorithmic governance, marking the passage from metadata to a global machinic intelligence.

Each seminar presents two or three historical and fundamental texts that are selected from a general bibliography. Documents that will be discussed during the seminar are underlined in bold and marked with an arrow (it is mandatory to read only the texts marked with an arrow: titles in bold are highly recommended). At the end of the seminar, students will be asked to pick up one text or more and to reconstruct how the diagram of the composition of capital/computation/cognition emerges in a specific author or historical moment, or to propose new trajectories of analysis.

 

As a general introduction to the seminar is recommended the reading of:

➡ Pasquinelli, Matteo (2014) “Italian Operaismo and the Information Machine“, Theory, Culture

and Society, first published 2 February 2014. http://matteopasquinelli.com/operaismo-informationmachine

➡ Pasquinelli, Matteo (2014) “Augmented Intelligence”, in: Critical Keywords for the Digital

Humanities, Lüneburg: Leuphana university, 2014.

http://cdckeywords.leuphana.com/augmented_intelligence

 

**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: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Capitalism is Bad for Your Mental Health

CAPITALISM IS BAD FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Wednesday 14^th January

At 19.00

Housmans Radical Booksellers

5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, United Kingdom

 

The ASSOCIATION OF MUSICAL MARXISTS present an evening of free improvised music, and discussion of the left’s relation to the current state of “mental health” service provision, including the work of Psychopolitics author Peter Sedgwick, and critique of the hegemonic neo-liberal “Recovery Model.”

 

Speakers:

Robert Dellar (author, Splitting in Two: Mad Pride & Punk Rock Oblivion);

Alastair Kemp (editor, Newhaven Journal).

 

Entry: £3 redeemable against purchases of books or t-shirts.

 

**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: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

PsychoPolitics in the Twenty First Century

Posthuman

PsychoPolitics in the Twenty First Century

Please see below for call for papers for a conference at in Liverpool on Wednesday 10th June 2015 organised in conjunction with the British Sociological Association Sociology of Mental Health Study Group. The conference title is PsychoPolitics in the Twenty First Century: Peter Sedgwick and radical movements in mental health

Background to the conference:

The work of Peter Sedgwick and in particular his classic text PsychoPolitics (1982) has a renewed relevance in the context of ‘austerity’, the privatisation of welfare provision and emergent forms of radical activism in mental health. This conference will provide an opportunity to explore Sedgwick’s ideas and assess his legacy in light of these contemporary developments.

The organisers welcome proposals for papers/workshops from academics, service users /survivors and mental health practitioners on the following topics (though this is not an exhaustive list):

• The politics of mental health
• Social movements in mental health; social movements and sociological knowledge on mental health
• Alliances between service user/survivor movements and trade unions/anti-austerity campaigns
• Alliances between disabled people’s and mental health service user/survivor movements
• Mental health practice and resistance under neoliberalism
• Contemporary applications of Sedgwick’s ideas
• Links between mad studies, disability studies and the work of Sedgwick

The conference webpages are at www.hope.ac.uk/psychopoliticsc21. The email for mailing list and further info is: sedgwickconf2015@hope.ac.uk

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-papers-psychopolitics-in-the-21st-century-conference-june-2015

 

**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: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

SUBREALISM

Vampyrica
John-Paul Van-Huysse

SUBREALISM

Subrealism:  One Day Conference on Ettingerian Studies, Friday 10 October 2014, Aula Maxima, Maynooth University, National University of Ireland

Details: http://subrealismtheworkofbrachalichtenbergettinger.wordpress.com/conference/

This one-day conference features invited presentations on recent shifts in Ettingerian studies focusing particularly on gender studies, sexuality studies, queer theory, literature, ethics, aesthetics, art practice, psychoanalytic practice, political science  and philosophy.

 

For information on the work of Bracha L. Ettinger, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracha_L._Ettinger

http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/documents/Giffney_Mulhall_ORourke.pdf

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bracha-L-Ettinger/46707662527

 

For more on Speculative Realism see Michael O’Rourke’s introduction, Specrealisms, at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/9566568/Specrealisms

 

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Session 1: 10.00-11.15am

Graham Price: ‘Deconstruction and the Art-Encounter-Event’

Moynagh Sullivan: ‘An Ear to the Earth’:Matrixial Gazing in Tim Robinson’s Walk-Art-Text Practice’

Tea Break: 11.15-11.30am

Session 2: 11.30am-12.45pm

Noirin MacNamara: ‘Matrixial Theory and la démocratie à-venir’

Michael O’Rourke: ‘Specrealisms’

Lunch: 12.45-1.45pm

Session 3: 1.45-3.15pm

Medb Ruane: ‘Writing Art, Talking Psychoanalysis: sketches from a Bracha Ettinger notebook’

Paula McCloskey: ‘Artificial intelligence, art and affect: Exploring the matrixial possibilities in Micha Cárdenas Becoming-Dragon and Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway, Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium’

Elena Marchevska: ‘The last place where we were together…’

Tea Break: 3.15-3.45pm

Session 4: 3.45-5.00pm

Dimitra Douskos: ‘Translating into French, translating into language’

Tina Kinsella: ‘Surrealism to Subrealism’

Aesthetics

 

**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: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization

THE SOCIAL PATHOLOGIES OF CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION

Fifth International Conference

Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands

30 & 31 October 2014

www.socialpathologies.com

 

The fifth international conference on The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization explores the nature of contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and psychosomatic 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 its own professional discourse of etiology, diagnostics, therapeutics, as well as a task force 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 social pathologies are diseases related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collective esprit de corps of contemporary society. They arise from individual and collective experiences of profound and drastic social changes and cultural shifts.

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 individual 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.

A particular focus of the conference is the role of humanities and social sciences in helping to understand the connection between social transformations and psychiatric perceptions of health and well-being. The conference invites papers offering analyses of social malaises and the health of civilization from faculty, students and researchers in fields of philosophy, sociology, social theory, psychology, and anthropology.

 

Special sub-themes are the following:

􀁸The invented self– What is the status of the late modern subject? We live in so-called ‘neo-liberal’ times in which we experience an intense, marketed pressure to ‘be oneself’, as well as an extreme difficulty to ‘be a self’. Is our alleged individual freedom a strongly directed one? If so, how can we invent ourselves differently? And how should we understand the connection between this newly invented and that socially directed self?

􀁸The sympathetic self– Is a re-ethicization and moral regeneration of political, moral and libidinal economies possible? The domestic economics of the soul need to be scrutinized, ‘miraculous’ and healing social powers – such as the redemptive and transfiguring powers of beauty and love, and the power of gift relations – need to be explored in terms of their capacity to reverse pathogenic vicious circles of individuated egotism into saludogenic virtuous spirals of care, care of the self and care for others.

􀁸The diagnosed self– In most late modern societies in the West, we find a high prevalence of many psychiatric disorders. Such statistics have been known for years, but there is much uncertainty about how to interpret them. How do adults experience the process of receiving these diagnoses, and what does it mean for them to have their experience of suffering filtered through a diagnostic and psychiatric vocabulary?

􀁸The measured self– Research evidence is widely held as a key influence on mental health policy and practice. Whilst hypothesis testing in randomised controlled trials is held as the ‘gold standard’, qualitative research exploring people’s experiences continues to occupy a more marginal position, even though these experiences inform important inter-subjective phenomena. What is and what could be the specific role of qualitative research in contemporary mental health care?

􀁸The amnesiac self– The fading of individual and collective memory due to ongoing processes of individuation and acceleration and to experiences of shock, trauma, repression and aphasia in the psychic life of individuals and societies is amplified in contemporary contexts. Lacking memory, persons and societies live in a liminal extended present and become prone to solipsism and to manipulation. What is forgotten – and what can be remembered – is one of the most urgent ethical-political problems of our age.

 

**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 at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

World Conference on Psychology Sciences

Fear of a Blank Planet

WORLD CONFERENCE ON PSYCHOLOGY SCIENCES

Last Call for Abstract Submission

13-15 July 2014,

Stratosphere Hotel & Tower Convention Center, Las Vegas, USA

www.wc-psy.org   

 

Dear Colleagues

We would like to invite you to become together with more than one thousand academicians from 64 different countries, and also give opportunity to make your abstracts indexed in AWER Index. Moreover, accepted full papers will be published in Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal (ISSN: 1877-0428), and indexed in ScienceDirect, Scopusand Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

We would like to provide contribution to bring forth you academic qualities.

• Due Dated Abstract Submissions: 12 April 2014
• Abstracts must be written in English, and can be sent as an email attach to

wc-psy.info@awer-center.org

STEP ONE (CLICK HERE) OF THE SUBMISSION PROCESS

Hope to meet you in Las Vegas,USA

Prof. Dr. Jacobus G. Maree

Dr. Melahat Halat

 

CONFERENCE SCOPES

WCPSY-2014 includes all theoretical and practical knowledge about psychology. For more information http://wc-psy.org/

• Applied Psychology
• Biological Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Experimental Psychology
• Mathematical Psychology
• Multidisciplinary Psychology
• Psychoanalysis Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Counselling and Guidance
• Traffic Psychology
• Industrial Psychology
• Cyberbulling
• Others

KEYNOTES

• Prof. Dr. Nansook Park, University of Michigan, USA
• Prof. Dr. Eric M. Anderman, The Ohio State University, USA
• Prof. Dr. Colla Jean MacDonald, University of Ottawa, Canada

Supporting Journals

• Journal of Applied Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)
• British Journal of  Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)
• British Journal of Developmental Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)
• British Journal of Health Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)
• Legal and Criminological Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)
• Journal of Behavioural Decision Making (Indexed in SSCI)
• Journal Behavioural Disorders (Indexed in SSCI)
• Work & Stress Journal (Indexed in SSCI)
• Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling (Indexed in SSCI)
• Asia Pacific Education Review, (Indexed in SSCI)
• South African Journal of Psychology, (Indexed in SSCI)
• Perspectives in Education (Indexed in SSCI)
• Global Journal on Psychology Research
• Journal of Counseling & Development
• Global Journal on Counseling and Guidance

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

• The abstracts can be one-page long (150-250 words).
• The abstract include Problem Statement, Purpose of Study, Methods, Findings and Results, and Conclusions and Recommendations.
• If your paper is not completed, it might be included only your study proposal.
• The abstracts must be included the authors’ names, surnames, affiliations, departments, email addresses and phone numbers.

Abstracts can be submitted through http://wc-psy.org/

or attached to wc-psy.info@awer-center.org

 

STEP ONE (CLICK HERE) OF THE SUBMISSION PROCESS

 

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

• You can participate to the conference with paper or poster presentation, pannel and workshop.
• Participants who cannot particiate physically should prefer virtual presentation. These participants must uploaded skype on their computers. For more info: http://wc-psy.org/

IMPORTANT DATES

• Abstract Submissions: April 12, 2014*
• Full Paper Submission: May 12, 2014**
• Early Hotel Reservation: May 12, 2014
• Early Registration: May 12, 2014
• Conference Dates: July 12-14, 2014
• Camera Ready Submission: July 25, 2014

* After the submission date, the authors of abstracts will be notified in 4 day.
** After the submission date, the authors of full paper will be notified in 20 day.

 

VENUE and ACCOMODATION

Stratosphere Hotel & Tower Convention Center, Las Vegas, USA. We were special agreement with the Hotels for WCPSY-2014 participants only. The rate start from 35 USD for Double room.

For more information: www.globe-edu.org

Contact:

E-mail: wc-psy.info@awer-center.org
Web: http://wc-psy.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 at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Fifth World Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance: Last Call for Papers

ICCE IV

FIFTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON PSYCHOLOGY, COUNSELLING AND GUIDANCE – LAST CALL FOR PAPERS

 

Reminder: Last weeks for Abstracts Submission!

5th World Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance

May 01-03, 2014
Royal Princess Hotel Convention Center
Dubrovnik, Croatia

www.wcpcg.org

All accepted full papers will be published in Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal (ISSN: 1877-0428), and indexed in ScienceDirect, Scopus and Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

Due Dated Abstract Submissions: 25 March 2014

Abstracts must be written in English, and can be sent as an email attach to  wcpcg.info@gmail.com

 

STEP ONE (CLICK HERE) OF THE SUBMISSION PROCESS

 

CHAIRS

Prof. Dr. Dubravka Miljković, University of Zagreb

Prof. Dr. Tülay Bozkurt, Istanbul Kultur University
KEYNOTES

Prof. Dr. Paul Bennett, Professor of Clinical and Health Psychology, Department of Psychology, Swansea University, UK, http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/psychology/staff/bennettpaul/

Prof. Dr. Kobus Maree, Professor of  Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, http://www.kobusmaree.org/

 

CONFERENCE SCOPES

WCPCG-2014 includes all theoretical and practical knowledge about Psychology, guidance and counselling:

Clinical Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Social Psychology

Experimental Psychology

Industrial and Organization Psychology

Traffic Psychology

Forensic Psychology

Psychometric Psychology

Sports Psychology

Health Psychology

Educational Psychology

Media Psychology

Neuroscience Psychology

Child and Adolescent Counselling

Adult and Elder Counselling

Family Counselling

School Counselling

Higher Education Counselling

Health Counselling

Crisis and Risk Counselling

Occupational Counselling

Industrial Counselling

Cyber Counselling

Psychology Education and Occupational Issues

Rehabilitation Counselling

Etc.

 

FULL PAPER PUBLICATION

· WCPCG-2014, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal

· WCPCG-2013, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal, Volume 114.

· WCPCG-2012, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal, Volume 42.

· WCPCG-2011, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal, Volume 30.

· WCPCG-2010, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Journal, Volume 5.

 

Supporting Journals

Journal of Applied Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)

British Journal of  Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)

British Journal of Developmental Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)

British Journal of Health Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)

Legal and Criminological Psychology (Indexed in SSCI)

Journal of Behavioural Decision Making (Indexed in SSCI)

journal Behavioural Disorders (Indexed in SSCI)

Work & Stress Journal (Indexed in SSCI)

Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling (Indexed in SSCI)

Asia Pacific Education Review, (Indexed in SSCI)

South African Journal of Psychology, (Indexed in SSCI)

Perspectives in Education (Indexed in SSCI)

Education and Science Journal (Indexed in SSCI)

Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences

Journal of Counseling & Development

Contemporary Educational Researches Journal

Global Journal on Psychology Research

Global Journal of Sociology

Global Journal of Counseling and Guidance

 

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

· The abstracts can be one-page long (150-250 words).

· The abstract include Problem Statement, Purpose of Study, Methods, Findings and Results, and Conclusions and Recommendations.

· If your paper is not completed, it might be included only your study proposal.

· The abstracts must be included the authors’ names, surnames, affiliations, departments, email addresses and phone numbers.

· Abstracts can be submitted through www.wcpcg.org   or attached to wcpcg.info@gmail.com

 

STEP ONE OF THE SUBMISSION PROCESS

 

FULL PAPER SUBMISSION

Please click the link for the full paper template http://wcpcg.worldeducationcenter.eu/

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

· You can participate to the conference with paper or poster presentation, pannel and workshop.

· Participants who cannot particiate physically should prefer virtual presentation. These participants must uploaded skype on their computers. For more info: http://www.wcpcg.org/virtual.htm

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract Submissions: 25 March 2014 (Last Extended)

Full Paper Submissions: April 10, 2014

Early Registration: April 01, 2014

Conference Dates: May 01-03, 2014

Camera-ready for Publication: May 15, 2014

VENUE and ACCOMODATION

The conference venue is Royal PrincessHotelConferenceCenter

Special room rates for WCPCG-2014 participants at Neptun Hotel and Ariston Hotel.

 

For more information: http://www.wcpcg.org/accomodation.htm

For more info:  www.wcpcg.org   

 

Contact:

E-mail: wcpcg.info@gmail.com
Web:   www.wcpcg.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 at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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