Biopolitics

Biopolitics

BIOPOLITICS

Call for Papers

Journal Pléyade

ISSN 0718-655x / Online ISSN 0719-3696

Nº 17 January-June, 2016

Special Edition on Biopolitics

Since Foucault’s initial work on “biopolitics”, the relation between life and politics has become of increasing significance in the contemporary debate in philosophy and in the social sciences. As an area of research and as a concept, biopolitics has received diverse and at times opposed applications in the works of Antonio Negri, Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, Nikolas Rose, among others. This year the journal Pléyade intends to dedicate a dossier on biopolitics with the aim of analyzing both the exploitation and administration of biological life as a form of power, and of proposing alternative conceptions of politics that allow biological life to escape or resist its domination. We are interested in receiving contributions that address both modalities of biopolitics from a variety of disciplinary points of view.

 

This dossier invites authors to make contributions in the different areas on biopolitics and biopower in the contemporary thought. Along these lines, the proposed themes could include:

– Debates in contemporary thought on life and politics

– New perspectives on Michel Foucault and biopolitics

– Italian Theory and biopolitics

– Biopolitics and neoliberalism

– Biopolitics and totalitarianism

– Origines of biopolitics in the history of philosophy

– Affirmative biopolitics

– Biopolitics and new materialism

 

Guest Editor:

Vanessa Lemm, Head of the School of Humanities and Languages, University of New

South Wales UNSW, Australia.

Reception until: December 30, 2015

Languages: English or Spanish

Publication date: June 2016

Send articles to: revistapleyade@caip.cl

Manuscripts will be evaluated by double blind refereeing

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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/

Negritude, Decolonization and the Future of the World

Antonio Negri

NEGRITUDE, DECOLONIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD

Website: http://www.lse.ac.uk/humanRights/events/2015/Wilder.aspx

Public Lecture Presented by the  Internationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Solidarity Research Group

Tuesday 26 May 2015, 6pm -7.30pm

Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Speaker: Dr Gary Wilder

Chair: Dr Ayça Çubukçu

Dr Wilder reconsiders decolonization from the perspectives of Aimé Césaire (Martinique) and Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) who, beginning in 1945, promoted self-determination without state sovereignty. As politicians, public intellectuals, and poets, Césaire and Senghor struggled to transform imperial France into a democratic federation, with former colonies as autonomous members of a transcontinental polity. Wilder invites scholars to decolonize intellectual history and globalize critical theory, to analyze the temporal dimensions of political life, and to question the territorialist assumptions of contemporary historiography.

Gary Wilder is Director of the Mellon Committee on Globalization and Social Change, and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of History at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. His latest book is Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization and the Future of the World (Duke University Press, 2015)

Ayça Çubukçu (chair) is Assistant Professor in the Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Department of Sociology at LSE. She convenes the Internationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Solidarity Research Group

This event is co-hosted by the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, the Department of Sociology, and the Centre for International Studies at LSE (London School of Economics).

This event is open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served.

***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/

Transversal Texts

Information

TRANSVERSAL TEXTS

Launch of a new multilingual platform: Transversal Texts

Transversal Texts is an abstract machine and text machine at once, territory and stream of publication, production site and platform – the middle of a becoming that never wants to become a publishing company.
http://transversal.at/
http://transversal.at/transversal/0614/eipcp/en

Transversal Texts consists of an experimental site for publishing books and e-books in multiple languages, the multilingual web journal transversal, and a blog on current news from the middle of translation, social movements, art practices and political theory.

+ books
Beginning in October 2014 we will start experimenting with the publication of affordable books and e-books for free downloading, multilingual as far as possible, including texts by Félix Guattari & Antonio Negri, Precarias a la deriva, Gin Müller, Rubia Salgado, Monika Mokre, Brigitta Kuster, Ulf Wuggenig, Birgit Mennel, Stefan Nowotny and Gerald Raunig. The program can be found here: http://transversal.at/books

+ journal
The most recent issue of our web journal is an in-depth discussion of the general starting point for the project transversal texts. Under the title “The Insurrection of the Published” the journal provides specific insights into the “Death Throes of the Publication Industry” and the potentials of an empancipatory concatenation of writing, translating, and publicly negotiating publications. Authors: eipcp, Isabell Lorey / Otto Penz / Gerald Raunig / Birgit Sauer / Ruth Sonderegger, Stevphen Shukaitis, Felix Stalder, Traficantes de Sueños, An Anonymous Iranian Collective.
In cooperation with the new journal Kamion.
http://transversal.at/transversal/0614

+ blog
In the transversal texts blog a translocal network of authors conjoins current political texts with announcements about events, publications, actions, manifestations, and campaigns.
http://transversal.at/blog

Please forward to other interested people.

—
transversal texts
eipcp – european institute for progressive cultural policies
a-1060 vienna, gumpendorfer strasse 63b
a-4040 linz, harruckerstrasse 7
contact@eipcp.net
http://eipcp.net

**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

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

How the Commodity Form Dies

Adorno

HOW THE COMMODITY FORM DIES

Stream on Critical Theory: “How the Commodity Form Dies”
Historical Materialism Conference 2014 “How Capitalism Survives”
Eleventh Annual Historical Materialism London Conference – 6-9 November 2014 – Vernon Square, Central London

More than ever the theoretical implications of Marx’s theory of capital haunt the never fully established world order of capitalist production and consumption. Capitalism is always changing, its elementary form, the commodity form, however, survives. Already in the 1930s, Walter Benjamin wrote: “The experience of our generation: that capitalism will not die a natural death.” Today we might add: capitalism even survives its own death. The secret of its undead nature resides in its “sensuous-supra-sensuous” form, the commodity form. But how can a zombie die?

In the last decades, the intertwinement of the commodity form and the shape of time and space has been widely discussed. Scholars like Moishe Postone, Antonio Negri, Fredric Jameson, Michael Heinrich, David Harvey, David McNally, Massimiliano Tomba, Daniel Bensaïd, Stavros Tombazos, Neil Smith et al. have deepened our understanding of capital’s global dynamics of spatialization and temporalization.

This stream draws on this research and expands it to the site of language and symbolic economies: how does the commodity form survive by creating economico-linguistic structures beyond meaning? If we conceive of today’s global capitalism not only as an economic system but also as a global language in the crude sense, we can detect a “commodity language” (Marx), a real-abstract mode of the production of value and signification. Capitalism, however, is transcendentally meaningless.

This stream is interested in new assessments of theories central to Marx and Critical Theory such as critique, society, reification, second nature, natural history, commodification, fetishism, historical time, value, money, exchange, equivalence, ideology, domination, class, capital, social reproduction, epistemology, subjectivity etc.

The stream is particularly interested in (but not limited to) papers that address:

• New perspectives on the contemporary relevance of Marx’s thought for Critical Theory (Heinrich, Bonefeld et al.) which explore the relationship between Marx and the work of early Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer et al.)
• Productive and elective affinities between Marx, figures from the Frankfurt School and other critical theorists such as Bataille, Bensaid, Althusser, Foucault, Open Marxism, Postone, Heinrich, Kurz, Dieter Wolf, Castoriadis, Illyenkov, Bogdanov, etc.
• Monetary theory of value, state theory and the tradition of “Neue Marx-Lektüre” (from Pashukanis and Rubin to Backhaus and Reichelt)
• The question of “real abstraction” and the unity of commodity form and thought form (Alfred Sohn-Rethel)
• Theories of reification (Lukács)
• Theories of communization and value-form theory
• The intertwinement of capital, time and space
• Symbolic economies of “commodity language” (Marx, Hamacher, Goux, Derrida, Lacan, Lefebvre et al.)
• Adorno and the imagelessness of the political imaginary
• “Capitalist realism” (M. Fisher) and the aesthetic of the commodity form
• The biopolitical regulation of the population both as the collective exposure to a permanent state of exception (Benjamin, Agamben, Esposito et al.) and as the neoliberal condition of individual self-management (e.g. Virno’s “Grammar of the Multitude” or Lazzarato’s “Making of the Indebted Man”)
Stream coordinators: Sami Khatib (Berlin) Chris O’Kane (Seattle)

Register you abstracts here by 1 June 2014: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual11/submit

 

Communisation

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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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

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

The Power of the Monstrous

Monsters

THE POWER OF THE MONSTROUS

The Power of the Monstrous: a Seminar Series and an International Conference

Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the multitude

Seminar Series

Queen Mary, University of London

Mile End Road

London E1 4NS

Arts Two Building, room 3.16

All meetings @ 5 p.m.

MEETINGS: 

26 February

Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University, London and Collège international de philosophie) and Caroline Williams (Queen Mary, University of London), The Power of the Monstrous

26 March

Oliver Feltham (American University of Paris), Who is the ruling authority? Spinoza and Hobbes on power and subjectivity

Andrea Bardin (Brunel University, London),  The Early-Modern Metamorphosis of the Body Politic: Hobbes’s Anomaly

14 May

Jason Read (University of Southern Maine), The Affective Composition of the Political: From Negative Solidarity to Collective Indignatio

11 June

Dimitris Vardoulakis (University of Western Sidney), “The main political question is to identify the enemy”: Negri’s Monster.

Info and booking: http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/theorylab  

 

The Power of the Monstrous

International Conference

Brunel University, London

School of Social Sciences

Uxbridge UB8 3PH

Gaskell building, room 239

26-27 June 2014 @ 9.30 a.m.

SPEAKERS:

Laurent Bove (Université de Picardie, Emeritus), La monstruosité chez Camus: de l’absurde à l’histoire

Fabio Frosini (Università di Urbino), Absolute and relative perfection of the “monsters”: politics and history in Giacomo Leopardi 

Annie Ibrahim (Former programme director at the Collège international de philosophie, and Groupe d’études du matérialisme rationnel) Les monstres de Diderot, entre physiologie et politique

Arnaud Milanese (ENS, Lyon and CERPHI), The Beast and the Sovereign according to Hobbes

Vittorio Morfino (Università di Milano-Bicocca), Lucretius and Monsters: Between Bergson and Canguilhem

Mark Neocleous (BrunelUniversity, London), The Monster and the Police

Sue Ruddick (University of Toronto), Monstrous Earth

Yannis Stavrakakis (AristotleUniversity of Thessaloniki): Irrational, Extreme, Populist: The New Fear of the Masses in Debt Society

Amy Stefanovic (The School of Humanities and Communication Arts. The University of Western Sydney) The Extralegal Beast: On Hobbes and Sovereignty

Lasse Thomassen (Queen Mary, University of London) Monstrous Masses Beyond Representation: the Spanish Indignados

Andrea Torrano (Universidad Nacional de Cordoba), The Political Monster between Sovereignity and Biopolitics

 

Info and booking: http://goo.gl/vbrX6h

The seminar series and the conference are supported by:

Collège International de Philosophie, Paris

TheoryLAB, London

School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London

School of Social Sciences, BrunelUniversity, London

CERPHI: Institut d’histoire de la pensée classique, Lyon

 

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

Social and Political Critique in the Age of Austerity

Austerity

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CRITIQUE IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

A one day workshop at Keele University

10.30am-6pm, Wednesday 12th February, 2014

This one day workshop is devoted to the discussion of critical politics in the contemporary age of austerity. Following the 2007 global economic crash, which led to a raft of government bank bail outs and nationalisations across America and Europe, a cunning ideological reversal took place – the crash was no longer the result of the hubris of the neoliberal financial sector, which had developed the idea of ‘riskless risk’ where reckless stock market speculation and the creation of value ex nihilo could produce endless profit, but rather the immoral wastefulness of the people and society. According to this ideological position, which was advanced by governments across Europe, the welfare state, and in many respects society itself, was transformed into an ‘exorbitant privilege’ that was simply unaffordable. In fact, in order to pay for their wastefulness the people were not only expected to give up their public services, but also required to accept ever lower wages, and a general state of social and economic precariousness.

This is the current state of play across America and Europe, where the neoliberal state has exploited the crash in order to retrofit society for violent competition with Asian capitalism. In the face of this race to the bottom, key thinkers such as David Graeber, Antonio Negri, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, and Costas Douzinas have spoken out against the new form Naomi Klein calls neoliberal disaster capitalism and given voice to the protest, rebellion, and revolt taking place across the world.

The objective of this workshop is to build upon the works of these key thinkers and explore the possibility for resistance in the age of austerity. We invite contributions from a range of disciplines focused on diverse social and political contexts and a variety of theoretical perspectives. Contributors may choose to focus on austerity and resistance across Europe, including the UK, Greece, Spain, and Italy; the Occupy movement; the media construction of austerity, including the idea of the undeserving poor who are seen to be living off public funds; methods for the organisation of resistance; the concept of the multitude and the digital commons; anti-capitalist thought; or transformative social and political theory and practice more generally. Most importantly, we are keen to emphasise that this list is not exhaustive – the key principle behind the workshop is that debate should open up a space for social and political creativity. In this way we are keen to encourage potential contributors to be creative and explore new possibilities for political change in a historical period where change seems absolutely necessary, but also impossible to envisage. In this respect, we encourage contributions from a variety of participants – academics, post-graduate students, activists, and others engaged in thinking through the possibilities of change under conditions of crisis and austerity.

The workshop will close with a lecture from Professor Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck), author of Philosophy and Resistance in the Crisis: Greece and the Future of Europe.

In order to take part in the event please send a 250 word abstract to Emma Head (e.l.head@keele.ac.uk), by Monday 6 January 2014.

This event is being organised jointly by Mark Featherstone (Keele Sociology) and Emma Head (Keele Sociology and the BSA Digital Sociology study group). Registration will open in early January.

Crisis

 

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

Crisis and Critique of the State

CRISIS

CRISIS & CRTIQUE OF THE STATE

Call for Papers

Crisis & Critique of the State
Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference 2013
25 – 26 October 2013, Goldsmiths, University of London

Keynote Speakers:
Sara Farris, Goldsmiths, University of London
Bob Jessop, Lancaster University
Massimiliano Tomba, University of Padua

The ongoing crisis poses the question of state and democracy anew. While many commentators mourn the vanishing sovereignty of the state in the face of financial markets and globalisation, and declare our times to be post-democratic, their nostalgic image of the glorious days of democracy and sovereignty as bulwarks against capitalism is profoundly problematic. We consider it therefore not only necessary to discuss the question of the state and democracy again, but with Negri we could even say that “there must be a structural theory of the State-capital-society relationship and a political strategy adequate to the structural character of these interrelations.”

Revisit concepts and discussions…
The goal of the conference is to debate critical materialist notions of the state, which do not fall back into vulgar conceptions that see the state simply as the tool of the ruling class, but also refuse the common liberal position in which the state becomes the mere mediator of conflicting interests. We consider Poulantzas’s notion of the state as “the specific material condensation of a relationship of forces among classes and class fractions” to be a fruitful starting point. From Poulantzas’s perspective, which critically incorporates Althusser’s earlier attempt to complexify a materialist concept of the state, the state is the product of existing power relations; however, it can gain a relative autonomy from those structures and in turn transform them. That is also the backdrop against which democracy within capitalist societies can be discussed productively. But the question of democracy goes beyond the analysis of the existing: philosophical, social and empirical notions of democracy, sovereignty and the political are key to any present discussion of emancipatory politics.

…to address questions of the present.
We want to tie in with existing materialist conceptions and critiques of the state and think through their relevance to the present. What does it mean for the state to be the “ideal collective capitalist” (Engels) in times of the economic crisis? Is there a notion of the state that we should defend and what would it look like? What is a feminist critique of the state in the face of the crisis (of reproduction)? These are only a few of the many questions we hope to discuss from various disciplinary, theoretical as well as empirical, perspectives.

Topics include but are not limited to:
– (materialist) state theories
– state-form, sovereignty and the law
– the crisis and critique of democracy, representation and popular sovereignty
– critiques of the nation state, citizenship and immigration policies
– the state and race
– feminist critiques of the state
– governmentality / management and resistance in the economic crisis
– the politics of austerity and their cultural and economic implications
– the role of the state and political economy
– (post-)politics and the political
– the relationship between democracy, populism and fascism
– revolution and the state
– the relation of philosophy and politics vis-à-vis the state
– violence, repression and the state: “policing the crisis”
– state & the commons

The call is primarily addressed to postgraduate students, young researchers, activists, etc. We plan to have panels with academics from Goldsmiths and other universities responding to the presentations.
Please send abstracts of not more than 500 words to goldsmithsgradconference@gmail.com by Monday, 29th of July 2013. We also invite proposals for possible panels.

See: http://goldsmithsgradconference.wordpress.com/

First published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-crisis-critique-of-the-state-goldsmiths-25-26-october

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

 

Protest

Protest

PROTEST

Call for Papers: ‘Protest’

Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought
Volume 3: Issue 4: January/February 2014
 
Food riots, anti-war protests, anti-government tirades, anti-blasphemy marches, anti-austerity demonstrations, anti-authoritarian movements, and anti-capitalist occupations: the politics of the twenty-first century is marked by dissent, tumult and calls for radical change. Contemporary political protests have emerged as a key tool for the expression of dissent, are born of both the Right and the Left and are staged in both the global North and the global South. In marked contrast to the triumphalism of neoliberal ideology, different instantiations of protest all over the world have drawn attention to the deep fissures that are papered over by the idea of the global market place. Given the diversity of justice claims and political persuasions that are expressed in protests today, a key task of political inquiry is to understand the convergences and divergences between them, and whether these protests are a precursor of profound global social change. There have been numerous theoretical engagements with the questions of global social change in recent years:  Hardt and Negri have engaged directly the notion of inherent crisis in the capitalist system; David Graeber has raised questions about anarchism, debt and democracy in recent work; neo-Gramscians have enquired into the role of hegemony in the global political economy, and postcolonial theorists have explored the enduring legacy of the colonial encounter in the present.

In this issue of Global Discourse, we wish to explore the nature and context of protest, seeking to evaluate the notion of links between different protests. Among others, we welcome submissions examining the following broad topics:

–          locations, sites and spaces of protest

–          forms of resistance, assembly and protest

–          local, national, international and transnational solidarity in protest

–          questions of universality and difference

–          development and modernity in protest

Building upon previous symposia with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Andrew Linklater and Cynthia Weber, the issue will contain review symposium with David Graeber, who will respond to reviews of his recent The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement, and Teivo Teivainen, who will respond to reviews of his forthcoming Democracy in Movement.

Submission deadlines

Abstracts: May 20th 2013

Full articles of around 8,000 words (solicited on the basis of review of abstracts): August 18th 2013

Publication: January 2014

UK REF Considerations: Papers can appear online as soon as they are accepted and processed. However, we will be able to accommodate the wishes of authors to delay publication until the beginning of 2014 because they wish their papers to be included in the 2014- REF.

Instructions for authors:  http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rgld20&page=instructions#.UX-WG8qSJHo

Further details: http://www.tandfonline.com/rgld (previous website: http://global-discourse.com)

Editor contact details: s.suliman@uq.edu.au, s.brincat@uq.edu.au and matthew.johnson@york.ac.uk

Journal Aims and Scope
Global Discourse is an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented journal of applied contemporary thought operating at the intersection of politics, international relations, sociology and social policy. The journal’s scope is broad, encouraging interrogation of current affairs with regard to core questions of distributive justice, wellbeing, cultural diversity, autonomy, sovereignty, security and recognition. Rejecting the notion that publication is the final stage in the research process, Global Discourse seeks to foster discussion and debate between often artificially isolated disciplines and paradigms, with responses to articles encouraged and conversations continued across issues. The journal features a mix of full-length articles, each accompanied by one or more replies, shorter essays, rapid replies, discussion pieces and book review symposia, typically consisting of three reviews and a reply by the author/s. With an international advisory editorial board consisting of experienced, highly-cited academics, Global Discourse welcomes submissions from and on any region. Authors are encouraged to explore the international dimensions and implications of their work. With a mix of themed and general issues, symposia are periodically deployed to examine topics as they emerge.

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ – International Conference

Machiavelli

MACHIAVELLI’S ‘THE PRINCE’ – AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Machiavelli’s The Prince 
Five Centuries of History, Conflict and Politics

International Conference
Wednesday 29th – Friday 31st  May 2013

Brunel University, London

 

Wednesday 29th May

09.30   Registration

Session 1

10.00   Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University, London): Introduction

10.10    Justin Fisher (Head of School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, London): Welcome

10.15    Jean-Claude Zancarini (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon): HyperPrince. Premiers résultats d’un outil de comparaison entre l’édition princeps du Prince et ses traductions françaises du XVIe siècle

11.00    Jacques Lezra (New York University): Discourse, discord: The heart of Il Principe

11.45    Coffee Break

12.00   Yves Winter (McGill University): Violence and Realism in The Prince

12.45   Etienne Balibar (Kingston University, London): Esser principe, esser populare: The principle of antagonism in Machiavelli’s epistemology

 

Session 2

 

14.30   Jean-Louis Fournel (Université Paris VIII): La langue de la guerre selon Machiavel

 15.15    Gabriele Pedullà (Università degli Studi di Roma Tre): Machiavelli the Tactician

16.00   Coffee Break 

16.15    Jérémie Barthas (Queen Mary, University of London): Machiavelli and public debt.

17.00   John M. Najemy (Cornell University): Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia: Another look at Chapter VII

17.45   Close

 

Thursday 30th May

Session 3

10.00   Thomas Berns (Université Libre de Bruxelles): L’efficacité prophétique: la relation des armes et des lois

10.45   Fabio Frosini (Università degli Studi di Urbino ‘Carlo Bo’): Prophecy, education and necessity: Girolamo Savonarola between politics and religion

11.30    Coffee Break

11.45    Warren Montag (Occidental College, Los Angeles): ‘Uno mero esecutore’: Moses, God and fortune in the The Prince

12.30   Miguel Vatter (University of New South Wales, Australia): Towards a republican conception of divine providence: A new reading of Chapter XXVI

 

Session 4

14.15    Alison Brown (University of London, Royal Holloway): Following an untrodden path: transgression and modernism in Lucretius and Machiavelli

15.00   Peter Stacey (University of California, Los Angeles): Machiavelli’s political ontology

15.45   Coffee Break

16.00   Vittorio Morfino (Università di Milano-Bicocca): The five theses of Machiavelli’s philosophy

16.45   Sebastián Torres (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba): Time and politics: a materialist reading of Machiavelli

17.30   Close

 

Friday 31st May

Session 5

10.00   Giorgio Inglese (Università di Roma, La Sapienza): Italia come spazio politico nel Principe e nei Discorsi.

10.45   John P. McCormick (The University of Chicago): Machiavelli on misawarded glory: Agathocles, Scipio and ‘the writers’.

11.30    Coffee Break

11.45    Laurent Bove (Université de Picardie, Amiens): Puissance et conservation. La leçon de Machiavel dans l’ontologie spinoziste.

12.30   Antonio Negri (Uninomade): Il tumulto costituente e la decisione del principe.

 

Session 6

14.15    Judith Revel (Université de Paris I, Sorbonne): Trois usages de Machiavel : Merleau-Ponty, Lefort, Foucault.

15.00   Mohamed Moulfi (Université d’Oran): Althusser, lecteur du Prince.

15.45   Coffee Break

16.00   Banu Bargu (The New School for Liberal Arts, New York): Machiavelli after Althusser.

16.45   Mikko Lahtinen (Tampereen Yliopisto): Machiavelli was not a republicanist – or a monarchist: on Louis Althusser’s ‘aleatory’ interpretation of The Prince.

17.30   Close

 

Conference organisers:

Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University, London)

Fabio Frosini (Università degli Studi di Urbino ‘Carlo Bo’)

Vittorio Morfino (Università di Milano, Bicocca)

Tania Rispoli (Università di Roma, Tor Vergata)

 

The conference is supported by:

Brunel Research and Innovation Fund

School of Social Sciences, Brunel University

Research Support and Development Office, Brunel University

Scuola Superiore di Studi in Filosofia, Università degli studi di Roma, Tor Vergata

Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Uomo, Università degli Studi di Urbino ‘Carlo Bo’

Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione ‘Riccardo Massa,’ Università di Milano, Bicocca

Corporate Relations, Brunel University

Higher Education Academy

Media Centre, Brunel University

 

Conference fee: £60 (£20 for one day)

Concessions available for students and the unwaged at £30 (£10 for one day)

For booking and non – academic queries please contact Nikki Elliott (Nikki.Elliott@brunel.ac.uk) or Jane Alexander (jane.alexander@brunel.ac.uk).

For academic queries please contact Filippo Del Lucchese (filippo.dellucchese@brunel.ac.uk).

A limited number of bursaries are available to graduate students who do not have support available to attend the conference. Applications must be received by 30 March 2013. Please send a cover letter and a recommendation letter by your personal tutor or academic mentor to support your application to Tania Rispoli (tanize84@yahoo.it).

Please do not hesitate to forward the programme (below) and flag this opportunity to students who might be interested in following our conference in May.

All the best, Filippo Del Lucchese

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/machiavellis-the-prince-london-conference-29-31-may-bursaries-available

*****END*****

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Third Annual Radical Democracy Conference

Marxist-Humanist Intiative

THIRD ANNUAL RADICAL DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE

Call for Papers

THIRD ANNUAL RADICAL DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE

The New School for Social Research, New York City March 16, 2013

KEYNOTE: WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY
Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University Paper Abstracts and Panel Proposal Submission Deadline: January 15, 2013 Notification Date: January 25, 2013 Full Papers Deadline: February 25, 2013

The Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research is sponsoring a graduate student conference interrogating the concept, history, practices and implications of radical democracy. We strive to assess its legacy from ancient to contemporary radical democratic theory, as well as explore the work of theorists such as Abensour, Arendt, Badiou, Castoriadis, Laclau, Mouffe, Negri, Rancière, and Wolin. We invite you to submit abstracts on any theme pertaining to the history, meaning, development, application, or critique of the concept of radical democracy; we also encourage discussions about methodology and the study of radical democratic movements.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a one-page abstract (max. 300 words) that includes institutional affiliation, academic level and contact information. Complete panel proposals with up to four papers are strongly encouraged. Please submit your paper or panel abstracts by January 15, 2013 to radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu. You will receive a notification of our decision by January 25, 2013. Full conference papers are due by February 25, 2013.

Topics may include but are not limited to:
.    Indigenous democratic movements
.    Contemporary radical social struggles
.    Radical democracy and the 2012 elections
.    Promises, limits and critiques of the concept of radical democracy
.    Philosophical foundations of radical democracy
.    Engendering radical democracy: race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality
.    Technology and the mediums of radical democracy
.    Comparative approaches to democracy
.    Relationship of radical democracy and key concepts in political theory: anarchism and communism; neo-republicanism; direct democracy; state and nation; consensus and conflict; capitalism; imperialism; liberalism; dictatorship and tyranny; resistance and violence; revolution and reform.

 

**END**

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording); and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)   

 

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

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

Encountering Althusser

Althusser

ENCOUNTERING ALTHUSSER

Now Available

Encountering Althusser: Politics and Materialism in Contemporary Radical Thought

 

Editors: 

Katja Diefenbach, Sara R. Farris, Gal Kirn and Peter D. Thomas

384 pp.

ISBN 978-1-4411-5213-8

£18.74 paperback

Publication date: January 2013

Encountering Althusser

 

For ordering: 25% discount in December at: Bloomsbury: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/encountering-althusser-9781441152138/

See also: http://www.amazon.com/Encountering-Althusser-Politics-Materialism-Contemporary/dp/144115213X

 

Short description

French philosopher Louis Pierre Althusser (1918 -1990) helped define the politico-theoretical conjuncture of pre- and post-1968. Today, there is a recrudescence of interest in his thought, especially in light of his later work, published in English as Philosophy of the Encounter (Verso, 2006). This has led to renewed debates on the reformulation of conflicting notions of materialism, on the event as both philosophical concept and political construction, and on the nature of politics and the political.

Encountering Althusser was edited by Sara Farris, Katja Diefenbach, Gal Kirn and Peter Thomas. It is a collection of diverse and original essays written by leading scholars that aims to provide a new assessment of Althusser’s thought, especially in relation to contemporary debates. Organized in four sections that represent the main currents in Althusser’s scholarship, the book discusses materialism and the different formulations of the relationship between politics and philosophy, Althusser’s interpretations of political thinkers (including Machiavelli, Deleuze, Lacan and Gramsci), the resources he provides to critique political economy and politics in post-Marxist thought, and the theorization of ideology and politics.

Encountering Althusser is a groundbreaking resource that highlights Althusser’s continuing relevance to contemporary radical thought.

 

Contributions

Michele Cangiani, Katja Diefenbach, Sara R. Farris, Isabelle Garo, Pascale Gillot, G.M. Goshgarian, Giorgos Fourtounis, Gal Kirn, Katja Kolšek, Mikko Lahtinen, Rastko Močnik, Warren Montag, Vittorio Morfino, Ceren Özselçuk, Rastko Močnik, Ozren Pupovac, Peter D. Thomas, André Tosel, Panagiotis Sotiris, Caroline Williams, Frieder Otto Wolf.

 

Reviews

“A rich and profound overview of Althusser’s thought, absolutely precious for a contemporary reconstruction of Marxism and for a relaunching of its analytical and political potentials.” — Maria Turchetto, President of the Cultural Association Louis Althusser

“The first time I encountered ‘aleatory’ Althusser, I almost could not believe it … How could ‘Science’ engage with the ‘postmodern’, with the radical change in the conditions of the revolution, without falling into renegacy? Here it is: the aleatory served precisely this purpose: a new tactic for an old strategy. Althusser showed us a new path, which is now being taken up again by a new generation” — Antonio Negri, co-author of Empire (2000), Multitude (2004) and Commonwealth (2009)

“Is Althusser coming back, like a ghost out of oblivion, bringing with him one of the last attempts to ‘reconstruct’ Marxism from the inside with great style? Yes, but it’s an unexpected Althusser, one who bears the entire ‘underground history’ of materialism in philosophy and opens the way for a new political thought. Under the guidance of a new generation of critical leaders, let us be surprised.” — Étienne Balibar, co-author of Reading Capital (1970)

“The present volume, thoughtfully edited, gathering a large and diverse group of remarkable international scholars and tackling a sweeping range of Althusserian problems with intellectual courage and acuity, presents the most serious collective effort so far in this ‘return to Althusser’, a return which can never be just a return but requires a reinvention. I feel confident it will set a landmark.” — Mladen Dolar, author of A Voice and Nothing More (2006)

“This book offers a welcome return to the creative theoretical practice of Louis Althusser to whom so much contemporary radical thinking owes a largely unacknowledged debt.” — Katherine Gibson, co-author of A Postcapitalist Politics (2006)

 

First published at http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/encountering-althusser-now-available

 

**END**

 

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

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

 

The Revolutionary Foundations of Modern Political Thought

Revolution

THE REVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

Brunel Social and Political Thought Research Group Seminar Series 2012/13

The Revolutionary Foundations of Modern Political Thought

 

Following successful seminar series and international conferences in the last years, the Brunel Social and Political Thought research group will organise another seminar series in 2012/13: ‘The Revolutionary Foundations of Modern Political Thought’. This seminar series aims to explore the ways in which revolutionary politics, movements and events, and responses to them, have shaped and transformed the vocabulary of modern political thought. Brunel, national and international scholars will explore these themes in thinkers and movements ranging from the early modern period to contemporary radical political thought, in political and social theory, philosophy, film and literature.

 

Term 1

 

Thursday 25th October 2012, 3pm, Room H002

Peter D. Thomas (Brunel University)

The Idea of Communism and the Question of Organisation

 

Wednesday 31st October 2012, 12:30pm, Room LC015 (Co-sponsored by Politics and History Departmental Seminar)

Filippo del Lucchese (Brunel University)

Jura communia as anima imperii: the Symptomatic Relationship between Law and Conflict in Spinoza

 

Thursday 22nd November 2012, 3pm, Room H002

Luca Basso (University of Padua)

Politics and Conjuncture: Marx and 1848

 

Friday 30th November 2012, 3pm, Room GB251

Stella Sanford (Kingston University)

Locke, Balibar and the Political Subject

 

Wednesday 12th December 2012, 1pm, Room LC264 (Co-sponsored by Politics and History Departmental Seminar)

Gareth Dale (Brunel University)

The Growth Paradigm: A Critique

 

Thursday 13th December 2012, 3pm, Room H002

Dr Maïa Pal (University of Sussex)

Historical Materialism and International Law: Developing Legal Agency in Political Marxism

 

Wednesday 19th December 2012, 4pm, Room LC264 (Co-sponsored by Politics and History Departmental Seminar)

Thomas Linehan (Brunel University)

Modernism and British Socialism

 

Term 2

 

Thursday 17th January 2013, 3pm, Room H002

Fabrizio Fasulo (University of Palermo)

Raniero Panzieri and the Workers’ Inquiry: the Perspective of Living Labour and the Function of Science

 

Thursday 24th January 2013, 3pm, Room H002

Giorgio Cesarale (University of Rome La Sapienza)

Traces of Hegel: Reflection and Social Theory

 

Thursday 7th February 2013, 3pm, Room H002

Matthijs Krul (Brunel University)

The Value of Value: On the Significance of Concepts of Value for Economic History

 

Wednesday 20th February 2013, 3pm, GB266

Andrea Bardin (Brunel University)

From Man to Matter: Marx after Simondon

 

Wednesday 27th February 2013, 4pm, Room H002

Alex Callinicos (King’s College London)

Deciphering Capital

 

Thursday 7th March 2013, 3pm, Room H002

Neil Davidson (University of Strathclyde)

Political and Social Revolutions in Historical Perspective: from the Dutch Revolt to the Arab Spring

 

Wednesday 13th March 2013, 1pm, Room LC264 (Co-sponsored by Politics and History Departmental Seminar)

Nathaniel Boyd (Brunel University)

“Who Thinks Concretely?” Hegel’s Critique of Political Abstraction

 

Thursday 14th March 2013, 3pm, Room H002

Alex Demirovic (University of Basel and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung)

Marxism and Foucault

 

Wednesday 20th March 2013, 3pm, LC008

Chiara Bottici (The New School)

Democracy and the Spectacle. On Rousseau’s Homeopathic Method

 

29th-31st May, 2013, BrunelUniversity, International Conference

(Organised by Filippo del Lucchese)

Machiavelli’s The Prince: Five Centuries of History, Conflict, and Politics

Speakers include Antonio Negri, Etienne Balibar, John McCormick, John Najemy and Warren Montag

 

All seminars take place at Brunel University.Directions to the campus can be found here:

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/campus/directions

 

For further information, please contact:

Peter Thomas <PeterD.Thomas@brunel.ac.uk>

Visit the Brunel SPT Research Group webpages:

<http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/modern-political-thought-violence-and-revolution-ma>

<http://www.brunel.ac.uk/sss/politics/research-groups-and-centres/social-and-political-thought>

<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brunel-University-Modern-Political-Thought/205393026150272?sk=wall>

 

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/brunel-social-and-political-thought-research-group-seminar-the-revolutionary-foundations-of-modern-political-thought-next-seminar-25-october

 

**END**

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

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