How Class Works 2014 – Final Call for Papers

Dialectics of Class Struggle in the Global Economy

HOW CLASS WORKS 2014 – FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS

LAST CALL 

PLEASE POST AND FORWARD WIDELY – DEADLINE DECEMBER 11, 2013
PLEASE SEND ALL QUERIES AND PROPOSALS DIRECTLY TO: michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu 
HOW CLASS WORKS – 2014

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 5-7, 2014

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2014 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 5-7, 2014.  Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 11, 2013 according to the guidelines below.  For more information, visit our Web site at: www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass.

Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference.  Formal papers will be welcome but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes:

1. The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class. 

2. Class dimensions of poverty. To explore why and how poverty is something that happens to the working class, not some marginal “other” at the bottom of society..  

3. Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.

4. Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.

5. Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor standards.

6. Middle class? Working class? What’s the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between the middle class and the capitalist class.

7. Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.

8.Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture transmits and transforms class dynamics.

9. Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to Submit Proposals for How Class Works – 2014 Conference

Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) title; b) which of the eight conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter’s name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants.  Proposals for poster sessions are welcome.  Presentations may be assigned to a poster session.

Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from each proposed session member.

Submit proposals as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu or as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works  – 2014 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY11794-4384.

Timetable:  Proposals must be received by December 11, 2013. After review by the program committee, notifications will be mailed on January 17, 2014. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 5-7, 2014.  Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after March 3, 2014. Details and updates will be posted at http://www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass.

Conference coordinator:

Michael Zweig

Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY11794-4384

631.632.7536    

michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu

Capitalist Nightmare

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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                 

Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 26th October 2013

Education Crisis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 26th OCTOBER 2013

EVENTS

FILMS FROM THE CANADIAN LABOUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2013
November 29
7 pm
PSAC Headquarters
233 Gilmour Street
Ottawa, ON

The Workers’ History Museum is proud to host Ottawa’s first-ever Canadian Labour International Film Festival. CLIFF gives a stage to those who seek justice on the job and dignity in their workplaces, so it is a perfect fit for our museum. This successful festival, now in its fifth year, has brought independent films about working people to cities throughout Canada. On November 29th, we’re bringing them to Ottawa.

Please join us for five films — and five perspectives — that you won’t see anywhere else. Information about the films can be found at: http://workershistorymuseum.ca/cliff2013/

Admission is $5.00. For more information or for advance tickets, please contact: treasurer@workershistorymuseum.ca

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PEOPLE UNITED – CREATING A NEW SPACE FOR COMMUNITY DIALOGUE

November 28
6 p.m.
Beit Zatoun
612 Markham St., Toronto (2 blocks west of Bathurst St., south side of Bloor St. W.)

Join other activists, advocates, and organizers:
–  Weaving connections between community groups, city-wide organizations, social justice networks, and progressive movements
–  Sharing stories from our struggles
–  Finding common ground on issues, goals, values
–  Developing the groundwork for a solidarity strategy and creating the conditions for an active solidarity alliance

Sponsored by the Toronto Community Development Institute (TCDI)
For more information about the TCDI, visit: http://www.torontocdi.ca/

We invite you to join us or work with us on our projects. For more information about how you can be a part of TCDI, email: organizing.tcdi@gmail.com or call (416) 231-5499.

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TORONTO BOOK LAUNCH: TAX IS NOT A FOUR LETTER WORD

Tuesday, November 5, 2013
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Sears Atrium, George Vari Engineering Building
245 Church Street, 3rd Floor
Toronto, ON

Join the CCPA (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) Ontario for a special book launch: Tax is Not a Four-Letter Word.

It’s time to start talking about the value of taxes in Canada. Join us for the launch of Canada’s newest book on the subject: Tax is Not a Four Letter Word.

Featuring the book’s co-editors:
– Alex Himelfarb, Glendon College Director and former Clerk of the Privy Council
– Jordan Himelfarb, Toronto Star Opinion Editor
and three of the book’s CCPA contributors:
– Jim Stanford, Ontario Advisory Board Chair
– Hugh Mackenzie, Research Associate
– Trish Hennessy, Ontario Director

We hope you can join us! Space is limited so sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/8368792283

– See more at: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/offices/ontario/events/toronto-book-launch-tax-not-four-letter-word#sthash.HJZc3oSc.dpuf

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GETTING IN & STAYING IN: LABOUR MARKET CHALLENGES FACING YOUTH

Mon. Nov. 4
9:00am- 4:00pm
Toronto

Youth are experiencing unprecedented barriers to entering the workforce and are resorting to creative, and sometimes unpaid, outlets to gain meaningful experiences, network and secure stable employment.

Co-hosted by Social Planning Toronto (SPT), Toronto Workforce Innovation Group and McMaster University’s School of Labour Studies, this full day event will explore overall trends in youth unemployment in Canada and Ontario, including public policy options.

To register: Contact Mary Micallef, mmicallef@socialplanningtoronto.org, or 416-351-0095 ext. 251

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SEMINAR – COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Saturday, November 23, 2013
1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
252 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario

Sponsored by Tools for Change

This workshop will outline the theory of community organizing and the steps and strategies involved in actively participating in an organization engaged in community organizing.

Exact campus room location given to registrants a week before the event.

Trainer: Effie Vlachoyannacos is the Managing Director of Public Interest, a social enterprise in Toronto working with communities to fuel social change and build the capacity of non-profit organizations and labour groups to do the same. With Public Interest, Effie has worked on diverse community engagement initiatives and campaigns across Toronto’s inner suburbs, with a particular focus on affordable and social housing advocacy.

For more info and to register: http://www.eventbrite.ca/org/1382386439?s=17819903

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NEWS & VIEWS

VIDEO – LET’S TALK ABOUT UNIONS: NORA LORETO’S BOOK LAUNCH AND Q&A

Nora Loreto has released a new book From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement with support from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that serves as a call to incite union activists and supporter, debunk anti-union rhetoric and start the conversation around building a strong, community-focus union movement in Canada.

Watch the video: http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2013/10/best-net/lets-talk-about-unions-nora-loretos-book-launch-and-qa

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BRIARPATCH MAGAZINE – SNEAK PEEK AT OUR LABOUR ISSUE: THE POLITICS OF PRECARITY

In the last two decades precarious employment has doubled. The National Urban Worker Strategy, introduced on Monday in the House of Commons by MP Andrew Cash, “proposes a sweeping suite of overdue federal policies that respond to the plight of temps, freelancers, interns, part-timers and other flexworkers who flit from gig to gig, shift to shift, contract to contract, with no guarantee of income or future work, let alone access to benefits or pensions.” What promise does it hold for precarious workers? In this issue, award-winning writers Nicole Cohen and Grieg de Peuter take a critical look at the Urban Worker Strategy and the politics of precarity.

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1ae4EBI

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LET’S GET THIS CLASS WAR STARTED

By Chris Hedges, Common Dreams

“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”

The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/21

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HOW DOMESTIC WORKERS WON THEIR RIGHTS: FIVE BIG LESSONS

By Amy Dean, Alternet

Domestic workers have had some breakthrough wins over the past two weeks. Up until then, these workers were excluded from protections such as a guaranteed minimum wage, paid breaks, and overtime pay. On September 17, the Obama administration  announced new rules extending the Fair Labor Standards Act to include the 800,000 to 2 million home health workers—who help seniors and others with self-care tasks like taking medications, bathing, and shopping—under the federal government’s wage and hour protections.

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/activism/how-domestic-workers-won-their-rights-five-big-lessons

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VIDEO – TRADE UNION AND ‘PROGRESSIVE’ STRATEGIES: THE RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT, CAPITAL STEWARDSHIP, AND ‘PENSION FUND ACTIVISM’ MOVEMENTS

It is noteworthy that as finance has been on the ‘rise,’ some activists began to formalize anti-corporate and targeted activist campaign strategies through pension and personal investment funds. In Canada and the U.S., several faith organizations began to argue that anti-social corporate behaviour should be, in some sense, sanctioned by individual investors and ultimate owners, on the basis of social principle or humanitarian values.

These initiatives then crystallized and drew broader support with the rise of the sanctions and divestment movement directed against corporate and government support for apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

Such initiatives have seen their labels evolving from “ethical investment,” to “socially responsible investment” (SRI), to the most recent simplified term of “responsible investment.” While many trade unions, NGOs, and activists have embraced these efforts, others have not, and a substantial differentiation on the political left has emerged. Most recently, Queen’s political economist Susanne Soederberg has produced a sharply critical analysis of these investor-activist efforts from a Marxist political economy framework. This critique follows previous analyses by CAW economists Sam Gindin and Jim Stanford, both of whom have raised serious questions about these strategies as projections of trade union or working class power. Other unions and labour organizations have embraced these strategies with enthusiasm, as is notable in the establishment of a “Committee on Workers Capital” at the international level.

Moderated by Greg Albo. Convenor: Kevin Skerrett. Presentations by:
– Susanne Soederberg (Queen’s University) – Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism.
– Jim Stanford (UNIFOR) – Paper Boom.

Sponsors: Centre for Social Justice, Global Labour Research Centre (York University), Canada Research Chair in Political Economy (York University) and Socialist Project.

Watch the video: http://www.socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed/ls189.php

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ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):

Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

 

**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

Labor and Working-Class History Seminar

Economics

LABOR AND WORKING-CLASS HISTORY SEMINAR

CALL FOR PAPERS

2013–2014 Academic Year
Call for Papers

The Labor and Working-Class History Seminar at Roosevelt House, Hunter College, City University of New York seeks proposals for seminar papers that explore the rich and diverse spectrum of labor history and working-class life. Essays may focus on workers’ agency, culture, and lived experiences; class dynamics as informed by other social categories and identities; changes in political economy and their effects on workers’ lives; the expansion and reduction of governmental policies promoting economic security and other forms of social welfare; and other related topics.

The Labor and Working-Class History Seminar will be an on-going colloquium for a broad academic audience, including graduate students, faculty members, and independent scholars. We will meet at the historic Roosevelt House twice a semester during the 2013–2014 academic year, on selected Tuesdays from 6:00–8:00 p.m. At each meeting, an invited presenter will offer an overview of a scholarly work, pre-circulated electronically to all participants, and a commentator will provide constructive feedback. The exchange between the presenter and commentator will be followed by a discussion among all seminar attendees.

The Labor and Working-Class History seminar, while focused on history, welcomes scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including human rights studies, public policy studies, sociology, anthropology, literature, law, and environmental studies. We encourage cross-disciplinary discussion, and invite proposals from diverse subject areas and approaches.

Interested scholars who would like to present a portion of their current research on labor and/or class should submit a one page abstract and a brief cv to: Donna Haverty-Stacke and Eduardo Contreras at laborsem@hunter.cuny.edu by August 1, 2013. Decisions will be communicated by September 1, 2013 to all those who have submitted abstracts.

We have a limited fund to support regional travel but are unable to provide funding for long-distance travel or lodging. If you would like to be placed on the email list to receive announcements of upcoming presentations, please write to: laborsem@hunter.cuny.edu.

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-labor-and-working-class-history-seminar-at-roosevelt-house-hunter-college-cuny

 

**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

Race, Gender & Class 2013 Conference

Multiculturalism

RACE, GENDER & CLASS 2013 CONFERENCE

Race, Gender & Class 2013 Conference
in New Orleans March 7-9, 2013

Co-sponsored by Race, Gender & Class journal (Jean Ait Belkhir & Christiane Charlemaine), Center for African and African American Studies (SUNO), & Sociological Association Race, Gender & Class Section

The conference is being held at the University of New Orleans

Lodging would be avalaible on the UNO Campus
If you are willing to share a room, contact  Christiane Charlemaine
In the subject line please include: RGC Conference, room avail. to share

Conference Registration Fees

Early Bird Registration by January 18, 2013:  Student $70; Non-student $180

All presenters have to register by February 15, 2013 in order to be in the program. No exception!

Late Registration: Student $95; Non-student $205

All attendees and presenters are expected to register

Make Checks Payable to Race, Gender & Class Conference.

Mail to

Jean Ait Belkhir
University of New Orleans
Sociology Department
Milneburg Hall Room 170
2000 Lakeshore Drive
New Orleans, LA70148

 

Call for Papers and Organizers

PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSAL / ABSTRACT BY DECEMBER 1ST

Race, Gender & Class and the 2012 Elections

Do progressives have an alternative for America?

Abstracts (250-300 words) should be sent only electronically by December 1st, 2012 to Jean Ait Belkhir at rgcso@uno.edu. Presentations at the 2013 RGC Conference would be selected for publication in the Race, Gender & Class journal.

To volunteer to serve as an RGC conference organizer, please contact Dr. Jean Ait Belkhir

rgcso@uno.edu,  Ph.: (504) 280 1209, Fax: (504) 280 6302

We hope to see you at the RGC 2013 conference in New Orleans!

 

Please forward this page to colleagues you think may be interested: http://rgc.uno.edu/conference.cfm

 

Preliminary List of Presenters / Attendees

Paul Banaheine Adjei, University of Toronto, pbanahene@yahoo.com
Meshia Babers, student, Texas A&M University, chanelle2g@neo.tamu.edu
John C. Berg, Suffolk University, johncberg@verizon.net
Gregg Barak, Eastern Michigan University, gbarak@emich.edu
Damon Bell, alildabadou@yahoo.com
George J. Sefa Dei, OISE University of Toronto, gdei@oise.toronto.ca
Loren Delaney, Oise, University of Toronto, loren.delaney@mail.utoronto.ca
Lisa A. Eargle, Francis Marion University, leargle@fmarion.edu
Ashraf M. Esmail, Dillard University, New Orleans, ashesmail@aol.com
Michael D. Forster, The University of Southern Mississippi, Michael.forster@usm.edu
Barbara Jensen, The University of New Mexico, bjensen@umn.edu
Nikki Jones, University of California Santa Barbara, njones@soc.ucsb@edu
Chelsi King, Alliant International University – Fresno, cking2@alliant.edu
Lena Krone, University of Education at Ludwigsburg, Germany, krone@ph-ludwisburg.de
Komanduri S. Murty, Fort Valley State Univeersity, murtyk@FVSU.EDU
Denise A. Narcisse, Yougstown State University, danarcisse@ysu.edu
Linda Williamson Nelson, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Linda.Nelson@stockton.edu
Martha E. Richmond, Suffolk University, Boston, mrichmond@suffolk.edu
Rosanna Rios-Spicer, New Orleans Social Activist, evariv2011@gmail.com
Shirley Rombough, The University of Texas-Pan American, srombough@utpa.edu
Demetrius Semien, University of Cincinnati, demetriussemien@yahoo.com
David Scott, Student, University of Kansas, dmscott@gmail.com

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/race-gender-class-2013-conference-new-orleans-7-9-march

**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

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

The Financialized Imagination and Beyond

Crisis

THE FINANCIALIZED IMAGINATION AND BEYOND

Call for Papers—The Financialized Imagination and Beyond
Special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Fall 2013
Proposals due: September 14, 2012

Link to PDF version of the CFP: http://t.co/xcuw44bq

Edited by Max Haiven (New York University/Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University) and Jody Berland (York University)

Narrowly defined as the so-called “FIRE” industries (high finance, insurance and real estate), finance has gained tremendous power over the global economy in recent years. Critics describe “financialization” as a profound and far-reaching social and cultural shift. Advances in financial modelling, computing and communications technology have changed the nature and power of financial speculation, but the vast expansion of new forms of debt, credit and everyday financial services have also had dramatic impacts on daily life. From credit cards to sub-prime mortgages, from student debt to the privatization of pensions, from pay-day loans to online stock trading, financial practices have become mainstream cultural issues. Films, biographies, novels, television shows and web-texts about finance and financiers (lionized or demonized) are more popular than ever. Logics of finance inform and shape public policy and social institutions, from hospitals and schools to science and cultural production, with “risk management,” “return on investment,” and “market efficiency” as key weapons of the neoliberal lexicon. Driven in part by immaterial, speculative, leveraged wealth, capitalism normalizes precarious labour and life in both material and immaterial forms, and each of us is expected to manage our risk portfolios and embrace a life of endless speculation. While the politics of debt, predatory lending and speculative capital have long shaped geopolitical realities, especially in the developing world, the unapologetic “age of austerity” threatens a new intensity of inequality and exploitation, with dramatic human and ecological consequences.

Facing continuous global financial crises and new social movements emerging to contest this “age of austerity,” cultural studies has important questions to ask about the financialized imagination. How is “finance” represented in fiction, film, journalism and art? How is finance itself a form of “representation” as well as a cultural phenomenon driven by beliefs, narratives and technologies? How do representational technologies contribute to the production of wealth? How do we explain the charisma of the speculator, the valorization of “risk management” and the fetishization of “financial literacy” under hyper-neoliberalism? What are finance’s effects on cultural production and the political economy of culture? How is the rise of digitized financial power related to the global play of material and immaterial economics, labour and culture? How is financialization connected to and expressed through race, class, gender, sexuality, colonialism, imperialism and ablism? What are the geopolitical and affective consequences of financialization? How do we historicize and “periodize” financialization, and what is at stake in analyzing what Marx called “fictitious capital”? What are the effects of financialization on everyday culture? How is debt linked to politics of precarity, disposability or borders? Are there ecologies of financialization? How does finance’s tremendous power to commodify potential futures as present-day “risk” affect how we imagine the future? What are the contours and limits of the “financialized imagination”? Have we moved from a society of the spectacle to a society of speculation? What lies beyond?

Social movements such as the Occupy movement and, more broadly, anti-austerity struggles from Athens to Chile, Nigeria to India, Korea to Montreal have been waging cultural struggles over the meaning of debt, the uses and abuses of banking, and the nature of economic power. Critical films, fiction, blogs and other genres seek to probe finance, financialization and the financial crisis, with varying degrees of success.

TOPIA invites contributors to propose academic articles, shorter “offerings,” reviews and review essays for a special issue on the “financialized imagination and beyond.” Themes and topics include (but are not limited to):

 

*Cultural representations of finance, financialization, financiers and the financial crisis in and across media

* The cultural politics of debt and credit in everyday life: government spending, ecological debt and debt as a paradigm of social discipline

* Finance as representation of space, time, knowledge, culture, materiality or immateriality

* Calculation and the new common sense: the fate of futurity, the cultural idiom of speculation and the practices of “risk management”

* Finance capital(ism) and the politics and economics of cultural production: the financing of culture

*The cultural politics of crisis

*The interplay of oppressions (gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, citizenship) and finance, from racialized predatory sub-prime lending to women-focused microcredit schemes, from the “Wall Street Man” to the legacies of debt-bondage and slavery

* The roots and legacies of colonialism and imperialism in finance (and vice versa)

* The financialization of daily life and social institutions

* The cultural and affective dimensions of finance, financial labour and financial speculation: how are cultures of speculation built and reproduced? What does financial wealth represent? What kinds of affects and sensations are produced by wealth through speculation, display, or loss?

* Tension and interplay between material and immaterial capital, labour and culture, money and power

* Historical precedents and patterns of finance and financialization: narrating events from Tulip Mania to the collapse of the Asian Tigers; from the speculative value of enslaved Africans to the predatory sub-prime mortgage industry that thrived on inner-city poverty 

* Struggles against finance, financialization and austerity, and their spaces, strategies, narratives, potentials and limits

* Horizons beyond the crisis
Prospective authors should submit a 300-word proposal, accompanied by a brief biographical note, to the editors by September 14, 2012. Selected authors will be invited to prepare articles by February 15, 2013, with publication dependent on the peer-review process. The issue will be published in Fall 2013.

More information can be found at TOPIA’s website, http://www.yorku.ca/topia.

Please direct proposals and queries to Max Haiven at maxhaiven@nyu.edu, and to Jody Berland at jberland@yorku.ca.

Originally published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-papers-the-financialized-imagination-and-beyond  

**END**

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

‘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

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Crisis, Class and Resistance

 

CRISIS, CLASS AND RESISTANCE

A one-day Conference on Political Economy hosted by International Socialism Journal

Saturday 12 May, 10:30am-6pm

School of African and Oriental Studies (Vernon Square Campus), Central London (Kings Cross/St Pancras tube)

With:

Robin Blackburn (author of Age Shock: How Finance is Failing Us)

Alex Callinicos (author of Imperialism and Global Political Economy)

Guglielmo Carchedi (author of Behind the Crisis: Marx’s Dialectics of Value and Knowledge)

Esme Choonara (author of A Rebel’s Guide to Trotsky)

Joseph Choonara (author of Unraveling Capitalism: A Guide to Marxist Political Economy)

Kevin Doogan (author of New Capitalism? The Transformation of Work)

Jane Hardy (author of Poland’s New Capitalism)

Paul Mason (author of Why it’s Kicking Off Everywhere)

Guy Standing (author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class)

In an era of crisis, revolt and revolution, questions are arising that demand answers from the radical left: How is Marx’s analysis of capitalism relevant to the current crisis? Is the working class the agency which can overthrow capitalism? What forms of organisation and resistance are most effective in fighting for a different world? This one-day conference, organised by International Socialism journal, will bring together activists, writers and academics from different traditions and backgrounds to discuss these and other issues. 

Price: £10 waged / £3 students & unwaged

To book, call 020 7819 1177 or email isj@swp.org.uk

**END**

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How Class Works 2012

Social Class

HOW CLASS WORKS 2012

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook June 7-9, 2012

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2012Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 7-9, 2012. Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 12, 2011 according to the guidelines below.

For more information, visit our Web site at: http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu  

Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference. Formal papers will be welcome but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes:

* The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class.
* Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.
* Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.
* Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor standards.
* Middle class? Working class? What’s the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between the middle class and the capitalist class.
* Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.
* Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture transmits and transforms class dynamics.
* Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2012 Conference

Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) title; b) which of the eight conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter’s name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants. Proposals for poster sessions are welcome. Presentations may be assigned to a poster session. Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from each proposed session member. Submit proposals as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu or as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works – 2012 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384.

Timetable: Proposals must be received by December 12, 2011. After review by the program committee, notifications will be mailed on January 17, 2012. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 7-9, 2012. Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after February 20, 2012. Details and updates will be posted at http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu  

Conference coordinator:
Michael Zweig
Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics
State University of New York Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384
631.632.7536
michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Class in Education

Class in Education

CLASS IN EDUCATION

 

I looked at a copy of Class in Education: Knowledge, pedagogy, subjectivity edited by Deborah Kelsh, Dave Hill and Sheila Macrine yesterday. This is an excellent book in my view, and I urge to buy it and/or get your library to stock it!

Glenn Rikowski

Class in Education: Knowledge, pedagogy, subjectivity

Edited by Deborah Kelsh, Dave Hill and Sheila Macrine

Routledge, London & New York, 2010

ISBN 10: 0-415-45027-6 (hbk); ISBN 10: 0-203-87903-X (ebk)

CONTENTS:

Foreword: E. SAN JUAN JR.

Introduction: SHEILA MACRINE, DAVE HILL AND DEBORAH KELSH

1. Cultureclass – DEBORAH KELSH

2. Hypohumanities – TERESA L. EBERT AND MAS’UD ZAVARZADEH

3. Persistent inequities, obfuscating explanations: reinforcing the lost centrality of class in Indian education debates – RAVI KUMAR

4. Class, “race” and state in post-apartheid education – ENVER MOTALA AND SALIM VALLY

5. Racism and Islamophobia in post 7/7 Britain: Critical Race Theory, (xeno-)racialization, empire and education – a Marxist analysis – MIKE COLE AND ALPESH MAISURIA

6. Marxism, critical realism and class: implications for a socialist pedagogy – GRANT BANFIELD

7. Globalization, class, and the social studies curriculum – E. WAYNE ROSS AND GREG QUEEN

8. Class: the base of all reading – ROBERT FAIVRE

Afterword: the contradictions of class and the praxis of becoming – PETER McLAREN

Further details: http://www.routledge.com/books/Class-in-Education-isbn9780415450270

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

How Class Works – 2010

HOW CLASS WORKS – 2010
A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 3-5, 2010
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2010 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 3 – 5, 2010. Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 14, 2009 according to the guidelines below.  

Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference.  Formal papers will be welcome but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes.

The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class.  

Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.

Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.

Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor standards.
Middle class? Working class? What’s the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between the middle class and the capitalist class.

Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.

Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture transmits and transforms class dynamics.

Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2010 Conference:
Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) title; b) which of the eight conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter’s name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants.  Proposals for poster sessions are welcome.  Presentations may be assigned to a poster session.

Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from each proposed session member.

Submit proposals as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works  – 2010 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384 or as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu.

Timetable:  Proposals must be received by December 14, 2009. Notifications will be mailed on January 19, 2010. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 3- 5, 2010.  Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after February 15, 2010. Details and updates will be posted at: http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu.

Conference coordinator:
Michael Zweig
Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384
631.632.7536    
michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu            

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Power to the People?

Power to the People?

…masses, proletariat, workers, soviets, nation, community, subalterns, multitude, commons…

Saturday 9^th May 2009
Radical Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London

BOOK NOW!

£25/£10 unwaged

Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk

Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd’ should be sent to: 
Radical Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ

 

PROGRAMME:

Plenary (chair: Peter Osborne, RP)
Gayatri Spivak (Columbia University, NY): ‘They, the People’

 

1. The General Will (chair: Peter Hallward, RP)

David Andress (Portsmouth): ‘The General Will on the Street: Parisian Activism, Sovereignty and Power, 1789–93’

 

Sophie Wahnich

(CNRS, Paris): ‘How Do the People Make Themselves Heard?’

 

2. Urban Collectivities (chair: David Cunningham, RP)

AbdouMaliq Simone (Goldsmiths): ‘Urban Intersections and the Politics of Anticipation’

Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester): ‘Reflections on the Post-Political City’

 

3. Population & Biopolitics (chair: Claudia Aradau, RP)

Couze Venn (Nottingham Trent): ‘Biopolitics, Diasporas and (Neo)Liberal Political Economy’

Encarnacion Gutierrez Rodriguez (Manchester): ‘Feminist Strategies Revisited – Sexopolitics, Multitude and Biopolitics’

 

4. Class, Commons & Multitude (chair: Esther Leslie, RP)

 

Massimo De Angelis

(UEL): ‘Crisis, Tragedies and the Commons’

Daniel Bensaid (University of Paris-VIII), ‘Can We (Still) Break the Vicious Circle of Domination?’

 

 

‘Power to the people!’ was once a revolutionary slogan, but reference to government by the people and for the people soon became an empty cliché of the post-revolutionary status quo. The people has become a notoriously ambiguous and contested term, for which numerous alternatives have been proposed: the proletariat, the workers, the masses, the soviets, the nation, the community, the multitude, the commons… And now? How might we assess the different  conceptions of political change embodied in these often conflicting ideas? What is the political and philosophical significance of `the people’ today?

 

£25/£10 unwaged

Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk

Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd’ should be sent to: Radical Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

 

 

 

 

In the Balance – the class struggle in Britain

In the Balance—the Class Struggle in Britain

 

With Charlie Kimber

 

Economic crisis can lead to outbursts of anger, but it can also lead to demoralisation. What is the balance of class forces in Britain today? And what impact can the left have on the course of the struggle?

 

Charlie Kimber will present a seminar based on a major forthcoming article in International Socialism journal.

 

 

6.30pm, Friday 27 March. King’s College London, the Strand. Room details to follow. 

 

For more information phone 020 7819 1177 or email: isj@swp.org.uk

 

Future seminar dates for your diary:

24 April 2009

29 May 2009

 

International Socialism

http://isj.org.uk

+44 (0)20 7819 1177

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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