DARKMATTER

Mors Mystica

DARKMATTER

Announcing the publication of a special issue of Darkmatter Journal, “Reflections on Dispossession: Critical Feminisms” eds. Brenna Bhandar and Davina Bhandar, with contributions from Sara R. Farris, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Alyosha Goldstein, Leticia Sabsay and Rafeef Ziadah.

This collection traces a path for contemporary critiques of neoliberal capitalism and colonial dispossession. The authors show the compelling need for complex strategies and tools to evaluate the interlocking or intersectional practices of dispossession, and their particular effects on racialised, Indigenous, sexualized, and gendered subjects.

 

Darkmatter is an open access journal, and the special issue can be accessed here:

http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/issues/14-dispossession/

 

Praise for “Reflections on Dispossession”:

“Crossing centuries, oceans, continents, and disciplines, this ambitious and extraordinary collection shows how the logic of dispossession and its productions of difference reach into a present that avows colorblindness and erases coloniality. In its courtrooms, border checkpoints, intimacies, reform impulses, prisons, refugee camps, and regimes of accumulation, the neoliberal order is shown to draw on and recalibrate histories of gendered colonial oppression as long as they are deep.” – David Roediger (University of Kansas)

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/special-issue-of-the-journal-darkmatter-reflections-on-dispossession-critical-feminisms-out-now

 

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‘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/

Decolonizing the Mind Summer School

The Black Rock

DECOLONIZING THE MIND SUMMER SCHOOL

What is the Decolonizing The Mind Summer School?

From July 19th – July 31st the first edition of the Decolonizing The Mind Summer School will be held in Amsterdam.

The DTM Summer School is an intensive two-week course on the subject of Decolonizing The Mind. The course takes on two interrelated topics:

• The theoretical framework and methodology of Decolonizing The Mind (knowledge production and the mechanisms of colonizing the mind).
• Decolonial thinking and the discourse of liberation in social movements in different regions of the world.

 

What is the program?

In the two weeks there are ten sessions (morning lectures and afternoon interactive sessions) devoted to the following topics:

Session 1: Sandew Hira, director of the International Institute for Scientific Research in Holland, gives an overview of decolonial thinking in the last few decades in the academia (postcolonial studies, national liberation discourses, ethnic studies etc.) and the methodology of developing a theoretical framework for DTM based on decolonial concepts.

Session 2: Professor Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor and Head of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute at the University of South Africa, takes on the issue of nationalism and anti-colonial struggles in Southern Africa, including the question of land.

Session 3: Roberto Hernández, lecturer at the San Diego State University in California USA, deals with the persistence and resurgence of indigenous movements, knowledges and practices, which will be the basis for a rethinking of social struggles over land, natural resources and cultural renewal.

Session 4: Stephen Small, professor in the Department of History at the University of Amsterdam, and Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, will go into the different discourses in the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Session 5: Jaya Mehta, senior economist and an activist associated with the Joshi-Adhikari Institute for Social Studies in India, traces the development path traversed by India and China in the transformation from predominantly agrarian economies to industrialised countries that are well integrated into the world economy. She focuses on the philosophy behind the policies of different actors.

Session 6: Abulkasim Al-Jaberi, journalist and activist in Holland, analyzes the effect of the US invasion of Iraq in relation to the historic events unfolding today including the Arab spring and the emergence of ISIS.

Session 7: Arzu Merali, head of the research section of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London UK, highlights the rise of Islamic political movements in Iran and Turkey – two key players in the Middle East – in their successes and failures.

Session 8: Jeanne Henriquez, independent scholar and activist from Curacao in the Caribbean, deals with the legacy of slavery in the Caribbean and the new social movements associated with it including the movement for pan-Africanism and reparations.

Session 9: Selim Nadi, member of the first decolonial party in France – Parti des Indigènes de la République – goes into the process that Western Europe is going through of a painful confronting with its colonial past right in the heart of the empire. European societies now have to deal with a new generation of young activists who are trying to politicize the postcolonial situation of their countries.

Session 10: Sandew Hira and Ramon Grosfoguel, are giving a lecture in the form of a debate on two discourse of liberation: Marxism and decolonial thinking. They take into account the analysis of the different regional experiences as have been covered in the previous lectures.

 

Other information

The Decolonizing The Mind Summer School is organized by the International Institute of Scientific Research (IISR) headed by director Sandew Hira.

The fee for the Summer School is € 1,000.

If paid before April 1st 2015, then the fee is € 900.

This fee does not include lodging, food and transport.

Download the full 16-page brochure here: http://www.decolonizingthemind.org/download/DTMSM2015Brochure.pdf

Download the application form here: http://www.decolonizingthemind.org/download/DTMSM2015ApplicationForm.doc.

Website: http://www.decolonizingthemind.org

Contact email: info@decolonizingthemind.org

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/first-edition-of-the-decolonizing-the-mind-summer-school-in-amsterdam-july-2015

**END**

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

New Marxist Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Colonialism

Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism

NEW MARXIST PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER, RACE, AND COLONIALISM

International Marxist-Humanists Public Meeting in London

Thursday 7th November 2013, 7.30pm

The Artists Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square (Holborn Tube)

Convened by David Black

 

Speakers: 

Heather Brown on “Marx and the Dialectics of Gender and the Family” 
Kevin B. Anderson on “Marx and Said on Colonialism”
Peter Hudis on “Frantz Fanon as a Hegelian-Marxist” 

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital

Postcolonial

POSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND THE SPECTRE OF CAPITAL

Vivek Chibber, Professor of Sociology at New York University (NYU) and the author of Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (2003), will present his new book at SOAS on: Thursday 17 October, 7pm, SOAS main building, DLT (G2).

Chair: Gilbert Achcar, Development Studies

From the book’s back cover:

Postcolonial theory has become enormously influential as a framework for understanding the Global South. It is also a school of thought popular because of its rejection of the supposedly universalizing categories of the Enlightenment. In this devastating critique, mounted on behalf of the radical Enlightenment tradition, Vivek Chibber offers the most comprehensive response yet to postcolonial theory. Focusing on the hugely popular Subaltern Studies project, Chibber shows that its foundational arguments are based on a series of analytical and historical misapprehensions. He demonstrates that it is possible to affirm a universalizing theory without succumbing to Eurocentrism or reductionism.

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/postcolonial-theory-and-the-spectre-of-capital-with-vivek-chibber-soas-17-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

What is Marxist-Humanism Today?

Raya Dunayevskaya

WHAT IS MARXIST-HUMANISM TODAY?

SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013 

4:30-6:30 PM

REMINDER

Peace Center

8124 West Third Street

Los Angeles (near West Hollywood area, parking in rear of building)

 

Initiating the discussion:

Mansoor M., Iranian cultural worker

Melissa S., Chicana feminist

Dyne Suh, progressive legal observer

Kevin Anderson, author of “Marx at the Margins”

 

This meeting will discuss and answer questions about the 2013 “Statement of Principles” of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization (IMHO)  http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/about arrived at after a year of discussion.

It begins: “The IMHO aims to develop and project a viable vision of an alternative to capitalism—a new, human society— that can give direction to today’s freedom struggles. The IMHO is based on the unique philosophic contributions that have guided Marxist-Humanism since it was founded in the 1950s by Raya Dunayevskaya. We do so by working out a unity of theory and practice, worker and intellectual, and philosophy and organization. An alternative to capitalism means ending production for value, creating a humanist mode of production, establishing a new non-state form of governance, and building freely associated human relations…. We must theorize such an alternative now.”

It also states:  “We opposed imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism in the U.S.’s wars and its militarist outreach to every corner of the globe…. We oppose reactionary forms of anti-imperialism, whether in the form of religious fundamentalism, narrow nationalism, or military-populism.”

Also: “We strive to foster the firmest unity among the forces of revolution and opposition to the established order: Rank-and-file workers; Blacks, Latino/as and other oppressed minorities and indigenous peoples; women; Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender people; and Youth.”

Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org

http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org

Besides the new Statement of Principles, link above, which is the topic of the meeting, other new material on the IMHO site includes a compilation of articles about May Day in LA, Seattle, Denver, and the UK, as well as an article on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. 

 

Kevin Anderson

 

**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

 

Anarchists, Marxists and Nationalists in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870s-1940s: Antagonisms, Solidarities, and and Syntheses

Anarchism

ANARCHISTS, MARXISTS, AND NATIONALISTS IN THE COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL WORLD, 1870s-1940s: ANTAGONISMS, SOLIDARITIES, AND SYNTHESES

CALL FOR PAPERS

EUROPEAN SOCIAL SCIENCE HISTORY CONFERENCE (ESSHC) 2013

From its inception in the First International, the anarchist and syndicalist movement played a significant role in the colonial and post-colonial world as an influential force in revolutionary, national liberation, and anti-imperialist movements. While this role has received increasing attention in a growing scholarship, the literature remains underdeveloped and rather limited. The intersections between anarchism and syndicalism, and other Left oppositional currents, including Marxist and nationalist movements, are understudied and lack systematic examination especially with respect to the global South. Such intersections provide an important index of anarchist and syndicalist influence by drawing attention to their role in larger coalitions as well as their imprint on other movements and ideologies; conversely, to properly understand the history of other Left and labor currents it is necessary to take into account their interactions with anarchism and syndicalism. These interactions assumed a wide range of forms:  although historical antagonisms between anarchism and Marxism often shaped their relations, there were also many instances of solidarity and collaboration; while anarchism generally opposed nationalism in principle, it cooperated with a surprising number of nationalist movements; finally, anarchism and syndicalism contributed key elements to a broad spectrum of oppositional currents that reflected syncretic ideologies, organizational forms, and practices.

We invite papers that examine examples of antagonisms, solidarities, and syntheses between anarchism and syndicalism on one hand, and Marxist and nationalist currents on the other. The papers should address historical movements, rather than intellectual history, narrowly conceived; they should analyze intersections, not parallels or apparent similarities between different currents; and explore the complex relations and overlaps between anarchist, Marxist, and nationalist movements. Case studies should focus on the colonial and post-colonial world (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean).

Possible lines of enquiry include interactions in the following areas:
– national liberation and anti-colonial struggles
– anti-imperialist networks and alliances
– agrarian struggles
– international labor solidarity, trade unionism, as well as activities in state-run unions
– struggles against colonial and neo-colonial racial oppression
– interracial, multiethnic, local/diasporic solidarities
– student and worker alliances
– underground networks and struggles

This CFP is for two planned panels to be held at the European Social Science History Conference in Vienna, Austria, April 23-26, 2014.

Please send abstracts (250 words) to the panel organizers, Steven Hirsch (shirsch@artsci.wustl.edu) or Lucien van der Walt (l.vanderwalt@ru.ac.za) by March 1, 2013.

 

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-esshc-2014-panels-anarchists-marxists-and-nationalists-in-the-colonial-and-postcolonial-world-1870s-1940s-antagonisms-solidarities-and-syntheses

 

**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

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 Post-Colonial State – Tariq Amin-Khan

THE POST-COLONIAL STATE – TARIQ AMIN-KHAN

Global Capitalism

 

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415891592/ New book on the Post-Colonial State: Tariq Amin-Khan, The Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalization: Historical, Political and Theoretical Approaches to State Formation. New York: Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-89159-2.  State formation in post-colonial societies differed greatly from the formation of the Western capitalist state. The latter has been extensively studied, while a coherent grasp of the post-colonial state – despite the recent ethnographical explorations – has remained elusive. Amin-Khan provides a critical, historical and contemporary understanding of post-colonial state formations in Asia andAfrica, and articulates how this process differed for Latin American states.  A common signifier of the post-colonial state is the retention of the unitary colonial state structure by its ruling classes. This legacy has reinscribed the colonial-era social relations in post-colonial societies, and consolidated the power of the ‘overdeveloped’ civil and military bureaucracy. At the same time, the US was able to remove ‘nationalist’ leadership in Africa and Asia to create client post-colonial states that have remained beholden to Western states, transnational corporations and international financial institutions. The analysis of these developments shows that the vast majority of post-colonial states have remained proto-capitalist – with feudal landholders and bureaucratic elite having a stranglehold on state power. In contrast, those few countries (India, South Africa and others) that have emerged as capitalist post-colonial states have been able to partly shake off the colonial legacy and loosen the noose of imperialist domination. The final two chapters ground theory by concretely analyzing the nature and development trajectories of the states of India and Pakistan as two distinct examples respectively of capitalist and proto-capitalist states – which can be generalized as the two state forms prevalent in post-colonial societies.

Original source: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/now-out-tariq-amin-khan-the-post-colonial-state-in-the-era-of-capitalist-globalization

**END**

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

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

 

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

A Talk on Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo

Domenico Losurdo

A TALK ON LIBERALISM BY DOMENICO LOSURDO

March 19, 2012
CUNY Graduate Center, Room C198
A Talk on Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo

http://www.versobooks.com/events/375-a-talk-on-liberalism-by-domenico-losurdo

The author of Liberalism: A Counter History discusses the dark side of Liberalism
On March 19, Domenico Losurdo will speak at the Graduate Center at CUNY about his latest book, Liberalism: A Counter-History, examining the ways in which liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has historically been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.

6.30pm – 7.30pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room C198
365 Fifth Avenue
New York,NY10016

**END**

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

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: 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

In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary

 

Imperialism

IN THE CROSSFIRE: ADVENTURES OF A VIETNAMESE REVOLUTIONARY

This is to invite you to a
BOOK LAUNCH/TALK

In The Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary

By Ngo Van

Wednesday 8 June, 7.0pm

Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX (2 mins walk from Kings Cross station)

Cost: £3, redeemable against any purchase

Ngo Van joined the struggle against the French colonial regime in Vietnam as a teenager in the 1920s, suffering imprisonment and hardship. But when revolution swept Vietnam at the end of the Second World War, the Stalinists of the Vietnamese Communist Party took control and tried physically to eliminate other socialists and anti-colonialists. Van escaped this massacre, in which many of his comrades were murdered. From 1948 he lived in exile in Paris, where he took a factory job and participated in workers’ movements before, during and after the 1968 general strike.

Van, who died in 2005, wrote extensively about Vietnamese worker and peasant resistance, both to French colonialism and to Ho Chi Minh’s brand of Stalinism, helping to hand that history on to later generations.

In The Crossfire, published by AK Press, is the English edition of Ngo Van’s autobiography. Hilary Horrocks, one of the book’s translators, will talk about this unique eye-witness account of a little-known aspect of the anti-colonial struggle, and read from Van’s vivid story of secret meetings, arrests, torture, battles and insurrection. Simon Pirani, who researched the history of Vietnamese Trotskyism and edited some of Van’s earlier English-language publications, will also speak. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion from all.

Enquiries 07947 031268, Housmans 020 7837 4473, shop@housmans.com

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Critical Enthusiasm: Capital Accumulation and the Transformation of Religious Passion

John Locke

CRITICAL ENTHUSIASM: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF RELIGIOUS PASSION

 Jordana Rosenberg
Critical Enthusiasm: Capital Accumulation and the Transformation of Religious Passion
Oxford University Press, April 2011

The Atlantic world of the long eighteenth century was characterized by two major, interrelated phenomena: the onset of capital accumulation and the infusion of traditions of radical religious rapture into Enlightenment discourses. In exploring these cross-pollinations, Critical Enthusiasm shows that debates around religious radicalism are bound to the advent of capitalism at its very root: as legal precedent, as financial rhetoric, and as aesthetic form. To understand the period thus requires that we not only contextualize histories of religion in terms of the economic landscape of early modernity, but also recast the question of secularization in terms of the contradictions of capitalism.

Critical Enthusiasm contributes to new directions of scholarship in literary and legal history, secularization studies, and economic criticism. It is unique in producing a model for literary and cultural study that is simultaneously attuned to economic and religious forces. By approaching the history of capitalism through religious debates, Critical Enthusiasm discloses significant intersections of aesthetic form and of financial flows that have been hitherto ignored.

Through chapters that highlight moral philosophy, religious prophesy, early modern statute law, poetry, and political theory, Rosenbergshows that the contested nature of enthusiastic rapture is crucial to understanding the major institutional transformations of early modernity. These transformations–colonial plunder, the rise of finance, the administration of racialized labor, and the legal reform that justified such practices–shaped the period; they also laid the foundation for our contemporary world.

See: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/HistoryofChristianity/ReformationCounterReformation/?view=usa&ci=9780199764266

Jordana Rosenberg is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Domenico Losurdo Comes to London to Discuss his New Book – ‘Liberalism: A Counter History’

Domenico Losurdo

DOMENICO LOSURDO COMES TO LONDON TO DISCUSS HIS NEW BOOK – ‘LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY’

Thursday, May 05, 2011, 7.30pm

King’s College London, Edmund J. Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS

‘Liberalism: Slavery, imperialism and exploitation’

A panel discussion and book launch for LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORYwith Domenico Losurdo, Robin Blackburn, Richard Seymour, and chair Stathis Kouvelakis.

Hosted by the KCL European Studies Department in association with Verso Books

http://www.versobooks.com/events/141-liberalism-slavery-imperialism-and-exploitation

RSVP: marketing@verso.co.uk

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DOMENICO LOSURDO is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Urbino, Italy. He is the author of many books in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin. In English he has published HEGEL AND THE FREEDOM OF MODERNS and HEIDEGGER AND THE IDEOLOGY OF WAR.

ROBIN BLACKBURN is the author of THE AMERICAN CRUCIBLE: SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS. He teaches at the University of Essex in the UK and at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a contributor to NEW LEFT REVIEW and a member of its editorial committee.

RICHARD SEYMOUR is the author of THE LIBERAL DEFENCE OF MURDER. He lives, works and writes in London. He runs the Lenin’s Tomb website, which comments on the War on Terror, Islamophobia and neoliberalism.

STATHIS KOUVELAKIS is the author of PHILSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM KANT TO MARX. He is a Reader in Political Theory at King’s College London.

———————————–

PRAISE FOR LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY BY DOMENICO LOSURDO

‘Devastatingly exact in his dismantling of a Whiggish optimism, Losurdo thankfully avoids the historical dead-endism of postmodern critiques.’ Greg Grandin, author of FORDLANDIA

‘Anyone who thinks they know the history of liberalism will be surprised – and riveted – by this book. Every page is an experience.’ Corey Robin, author of FEAR: THE HISTORY OF A POLITICAL IDEA

———————————–

In this definitive historical investigation of the formation of liberalism from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Domenico Losurdo overturns complacent and self-congratulatory accounts by showing that, from its very origins, liberalism and its main thinkers—Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, Sieyès and others—have been bound up with the defense of thethoroughly illiberal policies of slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and elitism. Losurdo probes the inner contradictions of liberalism, also focusing on minority currents that moved to more radical positions, and provides an authoritative account of the relationship between the domestic and colonial spheres in the constitution of a liberal order.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 639 4 / $34.95 / £22.00 / Hardcover / 384 pages

———————————–

For more information or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/960-liberalism  

———————————– 

Academics based outside North America may request an inspection copy – please contact tamar@verso.co.uk

Academics based within North America may request an examination copy – please contact clara@versobooks.com  

Please check the guidelines at http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies and include all necessary information.

———————————–

Become a fan of Verso on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Verso-Books-UK/122064538789

And get updates on Twitter too! http://twitter.com/VersoBooks

***END***

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘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)  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Imperialism, Empire and Genocide

Imperialism

IMPERIALISM, EMPIRE AND GENOCIDE

Please attend this excellent event and spread the word!

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London

Workshop Series: ‘Imperialism, Empire and Genocide’ 14th March 2pm-4pm

Venue: Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, Malet Street, London

The British Empire seems to be making a come back. Historians, politicians and journalists now speak about the positive aspects of colonialism and empire. During a state visit to East Africa in 2005 the then Chancellor Gordon Brown, commented that Britain must stop apologising for its colonial past and, instead, celebrate its achievements. He said, ‘I’ve talked to many people on my visit to Africa and the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it.’ Some scholarly work has followed the fashion suggesting that empire is more necessary in the 21st century than ever before. The new approach to the British Empire insists that we must undertake a balance view of the positive contributions made to instilling democratic values, development and political institutions. 

This series of workshops will take a different approach. Speakers will shed light, empirically and conceptually, on the tortured relationship between empire and modernity, colonialism and progress, disclosing the story and contemporary legacy of colonial genocide, imperial conquest and environmental destruction.

Speakers: Professor John Newsinger, Richard Gott and Dr Tom Lawson.

Professor John Newsinger (Professor of Modern History at Bath Spa University), Author of The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire, Orwell’s Politics, United Irishman, Rebel City, Dangerous Men: The SAS and Popular Culture, British Counterinsurgency (new edition 2012). John Newsinger will examine histories of the British Empire, the uses to which they have been put and the crimes they neglect and leave out.

Richard Gott (former Latin America correspondent and features editor for The Guardian, currently an honorary research fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London). Author of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution (2005),Cuba: A New History (2004). Richard Gott will be talking about his most recent book, to be published in the autumn, entitled “Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt”. The book is conceived as a revisionist history of Empire, written from the perspective of the subject peoples.

Dr Tom Lawson (Reader in History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester). Author of The Church of England and the Holocaust: Christianity, Memory and Nazism (2006) and Debates on the Holocaust (2010). Tom Lawson will be talking about his latest research into the colonisation of Tasmania where the British government is often portrayed as the benign protector of the Aborigines, unable to curb the destructive urges of the settler population. However Tom will argue this paper argues that what amounted to a genocidal policy was both formally approved in Downing Street, and emerged from an imperial culture that began at home.

This is a free event, however, to confirm attendance please email Ms Olga Jimenez, Events Manager
olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk

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