Skip navigation

Tag Archives: Historical Materialism

JAPMARXIST THEORY AND THE POLITICS OF HISTORY IN MODERN JAPAN

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

 

clip_image008MAPPING ALTERNATIVE ROUTES OUT OF CAPITALISM

See below a call for panels and papers for a section in the European International Studies Association conference, Izmir, Turkey, 7-10 September 2016.

The section seeks panels and papers on alternatives to capitalism, and how we might achieve them, both within the capitalist present and on the route to a post-capitalist society.

The deadline for proposals is 8 January 2016 and must be done online through the EISA conference tool website – https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/

Please feel free to contact us first to discuss informally ahead of submitting proposals: David Bailey (d.j.bailey@bham.ac.uk) and Phoebe Moore (p.moore@mdx.ac.uk)

Section title: Mapping Alternative Routes Out of Capitalism

Section abstract: The critical study of global capitalism and the hegemony of neoliberalism are both central to the study of international relations and international political economy. International studies has focused less, however, on questioning how (if at all) we might go beyond capitalism. This is despite global capitalism remaining dangerously unstable, not least because the global economic crisis that began in 2008 continues to linger without any obvious resolution to it. The aim of this section, therefore, is to bring together those with an interest in the rise of alternatives at varied positions along the ideological spectrum; mapping, studying, theorising, highlighting, judging and assessing practices which form contemporary alternatives to, and problems for, global capitalism. This includes pathways in local, regional and global contexts.  In particular, we note two emerging types of response, each of which expose the ever-present possibility and presence of sometimes surprising and contradictory routes outside of capitalism, as well as raising the question of technology in contemporary social change. On the one hand, we see various modified projects seeking alternative routes to social justice and rights: futurist, anti-proprietary or gift culture movements, survivalism, cooperatives, DIY culture, permaculture, experimentation with cybernetics and post-humanist ideals, as well as revived institutional interests in wellbeing. On the other hand, we see the explicit contestation of capitalism through varyingly autonomous forms of struggle: Occupy, the indignados, the Greek grassroots projects, Rojava, and, then, the electoral manifestation of some of these trends within Syriza, Podemos, Barcelona en Comú, and Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Section convenors: David Bailey (d.j.bailey@bham.ac.uk) and Phoebe Moore (p.moore@mdx.ac.uk).

Submissions to be made here: https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/

Deadline for submissions: 8 January 2016

Conference website and more details: http://www.paneuropeanconference.org/2016/

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-alternatives-to-capitalism

 

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

I must work harder!

I must work harder!

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM LONDON CONFERENCE 2015 – PRE-REGISTRATION

Reminder: Only 4 days left to pre-register for the HM 2015 London Conference*

* NB: remember please that this year’s conference is at the SOAS Russell Square site, not Vernon Square as last year!
The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born: States, Strategies, Socialisms

Twelfth Annual Historical Materialism Conference

School of Oriental and African Studies, Central London, 5-8 November 2015
As austerity tightens its grip around the throats of the peoples of Europe, but also rears its ugly head in Brazil and elsewhere, we are forced to recognize that it is not the mere by-product of the ‘economic crisis’ but a political project in its own right, one whose aim is to deepen and consolidate the most uncompromising forms of neoliberal capitalism. It cannot be said that this project has hitherto been met with passivity, even if social movements of resistance have been mostly far from strong enough to halt its advance. Yet something is perhaps beginning to change, namely the emergence of counter-austerity projects that have pitched themselves at a political – even electoral or governmental – level. With all their weaknesses, hesitations and contradictions, the chinks of light in Southern Europe, amongst others, should compel Marxists to pose a whole series of ‘old’ strategic and theoretical problems in new garbs and new configurations, ​but perhaps also to retire some of our dear fetishes and shibboleths, and to experiment with forms and strategies adequate to our present. Among the themes that have returned to the agenda are: the relationship of movements and parties of the radical Left to states and governments; the need for a political response to how class power is enmeshed with forms of domination that have gender, race, imperialism or sexuality as their axes; possible « socialist » futures and the ‘transitional’ mediations implied by them; the guiding dichotomies of left thought: reform and revolution, revolution and revolt, state and movement, parties classes and masses; the link between the limits to capital and the limits of politics.

Over a hundred panels on a wide variety of topics and plenary sessions on: Race, Mobility and the State; Austerity and Socialist Strategy in Southern Europe; Social Reproduction Theory; Marxism and Religion; Workers’ Struggles in South Africa.

Provisional Programme: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual12/ProvProgramme.pdf/view
Conference Poster for download: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual12/conference-poster

download (11)

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

313111_coverSEMINARS ON CONTEMPORARY MARXIST THEORY

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 21 October

Stathis Kouvelakis

Lessons of the Greek Crisis

6pm

S-1.04 Strand Building (NB in basement), King’s College London, Strand WC2R 2LS

 

Monday 9 November

Riccardo Bellofiore & Alex Callinicos

A Dialogue on Alex Callinicos’s book Deciphering Capital: Marx’s Capital and Its Destiny

5pm

K0.20, King’s Building, King’s College London, Strand WC2R 2LS

 

Wednesday 25 November

Nicholas De Genova

Theorising the ‘Crisis’ of the European Border Regime

6pm

342N Norfolk Building, King’s College London, Strand WC2R 2LS

 

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

The Seminar in Contemporary Marxist Theory is a collaboration among scholars in the departments of European & International Studies, Geography, and Management at King’s College London.

For further information contact Stathis Kouvelakisstathis.kouvelakis@kcl.ac.uk

 

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/london-seminar-on-contemporary-marxist-theory

***END***

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

The Failure of Capitalism

The Failure of Capitalism

MARX AND PHILOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS – JULY 2015

New reviews and an updated list of books for review recently published online in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

Chris Arthur on Carver and Blank on “The German Ideology”

Hans Despain on David Weil, The Fissured Workplace

Mike Wayne on Walter Benjamin, Radio Benjamin

Bart Zantvoort on David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

Joshua Moufawad-Paul on The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists

Gary Roth on Richard Sennett, Together

To receive notification of new reviews and comments when they appear join the Marx and Philosophy Society’s email list or follow us on facebook or twitter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sean Sayers, Editor
Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
66 Havelock Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1NP, UK
http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/marx-and-philosophy-review-of-books-13

***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/

Movemets of the Social

Movemets of the Social

MARX AND PHILOSOPHY SOCIETY REVIEW OF BOOKS – 10 JUNE 2015

New reviews and an updated list of books for review recently published online in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

  • Tony Mckenna on David Baronov, The Dialectics of Inquiry
  • Idir Ouahes on Chomsky, Masters of Mankind
  • Tony Lack on Bourdieu’s lectures On the State
  • Nicolina Montessori on Andrew Sayer, Why We Can’t Afford the Rich
  • Mike Haynes on Selwyn, The Global Development Crisis
  • Brian Elliott on Kang, Walter Benjamin and the Media

To receive notification of new reviews and comments when they appear join the Marx and Philosophy Society’s email list or follow us on facebook or twitter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sean Sayers, Editor
Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
66 Havelock Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1NP, UK
http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/marx-and-philosophy-review-of-books-12***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/

Inca

Inca

RADICAL SPOILS FROM NATIVE SOILS: HOW NEOLIBERALISM STEALS INDIGENOUS LANDS IN HIGHLAND PERU

New Book on Neoliberalism and Anti-Indigenous Racism in Peru

Racial Spoils from Native Soils: How Neoliberalism Steals Indigenous Lands in Highland Peru

Arthur Scarritt

This book explains how one man swindled his Andean village twice. The first time he extorted everyone’s wealth and disappeared, leaving the village in shambles. The village slowly recovered through the unlikely means of converting to Evangelical religions, and therein reestablished trust and the ability to work together. The new religion also kept villagers from exacting violent revenge when this man returned six years later. While hated and mistrusted, this same man again succeeded in cheating the villagers. Only this time it was for their lands, the core resource on which they depended for their existence.

This is not a story about hapless isolation or cruel individuals. Rather, this is a story about racism, about the normal operation of society that continuously results in indigenous peoples’ impoverishment and dependency. This book explains how the institutions created for the purpose of exploiting Indians during colonialism have been continuou sly revitalized over the centuries despite innovative indigenous resistance and epochal changes, such as the end of the colonial era itself. The ethnographic case of the Andean village first shows how this institutional set up works through—rather than despite—the inflow of development monies. It then details how the turn to advanced capitalism—neoliberalism—intensifies this racialized system, thereby enabling the seizure of native lands.

Cover art by: Edilberto Jimenez Quispe

See more at: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739191378/Racial-Spoils-from-Native-Soils-How-Neoliberalism-Steals-Indigenous-Lands-in-Highland-Peru#

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-from-roman-littlefield-racial-spoils-from-native-soils-by-arthur-scarritt

***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/

2001

2001

RADICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

Summer 2015

Human language and symbolic culture emerged in Africa over 100,000 years ago, in a momentous and revolutionary upheaval whose echoes can still be heard in myths, fairy tales and ritual traditions from around the world. Topics this term range from the history of the family, through archaeoastronomy, climate science and mythology to the politics of sex and gender. In addition to lectures and workshops, the term features spectacular live shows by two of Britain’s most celebrated performance artists, Marcus Coates (May 19) and Marisa Carnesky (June 23).

SESSIONS:

April 28: ‘Behind Every Good Man: Women’s production and reproduction among the Hadza of Tanzania’ – Colette Berbesque

May 5: ‘Capitalism, fossil fuels and the discovery of global warming.’ – Gabriel Levy

May 12: ‘Does father absence affect children growing up?’ – Paula Sheppard

May 19: ‘Becoming animal and becoming human’ – a live show by Marcus Coates

May 26: ‘The Revolution in Rojava: Strengths and Challenges’. – Jeff Miley

June 2: ‘The Coming of the Dread: the Rastafari-Maori of New Zealand’s East Coast.’ – Dave Robinson

June 9: ‘A Basque Magdalenian cave interpreted in the light of the sex-strike theory of human origins’. – Lionel Sims

June 16: ‘A key myth from Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Mythologiques: “The Hunter Monmanéki and his  wives”’. – Chris Knight                                                                                                       

June 23: ‘Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman.’ – Marisa Carnesky

June 30: ‘Revolution, repetition and the cult of death: the burials and empty tombs of Rosa Luxemburg’ – Anthony Auerbach                                                                                          

 

July 7: Annual General Meeting

 

All talks held at the Cock Tavern, 23 Phoenix Rd., NW1 1HB (Euston).

All events are free but small donations welcome.

Tuesdays, 6.30–9.00pm.  More Info: radicalanthropologygroup.org

For updates on meetings and anthropology news, follow us on @radicalanthro and Facebook

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/radical-anthropology-talks-london-summer-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/

Obsolete Capitalism

Obsolete Capitalism

THE OLD IS DYING AND THE NEW CANNOT BE BORN: STATES, STRATEGIES, SOCIALISMS

Twelfth Annual Historical Materialism Conference

School of Oriental and African Studies, Central London, 5-8 November 2015

Deadline for abstracts: 1 May 2015
Link for paper proposals will be live this weekend at http://www.historicalmaterialism.org

As austerity tightens its grip around the throats of the peoples of Europe, but also rears its ugly head in Brazil and elsewhere, we are forced to recognize that it is not the mere byproduct of the « economic crisis » but a political project in its own right, one whose aim is to deepen and consolidate the most uncompromising forms of neoliberal capitalism. It cannot be said that this project has hitherto been met with passivity, even if social movements of resistance have been mostly far from strong enough to halt its advance. Yet something is perhaps beginning to change, namely the emergence of counter-austerity projects that have pitched themselves at a political – even electoral or governmental – level. With all their weaknesses, hesitations and contradictions, the chinks of light in Southern Europe, amongst others, should compel Marxists to pose a whole series of ‘old’ strategic and theoretical problems in new garbs and new configurations, ​but perhaps also to retire some of our dear fetishes and shibboleths, and to experiment with forms and strategies adequate to our present. Among the themes that have returned to the agenda are: the relationship of movements and parties of the radical Left to states and governments; the need for a political response to how class power is enmeshed with forms of domination that have gender, race, imperialism or sexuality as their axes; possible « socialist » futures and the « transitional » mediations implied by them; the guiding dichotomies of left thought: reform and revolution, revolution and revolt, state and movement, parties classes and masses; the link between the limits to capital and the limits of politics.

At this year’s Historical Materialism Annual Conference in London, 5-8 November 2015, we would like to encourage papers on these and other topics, with a particular focus on Greece, Spain and Latin America as laboratories for these experiences and debates.

Among the themes we would like to explore are * :

Dual Power and Socialist Transition
Communisation, Accelerationism and their limits
Transitional Programme Redivivus?
The European Union as a Class Project
Greece and Spain as Laboratories of Change
Latin America – What Follows the Pink Wave?
Cultural and Aesthetic Representations of Crisis
What Is Populism?
The Reformist Hypothesis
Right-wing Strategies in the Crisis

Other themes we would like to see are:

Nietzsche and Marxism (to celebrate the publication of Domenico Losurdo’s book on Nietzsche in the HM Book Series)
History and Actuality of the first four congresses of the Communist International
Social Reproduction
Race and Capitalism
Capitalism, Logistics and the Sea
The Legacy of Nicos Poulantzas and Left Eurocommunism
Capitalism and Global Inequality: Keynes or Marx?
Marxist Thought in the Arab World
China: Is the Miracle About to Crash?
« Leninism » and its Discontents
Strategies of Counter-Revolution
Culture and State Building
Rebuilding Communities and the Battles around Housing.
Technologies and Culture
*This is a non-exclusive list: other subjects are of course welcome too. Pre-constituted panels are welcome but we reserve the right to disaggregate them and create new panels with some of the speakers proposed.

N.B. Given the complexity of organising a conference of this size, we cannot guarantee that speakers will be able to speak on a certain day or at a certain time. Last minute changes to the conference programme may be necessary due to cancellations, and we ask for speakers’ understanding should a paper or session need to be moved. Finally, please do not propose a paper unless there are realistic prospects that you will be able to attend – « no shows » cause endless knock-on problems of organisation and stress.

Separate CFPs for streams during the conference, such as on Marxism and Feminism, will be circulated soon.

Monsters

Monsters

**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’s article Fuel For the Living Fire: Labour-Power! Is now available at Academia, at: http://www.academia.edu/11923648/Fuel_for_the_Living_Fire_Labour-Power_

New Materialism

New Materialism

NEW MATERIALIST POLITICS AND ECONOMIES OF KNOWLEDGE

Call for Papers and Panels

2 – 4 OCTOBER 2015, MARIBOR, SLOVENIA

Sister-Sixth Conference on the New Materialisms

  • Organized by the IS1307 COST Action New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How Matter Comes to Matter’
  • Hosted by the Faculty of Law of the University of Maribor, Slovenia

As a result of the growing community of New Materialist studies in Europe and beyond, two New Materialisms conferences are organized for this year. This call is for the Sister-Sixth New Materialisms conference “New Materialist Politics and Economies of Knowledge” taking place 2-4 October 2015 at the Faculty of Law of the University of Maribor, Slovenia.

This is the sister conference to the Sixth New Materialisms Conference “Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality” conference taking place 27-29 September 2015 at The Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

 

Keynote speakers:

DR VERA BÜHLMANN

PROF DIANA COOLE

DR ANNA HICKEY-MOODY

PROF KATERINA KOLOZOVA

Round table on “New Materialism and Legal Research” organized by Prof José Caramelo Gomes and Dr Tomaz Kerestes

 

The conference addresses as an area of debate the nexus of 1) politics and activism, 2) the economy and law, 3) philosophy and the power of knowledge, 4) genealogy and information; 5) the role of creativity in political economies through public engagement and pedagogy. What is the new materialist impetus to make situated analyses of the im/material processes in these areas?

All submitted abstracts and panel proposals will be peer reviewed. Please submit a 250-word abstract or proposal with a title, keywords and technical requirements along with a short 100-word biography to admin@newmaterialism.eu

Deadline: 15 May, 2015

New Materialism News: http://newmaterialism.eu/news

**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/

ROME

ROME

REVOLUTION AND RESTORATION

Historical Materialism Rome Conference 2015

17-18-19 September 2015, Roma Tre University

CALL FOR PAPERS

D​EADLINE: 26.03.2015

Details: https://hmrome2015.wordpress.com

Two hundreds years after the Vienna Congress, a new strategy of restoration has imposed itself at the core of Europe. The process of reorganization of class power, which started in the 1970s, has stabilised after the 2007-2008 crisis on the basis of austerity policies, the dismantling of workers’ rights and the welfare state , the contraction of democratic space, and punitive restrictions on the right to protest. We know the 1815 restoration was a reaction to the revolutionary conquests of 1789; can we say something analogous about this new restoration? Does this latter amount merely to a response to the attack launched by the subaltern classes in the ’60 -’70? Can we define neoliberalism, as David Harvey suggests, as the ‘restoration of class power?’.

What deserves further exploration is the extent to which neoliberal restoration has acquired the offensive and constitutive dynamic traditionally linked to the concept of ‘revolution’. The interrelation between restoration and revolution emerges, in part, from the composition, nature and unfolding of the struggles that characterize our times: urban movements claim ing a ‘right to the city’, border conflicts, migrant struggles, the constellation of Arab ‘springs’, independent and conflictual trade unionism, experiments in workers’ self-management, feminist, queer and decolonial movements, rural, indigenous and environmental struggles .

Can these new struggles contrast the neoliberal manipulation of those democratic forms that emerged from the post-war compromise between labour and capital, and between direct and representative democracy? Can new subjectivities, new rights from below, new institutions offer any foothold for detaching the idea of ‘revolution’ from its absorption by the mechanism of ‘restoration’? Within this complex and stratified framework, it is crucial to take-up the traditions of Marxist theory – from the in-depth analysis of Bonapartism by Marx and Engels to Workerism, passing through Gramsci and the reflections on the appropriation and subordination of anti-colonial movements – that have distinguished themselves by their capacity to interrogate the deep connection between revolution and restoration in the history of the capitalist social totality.

Separate calls go out for the following streams (click on titles for full CFPs):

Marxism and Philosophy: The Italian Debate and its International Effects

New World Disorder: Crisis, Conflicts and Transformations of Class Struggles 

Powers, Organizational forms, New Institutions

​T​he Right to the City

We welcome abstract proposals on these themes or any others, in all disciplines, from all continents and from all perspectives within Marxism.

Please send your 200 words abstracts to: hmrome2015@gmail.com

IMPORTANT: if you apply to any of the 4 strands listed above, add the title of the strand in your email subject.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/historical-materialism-rome-conference-2015-call-for-papers

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

**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

 

Time and Space in the Social Universe of Capital’ – by Michael Neary and Glenn Rikowski, now at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/10545768/Time_and_Speed_in_the_Social_Universe_of_Capital

 

Marx's Grave

Marx’s Grave

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM CONFERENCE NEW YORK: RETURNS OF CAPITAL

New York University, April 24-26, 2015

http://hmny.org/

Capitalism is “back,” in more ways than one.  Since the crisis of 2008, academics and commentators beyond the usual confines of the Marxist left have once again begun discussing capitalism as a system.  Debates about class, exploitation, and inequality have assumed a prominence they have not seen in decades, exemplified in the media event surrounding the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century.  Prompting these discussions is a capitalism that has “returned to form”. Austerity, casualization and precarity, and naked class aggression—attributes of capitalism proper rather than merely its neoliberal variant—have intensified. The years since the crisis have suggested that neoliberalism was no mere interlude, but rather a prelude to the “new normal.” But how “new” is this normalcy? Aspects of capitalism in the Victorian era are back—and for now, here to stay. Although this is in no way unprecedented, they represent new challenges to Marxist inquiry.

HMNY 2015 seeks to examine these twin returns.  What are the analytic  challenges of these returns within capitalism?  What have been the costs of the absence of Marxist answers?  In what ways has capitalism returned to form, while continuing to present novel problems?  And what does all of this mean for movements contesting capital?

The conference is part of an international project tied to the Historical Materialism journal and book series, published by Brill. The journal also sponsors conferences that take place in London, Toronto, Delhi, Rome and Australia. Please note: the HM conference is not a conventional academic conference, but rather a space for discussion, debate and the launching of collective projects. We strongly encourage speakers to participate in the whole of the conference.

For questions about submission policy and process, logistics, or anything else related to the conference, please email hmnewyork2014@gmail.com.

Abstracts may be submitted at http://hmny.org/ (Click on “CFP HMNY 2015”). Abstracts should be approximately 200 words, and the deadline for proposals is January 15, 2015. We especially welcome submissions and, in particular, panel proposals,  around the following conference themes:

TRACKS

  • Contemporary class formation
  • Capitalism, Ecology and Alternatives
  • New Research on the Socialist and Communist Tradition
  • Philosophical Foundations of Marxism
  • Politics and Philosophy of Gender
  • Circulation and Logistics
  • Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Middle East
  • The Economic and Political Logic of Austerity
  • Race, the State, and Capital
  • Marxism and Aesthetics
  • Capital and Sexuality
  • Debt and Finance in the Political Economy of Capitalism
  • Theories of Crisis
  • State Violence and Mass Incarceration
  • Social Protests: Riots, Revolt, Organization
  • Echoes of the Long 1970s: Wildcats and Rank and File Rebellion
  • Makings of the World Working Class
  • Revolution and Reform in Latin America

 

**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