Gods and Monsters: Historisizing Ritual, Public Memory, and the Religious Imagination

Monsters

GODS AND MONSTERS: HISTORISIZING RITUAL, PUBLIC MEMORY, AND THE RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION

Call for Papers!

History Students Association Conference 2015

In his seminal essay The Great Cat Massacre, Robert Darnton gave a sage bit of advice to academics who study culture : “When you realize that you are not getting something—a joke, a proverb, a ceremony—that is particularly meaningful to the natives, you can see where to grasp a foreign system of meaning in order to unravel it.”

The monster is a construct and a projection, always interpreting the moment in which it is created. So too we see constructions of self in cultural phenomena as diverse as comic book heroes, ghost stories, fertility rituals, hagiography-even the villainization of the “other” informs the moment in which it enter public consciousness.

It is in this spirit that the 2015 History Students Association Conference at San Francisco State University is seeking papers that explore the intersection between humanity and its constructs.

How does ritual inform mentality? What can the supernatural tell us about historic truth and memory? How can we interpret stories so as to better understand the storyteller? How does politicization shape religious experience? How does the demonization of the other inform cultural fear? What do the fantastic elements interwoven with oral histories help us to discover about cultural norms?

Cross disciplinary submissions from film studies, literature, religious and ethnic studies, art history, and anthropology are encouraged.

Submission Guidelines: Please submit abstracts of 300 words or less to: hsa@mail.sfsu.edu

Please include the title of the submitted paper, your name, affiliated institution, field of study, and contact information. The deadline for submissions is FEBRUARY 13, 2015. If selected, final papers will be due to your panel chair no later than MID MARCH, 2015. Conference will be held April 25, 2015 at San Francisco State University.

Recent works that resonate with the spirit of the conference include:

Louise White’s monograph published in 2000, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa serves as a cogent example of how tales of the fantastic can be examined and interpreted to allow us to better understand the mentalities of discursive or liminal groups.

Stefan Goeble’s brilliant book on medievalism published in 2007, The Great War and Medieval Memory: War, Remembrance and Medievalism in Britain and Germany, 1914-1940, looks at how elements of medieval chivalric culture were interpreted in war memorials, interpreting iconography to uncover how communal memory functions in the search for historical continuity in the face of such horrific events.

 

HSA Conference website: http://history.sfsu.edu/content/hsa-2015-conference

**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/

Jason Read at the TheoryLAB

Nanopolitics

JASON READ AT THE TheoryLAB

Dear All

Please find details of the next event in the seminar programme: Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the Multitude organised by Caroline Williams, TheoryLAB , SPIR and Filippo del Lucchese, Brunel and CIPH, Paris. We hope you will be able to join us.

Please distribute to interested colleagues.

Full details and eventbrite link via the TheoryLAB page: http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/theorylab/

Seminar Two: 14 May 5-7pm

Venue: Queen Mary University of London, Arts Two, 3.16

 

Jason Read

The Affective Composition of the Political: From Negative Solidarity to Collective Indignation
Jason Read is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine. He teaches courses in the history of political philosophy, contemporary social theory, the politics of work, philosophy of film, and philosophy of history. He is the author of The Micro-Politics of Capital: Marx and the Prehistory of the Present (SUNY 2003) and Relations of Production: Transindividuality between Economics and Politics (Brill/Haymarket 2014/15) as well as articles on Althusser, Deleuze, Spinoza, Hegel, Negri, and The Wire.

 

Dr Caroline Williams

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

327 Mile End Road

London E1 4NS

United Kingdom

Email: c.a.williams@qmul.ac.uk

Webpage: http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/staff/drcarolinewilliams.html

 

**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.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

The Power of the Monstrous

Monsters

THE POWER OF THE MONSTROUS

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

Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the multitude

Seminar Series

Queen Mary, University of London

Mile End Road

London E1 4NS

Arts Two Building, room 3.16

All meetings @ 5 p.m.

MEETINGS: 

26 February

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

26 March

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

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

14 May

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

11 June

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

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

 

The Power of the Monstrous

International Conference

Brunel University, London

School of Social Sciences

Uxbridge UB8 3PH

Gaskell building, room 239

26-27 June 2014 @ 9.30 a.m.

SPEAKERS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sue Ruddick (University of Toronto), Monstrous Earth

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

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

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

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

 

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

The seminar series and the conference are supported by:

Collège International de Philosophie, Paris

TheoryLAB, London

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

School of Social Sciences, BrunelUniversity, London

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

 

**END**

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the Multitude

Monsters

IDENTITY, ALTERITY, MONSTROSITY: FIGURES OF THE MULTITUDE

Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the Multitude (I)

The process of construction of identity, both individual and collective, and the genesis of political subjectivity, are largely grounded on concurrent ideological mechanisms that define otherness: subjectivity, alterity and identity are the complex outcomes of one intellectual and cultural process, historically produced by the encounter with the Other, whether real or imagined.

Notwithstanding the effort in conceptualising this encounter in the global and multicultural context of contemporary societies, its historical genealogy is often underestimated: a genealogy that is rooted in the theoretical definition of the concepts of normality, abnormality, and monstrosity. Developed in the early modern age, these concepts have produced and keep producing their cultural, social, and political effects.

The main objective of this seminar is to reconstruct the genealogy of the modern problem of identity, subjectivity, and otherness through an historical analysis of the idea of monstrosity within scientific, philosophical, and literary discourses of early modernity.

During the first semester of this seminar we will focus on the radical alterity represented since the 17th century by the theoretical figure of the multitude. Hobbes, for example, develops the idea of the Leviathan’s sovereign body through the homogeneous unity of the people. By definition, the people is opposed to the conflictual multiplicity of the multitude in the state of nature. In contrast, Spinoza grounds the idea of a free State on the multitude’s conatus – its drive to actualize its own nature – and its right of resistance against the sovereign. This right is irreducible and monstrous, thus introducing the natural dimension into the State rather than excluding it from society.

While Hobbes confined the multitude to the edges of the political map, with Spinoza it takes centre-stage, becoming the beating and conflictual heart of political life. Starting with the indirect dialogue between these two authors, we will focus this year on radical and monstrous alterity – the sense of otherness and how that is defined – in early modern and contemporary thought.

Organised by Filippo Del Lucchese (Brunel University, London and Collège International de Philosophie) and Caroline Williams (Queen Mary, University of London). For more information, contact:
Filippo Dellucchese <Filippo.Dellucchese@brunel. ac.uk>
Caroline Williams <c.a.williams@qmul.ac.uk>

Location: QMUL, ARTS TWO (room TPC) 5:00pm
Dates: 26th February, 26th March, 14th May, 11th June

**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

Brunel Social and Political Thought Research Group Seminar Series – 2013/2014

Teaching Marx

BRUNEL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT RESEARCH GROUP SEMINAR SERIES – 2013/2014

Re/Dis/Order

Following successful seminar series and international conferences in the last years, the Brunel Social and Political Thought research group will organise another seminar series in 2013/14: ‘Re/Dis/Order’. This seminar series aims to explore the different ways in which the constitution, transformation and negation of political order have been understood by some of the key theorists of modern political thought, from the early modern period to contemporary social and political theory. Seminars are open to all.

Term 1

Wednesday 30th October 2013, 4:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

State and Capital

Andrea Bardin (Brunel University) ‘Mechanising the Organic: Hobbes and the Epistemological Revolution in Civil Science’

Matthijs Krul (Brunel University) ‘Neoliberal Visions of Order: Theories of the State in the New Institutional Economic History’

Wednesday 13th November 2013, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Fabio Raimondi (University of Salerno) ‘Althusser, Machiavelli and the Problem of Political Power’

Wednesday 27th November 2013, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Sara R. Farris (Goldsmiths, University of London) ‘From the Jewish Question to the Muslim Question’

Wednesday 11th December 2013, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Fillippo del Lucchese (Brunel University) ‘Machiavelli and Constituent Power’

Term 2

Wednesday 8th January 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Peter D. Thomas (Brunel University) ‘“We Good Subalterns”: Gramsci’s Theory of Political Modernity’

Wednesday 29th January 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 210

Banu Bargu (SOAS) ‘Sovereignty as Erasure’

Wednesday 5th February 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Nathaniel Boyd (Brunel University) ‘Organising the Body Politic: Hegel’s Corporate Theory of State’

Wednesday 19th February 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Jamie Pitman (BrunelUniversity) ‘Castor and Pollux? The Marx-Engels Relationship’

Ebubekir Dursun (Brunel University) ‘“Stubborn, Insociable, Froward, Intractable”: the History of the Excluded in Hobbes’s Leviathan’

Wednesday 5th March 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

John Roberts (Brunel University) ‘Beyond Flows, Fluids and Networks: Social Theory and the Fetishism of the Global Informational Economy’

Wednesday 26th March 2014, 1:00pm, Gaskell Building Room 239

Mark Neocleous (Brunel University)

Book Launch: ‘War Power, Police Power’ (Edinburgh University Press, 2014)

All seminars take place at Brunel University. Directions to the campus can be found here:
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/campus/directions

For further information, please contact:

Peter Thomas at PeterD.Thomas@brunel.ac.uk

Visit the Brunel SPT Research Group webpages:

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/modern-political-thought-violence-and-revolution-ma
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/sss/politics/research-groups-and-centres/social-and-political-thought
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brunel-University-Modern-Political-Thought/205393026150272?sk=wall

 

Other Brunel SPT Activities in 2013/14

Film Screening Series
(Organised in Collaboration with the Isambard Centre for Historical Research)

Paths of Shame: WWI in Cinema

1st October: S. Kubrick, Paths of Glory (1957)

15th October: R. Bernard, Wooden Crosses (1932)

29th October: J. Losey, King and Country (1964)

12th November: J. Renoir, La Grande Illusion (1939)

26th November: F. Rosi, Many Wars Ago (1970)

10th December: D. Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

All screenings in Gaskell Building Room 239 @ 5:30pm

Organised by Alison Carrol and Filippo del Lucchese

For more information, contact:
Alison Carrol <Alison.Carrol@brunel.ac.uk>
Filippo Dellucchese <Filippo.Dellucchese@brunel.ac.uk>

 

Identity, Alterity, Monstrosity: Figures of the Multitude (I)

The process of construction of identity, both individual and collective, and the genesis of political subjectivity, are largely grounded on concurrent ideological mechanisms that define otherness: subjectivity, alterity and identity are the complex outcomes of one intellectual and cultural process, historically produced by the encounter with the Other, whether real or imagined.
Notwithstanding the effort in conceptualising this encounter in the global and multicultural context of contemporary societies, its historical genealogy is often underestimated: a genealogy that is rooted in the theoretical definition of the concepts of normality, abnormality, and monstrosity. Developed in the early modern age, these concepts have produced and keep producing their cultural, social, and political effects.
The main objective of this seminar is to reconstruct the genealogy of the modern problem of identity, subjectivity, and otherness through an historical analysis of the idea of monstrosity within scientific, philosophical, and literary discourses of early modernity.
During the first semester of this seminar we will focus on the radical alterity represented since the 17th century by the theoretical figure of the multitude. Hobbes, for example, develops the idea of the Leviathan’s sovereign body through the homogeneous unity of the people. By definition, the people is opposed to the conflictual multiplicity of the multitude in the state of nature. In contrast, Spinoza grounds the idea of a free State on the multitude’s conatus – its drive to actualize its own nature – and its right of resistance against the sovereign. This right is irreducible and monstrous, thus introducing the natural dimension into the State rather than excluding it from society.
While Hobbes confined the multitude to the edges of the political map, with Spinoza it takes centre-stage, becoming the beating and conflictual heart of political life. Starting with the indirect dialogue between these two authors, we will focus this year on radical and monstrous alterity – the sense of otherness and how that is defined – in early modern and contemporary thought.

Organised by Filippo Del Lucchese (BrunelUniversity, London and Collège International de Philosophie) and Caroline Williams (Queen Mary, University of London). For more information, contact:

Filippo Dellucchese <Filippo.Dellucchese@brunel.ac.uk>
Caroline Williams <c.a.williams@qmul.ac.uk>

Location: QMUL, ARTS TWO (room TPC) 5:00pm

Dates: 26th February, 26th March, 14th May, 11th June

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/brunel-social-and-political-thought-research-group-seminar-series-2013-14-re-dis-order.-starts-30-october

 

**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

Critical Media Literacy Conference

Tyrion Lannister

CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY CONFERENCE

Call for Papers
Second Annual Critical Media Literacy Conference
March 22, 2014
8:00AM-4:00PM
Bone Student Center at Illinois State University
Normal, IL

Submit your proposal today!

Why Critical Media Literacy in the 21st Century?

Today, media culture is one of the most dominant forces in society. It contributes to how we define our sense of self and drives our understanding of the ‘Other.’ Media also perpetuates symbols, myths, and serves as a resource for generating a common culture. This multidisciplinary conference is designed to aid current educational leaders, future teachers, youth, and other concerned citizens in their understanding of the mass media and its impact on the events that shape our daily lives. Promoting critical media literacy is essential to excavating social inequalities and fostering participatory democracy during the 21st century.

We enthusiastically call for paper proposals that urgently and critically redefine, redirect, and recreate notions of knowledge, truth, and justice through (and with) critical media literacy and pedagogy. Paper proposals might address topics such as (but not limited to) the following:

• What are specific ways in which the corporate and political elite uses the mass media to promulgate their ideologies and practices?
• How does the mass media perpetuate divisions amongst social groups across the globe?
• How can teacher educators prepare future teachers by using critical media studies in teacher preparation programs?
• How can educators, youth, and concerned citizens provide more genuine representations of global citizens through their own media products?
• How has media literacy successfully fostered K-20 students’ critical engagement with mass media?
• How have various technologies employed by corporate conglomerates in the mass media been used to foster critical understanding and solidarity across the globe, rather than to promote conformity and corporatism?
• How can various critical theories enrich our understanding of the mass media in the age of neoliberalism?
• What are some ways in which media literacy can be applied to the new demands and concerns of today’s digitized culture?
• How might library scientists go about training critical media librarians?

Strand 1: Library Sciences
Papers in this strand will explore the existing or potential connection between library science and critical media inquiry.

Strand 2: Educational Foundations
Papers in this strand will explore interpretive, normative, and critical approaches to examining media. Papers that address critical pedagogy in online spaces are also highly desirable.

Strand 3: School of Communication
Papers in this strand will explore the relationships between communication scholarship and pedagogy and critical media literacy. Papers that examine the connections between communication, civic engagement, and media literacy are especially encouraged.

Strand 4: The Borg Center For Reading and Literacy
Papers in this strand will explore questions and and issues related to shifting definitions of literacy, critical media literacy, and potential new intersections of inquiry.

Key Dates
Call for papers opens: October 1, 2013
Proposal due date: January 7, 2014
Notification of accepted papers: February 1, 2014

Special Conference Registration Rates
Faculty: $90.00 (early bird rate until January 15, 2014). Then $110.00 from 1/16/14 to 3/10/2014.
Student: $45.00 (early bird rate until January 15, 2014). Then $60.00 from 1/16/14 to 3/10/2014.

Registration Options
On-line: Use your credit card to register at: www.conferences.illinoisstate.edu/CMLC
By Phone: (800) 877-1478 or (309) 438-2160, 8:00am-4:30pm, Monday-Friday using credit card payment
By Mail: Complete registration form and send with payment to:

CMLC
Illinois State University
Conference Services
Campus Box 8610
Normal, IL 61790-8610

By Fax: Fax completed registration form with credit card payment or P.O. to (309) 438-5364

Travel Lodging and Accommodations
Airport
Driving directions
Hotels

Keynote Address
William (Bill) Reynolds, Ed.D., teaches Education Foundations and Curriculum Studies at Georgia Southern University will be this year’s keynote. His talk is entitled, “The Monstrous Other: Exploring the Intersections of Youth Culture, Critical Media Literacy and Commodification in a Monster Making World.”

Published Proceedings
All papers will be published in the conference proceedings and will be open-access. A statement authorizing this publication is included in the submission agreement.

 

**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

‘Monsters of the Market’ – a new book by David McNally

Monsters

MONSTERS OF THE MARKET – BY DAVID McNALLY

Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism

http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Monsters-of-the-Market

By David McNally

Drawing on folklore, literature and popular culture, this book links tales of monstrosity from England to recent vampire- and zombie-fables from sub-Saharan Africa, and it connects these to Marx’s persistent use of monster-metaphors in his descriptions of capitalism. Reading across these tales of the grotesque, McNally offers a novel account of the cultural economy of the global market-system.

Part of the Historical Materialism Book Series.

About the author
David McNally Ph.D (1983) is Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. He is the author of five previous books and has published widely on political economy, Marxism, and contemporary social justice movements.

Reviews

“This outstanding new work from David McNally is indispensable for serious monster fans and radicals both – and almost giddyingly so for those of us who are both.” —China Miéville, author of Embassytown

“McNally delivers a tour de force analysis of global capital from the upper registers of derivatives trading down to popular fables of African monsters … Monsters of the Market is one of the best books I’ve read in years and it will definitely stimulate thinking about the nature of globalization, the labor theory of value and the relationship between commodities and speculative objects, collective fantasy, and other nebulous problems confronting historical materialism in the future.” —Mark Worrell, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
 

Originally published at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-in-paperback-from-haymarket-monsters-of-the-market-by-david-mcnally

**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)  

‘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

‘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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

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

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

Monsters of the Market

 

Smoke Monster

MONSTERS OF THE MARKET

Please get your library to order this title!

http://www.brill.nl/monsters-market

Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism
David McNally

Monsters of the Market investigates the rise of capitalism through the prism of the body-panics it arouses. Drawing on folklore, literature and popular culture, the book links tales of monstrosity from early-modern England, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to a spate of recent vampire- and zombie-fables from sub-Saharan Africa, and it connects these to Marx’s persistent use of monster-metaphors in his descriptions of capitalism. Reading across these tales of the grotesque, Monsters of the Market offers a novel account of the cultural and corporeal economy of a global market-system. The book thus makes original contributions to political economy, cultural theory, commodification-studies and ‘body-theory’.

Biographical note:
David McNally, Ph.D (1983) is Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. He is the author of five previous books and has published widely on political economy, Marxism, and contemporary social justice movements.

Readership
All those interested in Marxism, cultural studies, global political economy, as well as students of literature, folklore and popular culture.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. Dissecting the Labouring Body: Frankenstein, Political Anatomy and the Rise of Capitalism
‘Save my body from the surgeons’
The culture of dissection: anatomy, colonisation and social order
Political anatomy, wage-labour and destruction of the English commons  
Anatomy and the corpse-economy
Monsters of rebellion
Jacobins, Irishmen and Luddites: rebel-monsters in the age of Frankenstein
The rights of monsters: horror and the split society

2. Marx’s Monsters: Vampire-Capital and the Nightmare-World of Late Capitalism
Dialectics and the doubled life of the commodity
The spectre of value and the fetishism of commodities
‘As if by love possessed’: vampire capital and the labouring body
Zombie-labour and the ‘monstrous outrages’ of capital
Money: capitalism’s second nature  
‘Self-birthing’ capital and the alchemy of money
Wild money: the occult economies of late-capitalist globalisation
Enron: case-study in the occult economy of late capitalism
‘Capital comes into the world dripping in blood from every pore’

3. African Vampires in the Age of Globalisation
Kinship and accumulation: from the old witchcraft to the new Zombies, vampires, and spectres of capital: the new occult economies of globalising capitalism  
African fetishes and the fetishism of commodities
The living dead: zombie-labourers in the age of globalisation
Vampire-capitalism in Sub-Saharan Africa   
Bewitched accumulation, famished roads, and the endless toilers of the Earth

Conclusion: Ugly Beauty: Monstrous Dreams of Utopia
References
Index
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com