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Debt

Debt

STUDIES IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT: CONFERENCE 2013

Call for Papers.

Studies in Social and Political Thought Annual Conference 2013: Debt and Obligation.

Keynote Speakers: Keith Ansell-Pearson, Costas Lapavitsas

University of Sussex, June 20-21

 

The global economic crisis has brought the question of debt sharply into focus. From the indebtedness of the individual by means of easy credit, to the universalisation of private debt in financial instruments and the financial stranglehold of whole countries by sovereign debt, debt and the obligation that comes with it dominate the structure of contemporary society and economy. Austerity programmes are implemented by governments around the world, often with disastrous social consequences and without popular support. The narratives of “living within one’s means” and “giving back what is owed” are dominant among the international organisations and power centres that promote these austere solutions. Even democratic legitimation is superseded by the obligation of paying one’s debts, to the extent that technocratic governments replace democratically elected ones for fulfilling that purpose. A “hard but fair” solution is advanced by many in government and elsewhere, where debt reduction seems to be given an almost moral quality, and as such connected to a moral obligation and duty.

The old definition of justice as “telling the truth and giving back what is owed” as given by Cephalus in Plato’s Republic, seems, therefore, to have prevailed–at least in part. For the truthfulness of this justice is hidden, since as Cephalus admits, it is the wealthy that are the major beneficiaries of this type of justice, considering they already have the means of living by it. On the other hand, the concepts of debt and obligation are the cornerstones of many ethical theories and philosophies, from Kant’s categorical imperative and deontological ethics in general to Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of morality. Moreover, a great part of political philosophy and theory is preoccupied with the question of the obligation to the state and what gives it legitimacy. But how are these ethical and political issues put into practice? Depending on one’s point of view there can be either a moral obligation that supports the state’s legitimacy, or one that directly opposes it. In particular, should one follow the moral narrative of paying one’s debts under any circumstances or are there instances where one has an obligation to resist debts placed upon them? Is there such a thing as a just debt? These questions, it could be claimed, have not been given enough critical attention, and theoretical discourse has passed them by.

We are, therefore, seeking papers that will engage theoretically with the concepts of debt and obligation, and explore their relationship with the social, economic, or political spheres. In keeping with the interdisciplinary ethos of SSPT we will accept papers from all related disciplines including politics, sociology, history, political economy, and philosophy. We will also accept papers that do not deal exclusively with the main topic of the conference but are engaged with issues in the general area of social and political thought.

 

Possible theoretical frameworks and topics include, but are not limited to:

Moral Obligation / Political Obligation / Debt from an Economic, Sociological, Historical or Philosophical Perspective / Crisis & Debt / Deontological Ethics / Kantian Ethics and Political Theory / Hegel / Contract Theory / Recognition & Self-Recognition / Nietzsche, Morality, Guilt and “Bad Conscience” / Marxism & Marxisms / Theories of Biopolitics / Instrumental Reason / Critical Theory / Post-Colonialism / Discourse and Democratic Theory / Structuralism and Post-Structuralism / Soft and Hard Power / Hegemony / World-Systems / Sovereignty / Legality and Legitimacy

Please send abstracts of 350 words to ssptconference.2013@gmail.com by Sunday, 5th May 2013.

These should be formatted for blind review, including a cover sheet with name, contact details, institutional affiliation, and paper title. Successful applicants will be notified by 12th May 2013. Finally, all selected papers will be considered for publication in a future issue of SSPT.

A fee of 5 pounds will be applicable, and all delegates will receive a free copy of SSPT.

A PDF version of this CfP is available here.

 

**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

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

Socrates

ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL THEORY CONSORTIUM

CALL FOR PAPERS
17-20 May, 2012 — Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida

THEORY AND POLITICS: BETWEEN THE GLOBALIZATION OF MODERNITY AND STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM AND CHANGE

The conference will focus on the tensions between two dimensions of social theory: as an academic discourse with analytical intent, and as a form of political action. In particular, our goal is to highlight 
the position of social theory between:
– Theory construction—as a social-scientific practice that is both normatively oriented and historically self-reflexive, i.e. willing and able to recognize its embeddedness in the social process; and
– Progressive politics—as it is inspired by the prospect of qualitative social change, and thus, oriented toward the transformation of the object of social theory.

In order to do so effectively, social theorists need to avoid detached, unengaged, ‘un-dialectical’ conceptions of our responsibility as confined to observation, along with forms of activism that lack reflexivity and awareness of the mediated nature of modern social life—as a result constituting political practice without theory. While social practice without theory is blind, social theory without practice is hollow.  Yet when and how does social practice truly require input from social theory? As Hegel’s employment of the image of the Owl of Minerva suggests, whose flight begins at dusk, does theory have a tendency to arrive on the scene too late…when the work of revolution-nary change already has been completed? Is it not that theories are becoming outdated due to revolutionary change? Then again, is such critical self-constraint itself overly hasty? Is social theory not in fact capable of providing a robust normative standard to evaluate the status and progress of revolutions and social change? Should it not aspire to critically accompany or reflect on social and historical change? If the relation between theory and politics is an open one, how do we need to reconfigure the relation between (social) theory and (progressive) action, especially after the financial crash of 2008 and following the Arab Spring? Are recent developments within the Western world indicators for another democratic Spring? Are claims and movements for economic justice and accountability, as they currently are being articulated in the US, in Europe, in Israel, and word-wide, signs of a new revolutionary spirit and indicators of a new cosmopolitan public sphere? Or could they be the opposite—symptoms of the decline of such center-pieces of modernity as democracy and individual autonomy? After all, the Arab Spring may not lead to greater democracy, but a resurgence of Islam. At the same time, theorists like Colin Crouch and John Keane warn that we may be going through the terminal phase of western democracy, whose inability to confront 21st-century challenges is becoming ever more apparent.

The conference poses such questions, in the framework of the overarching query about the relation between theory and politics—as provocative, open, challenging inspirations for a most diverse set of 
possible inquiries:
– Theoretical and meta-theoretical essays about theory and politics are as much part of this as cultural and critical inquiries into contexts of political action and agency;
– New developments fusing theoretical traditions are as much welcome as are works that analyze the conflicting interstices between concrete local actions and the larger theoretical and symbolic underpinnings of these movements;
– Works on the grounds of normative commitments are as much needed as empirical/discursive deconstructions of existing imaginaries and socio-political beliefs and assumptions.

Papers are invited that speak to the topic from:
– Classical & contemporary social theory: working with our inheritance
– Methodology of Critical Theory
– Literary methods and Social Theory
– The interpretive tradition, depth hermeneutics & analysis
– The performative aspects of public life
– Media power and image magic
– Psychoanalytic method and social theory
– Phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical hermeneutics
– Epistemologies and philosophies of knowledge today
– Asian philosophies and methods
– Socrates, Plato, and working with the Greeks today
– Political anthropology and reflexive historical sociology

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Mel Barber – Convener Associate Professor of Sociology, Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida
Harry F. Dahms Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (hdahms@utk.edu)
Kieran Keohane, Sociology, University College, Cork, Ireland (k.keohane@ucc.ie)
Bert Koegler, Philosophy, University of North Florida, Jacksonville (hkoegler@unf.edu)

Please submit abstracts by March 1, 2012 to Mel Barber at:  mbarber265@aol.com

Web-site:  http://www.cas.usf.edu/socialtheory/data/istcpaper.pdf

 

**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)

 

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

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Alain Badiou

WITTGENSTEIN’S ANTI-PHILOSOPHY – BY ALAIN BADIOU

PUBLISHED 28TH AUGUST 2011

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“A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!”—Slavoj Žižek

“An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser”—New Statesman

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Alain Badiou, one of France’s most influential radical thinkers, turns his attention to Ludwig Wittgenstein, legendary maverick thinker and one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. One of the key figures of analytic philosophy and standard-bearer of the “linguistic turn”, Wittgenstein was hailed by (including himself) as the ‘last philosopher’.

Wittgenstein’s great work was TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS. Written in his twenties, it had a huge impact on modern thought, and in particular the use of language and logic in analytic philosophy. Badiou dissects the TRACTATUS, and finds Wittgenstein to be an exemplar of antiphilosophy.

Antiphilosophy is defined by Badiou as a way of doing philosophy which questions or attacks the very basis of philosophy itself. Other key antiphilosophers would include Nietszche, Kierkegaard and Lacan.

Badiou addresses the crucial seventh proposition in TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS where Wittgenstein argues that “what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”. Badiou argues that this mystical act reduces logic to rhetoric, truth to an effect of language games, and philosophy to a set of esoteric aphorisms.

In the course of his interrogation of Wittgenstein’s antiphilosophy, Badiou sets out and refines his own definitions of the universal truths that condition philosophy. Antiphilosophy shows the philosopher what he is: a political militant, hated by the powers that be and their servants; an aesthete; a lover, whose life is capable of capsizing for a woman or a man; and a savant. It is in this effervescent rebellion that philosophers produce their ideas.

Bruno Bosteels’ introduction shows that this encounter with Wittgenstein is central to Badiou’s overall project – and that a dialogue with the exemplar of antiphilosophy is crucial to the continuing development of modern thought.

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ALAIN BADIOU is the author of many books, including BEING AND EVENT and INFINITE THOUGHT. He teaches philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. His ETHICS: AN ESSAY ON THE UNDERSTANDING OF EVIL, METAPOLITICS,  POLEMICS, FIVE LESSONS ON WAGNER and THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS are also available from Verso.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 694 1 / $24.95 / £14.99 / $31.00 CAN / Hardback / 192 pages

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For more information about WITTGENSTEIN’S ANTI-PHILOSOPHY or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/961-wittgensteins-anti-philosophy

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Academics can request an inspection copy. For further information please go to: http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies

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Visit Verso’s website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

Become a fan of Verso on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Verso-Books/205847279448577

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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

Richard Wagner

FIVE LESSONS ON WAGNER

By ALAIN BADIOU

Published 8th November 2010

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Featuring an extensive afterword by SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Translated by SUSAN SPITZER

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PRAISE FOR ALAIN BADIOU:

“A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!” Slavoj Zizek

“An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser” NEW STATESMAN http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/02/sarkozy-france-badiou-french

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For over a century, Richard Wagner’s music has been the subject of intense debate among philosophers, many of whom have attacked its ideological—some say racist and reactionary—underpinnings. In this major new work, Alain Badiou, radical philosopher and keen Wagner enthusiast, offers a detailed reading of the critical responses to the composer’s work, which include Adorno’s writings on the composer and Wagner’s recuperation by Nazism as well as more recent readings by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and others. Slavoj Zizek provides an afterword, and both philosophers make a passionate case for re-examining the relevance of Wagner to the contemporary world.

As the first example of a “mass art”, Wagner’s operas are portrayed as a forerunner to David Bowie and gangster rap, promoting a “terrorist function” of music that breaks down the boundaries between high and low culture.

Wagner’s crucial role in the thinking of Nietzsche, Adorno and Heidegger leads Badiou to posit the composer as the “litmus test” for the role of music in philosophy. Whilst these philosophers tended to criticize Wagner’s attempt to marry nationalism and art as “proto-fascist”, Badiou vigorously defends the positive energy of Wagner’s “enthralling, alluring, deceptive, hysterical, shimmering, seductive, sexual musical edifice.”

Badiou argues that “musicolatry” has replaced idolatry in contemporary society as music plays an increasingly important role in how we define ourselves. Youth culture identifies with music more than any other art form, festivals have created a new type of sociability, and the music industry is a billion dollar enterprise.

In a surprising conclusion, Badiou responds to the criticisms of Wagner by suggesting that the composer represents the possibility for a coming resurrection of high art. This new artistic “greatness” will embrace multiplicity, revel in possibility, tolerate subjective differences, dispense with resolutions and allow endless formal transformations. Badiou forecasts a high art which embraces postmodernism, rather then being destroyed by it and which, instead of focusing on nationalist nostalgia, sees Wagner as preparing the way for future artistic celebrations.

In Slavoj Žižek’s comprehensive 60 page afterword, “the most dangerous philosopher in the West” applies his usual brand of acute anecdotal evidence and astounding critical insight to turn perceived notions of Wagner’s Christianity on their head, comparing Parsifal to the pagan triumph of Lord of the Rings as opposed to the “failure” of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia.

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ALAIN BADIOU teaches philosophy at the Ecole normale superieure and the College international de philosophie in Paris . In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works, including THEORY OF THE SUBJECT, BEING AND EVENT, MANIFESTO FOR PHILOSOPHY, and GILLES DELEUZE. His five recent books THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS, THE MEANING OF SARKOZY, ETHICS, METAPOLITICS and POLEMICS are available from Verso.

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PRAISE FOR THE MEANING OF SARKOZY:

“An enjoyably bilious essay” THE GUARDIAN http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/06/alain-badiou-meaning-of-sarkozy

“As the recession worsens and social unrest increases apace, there is every likelihood that the ‘communist hypothesis’ will re-emerge to capture the political imagination.” Michael Cronin, IRISH TIMES http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0225/1224241762583.html

“Compared to Guy Debord’s prophetic 1967 masterpiece, THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE… a thundering, rallying tirade.” Lucy Wadham, NEW STATESMAN http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/02/sarkozy-france-badiou-french

 “Strangely compelling.” THE OBSERVER http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/01/nicolas-sarkozy-politics

 “Badiou’s concluding, rousing call for an emboldened left to rediscover and reassert ‘the communist hypothesis’ through new kinds of thought and collective action can’t be dismissed as the pipe dreams of an old militant any more.” Mark Fisher, FRIEZE — http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/the_meaning_of_sarkozy/

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 ISBN: 978 1 84467 481 7 / US$26.95 / £16.99 / CAN$33.50/ 256 pages

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 For more information and to buy the book visit http://www.versobooks.com/books/530-530-five-lessons-on-wagner

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Visit Verso’s all-new website for blog updates, information on our upcoming events, news, reviews, publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

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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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Alain Badiou

ALAIN BADIOU ON PLATO

Alain Badiou, on his recent translation of Plato’s Republic

October 12th, 7:00pm 
Room 102, 19 University Place, NY NY 100 03

New French Philosophy: http://cultureandcommunication.org/newfrenchphilosophy/

An event in the series “New French Philosophy” sponsored by the NYU Humanities Initiative and with the support of the NYU Department of Comparative Literature

Details: complit.info@nyu.edu

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)

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
Wavering on Ether: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Alain Badiou

BADIOU’S COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, Verso, America’s preeminent radical press, is proud to announce the third volume in its ongoing Pocket Communism series:

THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS

By ALAIN BADIOU

“A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!”—Slavoj Žižek

“In sum, a heartless bastard”—New Republic

Unwilling to neglect the stigmatizing burden of historical failure that communism has come to bear, Alain Badiou has set out to formulate a hypothesis that will resurrect and reinvigorate the communist ideal. 

In the wake of the financial crisis, Badiou presents his argument with a controlled urgency and a sincere conviction that “Communism is the right hypothesis.” Pointing to the emptiness in neoliberal capitalism’s promise of “human rights,” Badiou aims for a new kind of “universal emancipation” in his reconceptualization of communism. 

Badiou insists that his book is not a work of politics, but one that deals with the issues it raises at a fundamentally philosophical level: rather than taking for granted the “failure” of communism, he is intent on defining failure as such, crediting with sagacity only those “who are not blinded by the propagandist notion of failure.” With this in mind, Badiou takes us from May 1968 to the Cultural Revolution to the Paris Commune. Rather than flinching from the historical precedent set by these events, Badiou invites the possibility that these so-called failures may be thought of as a sequence that is far from complete. He argues, in other words, “that the apparent, and sometimes bloody, failures of events closely bound up with the communist hypothesis were and are stages in its history.”

Concerning the ultimate goal of The Communist Hypothesis, the book speaks for itself: 

“To put it in a nutshell: we have to be bold enough to have an idea. A great idea. We have to convince ourselves that there is nothing ridiculous or criminal about having a great idea. The world of global and arrogant capitalism in which we live is taking us back to the 1840s and the birth of capitalism. Its imperative, as formulated by Guizot, was: ‘Get rich!’ We can translate that as ‘Live without an idea!’ We have to say that we cannot live without an idea. We have to say: ‘Have the courage to support the idea, and it can only be the communist idea in its generic sense.’ ”

FOR INTERVIEWS & REVIEW COPIES OF ALL TITLES IN THE SERIES PLEASE CONTACT CLARA HEYWORTHclara@versobooks.com

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 at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon Profile: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/

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

Wavering on Ether: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Boris Groys

A POST-COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

Boris Groys talks at the ICA

Wednesday 21st July, 6.45pm

Institute of Contemporary Art
12 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AH

Tickets £12

With the collapse of neoliberalism, the idea of communism has made a surprise return to the table.  Thinkers such as Slavoj Zizek, Toni Negri and Alain Badiou, have argued that communism, a society based on equality, is now proved to be the only alternative to the chaos of capitalism. Building on this discussion, the renowned art critic and thinker Boris Groys argues that the strength of the communist vision comes from the fact that it represents the subordination of the economy to politics.

For more information on the event or to buy tickets go to:
http://ica.org.uk/24948/Talks/Boris-Groys-A-PostCommunist-Manifesto.html

Or call the ICA box office on +44 (0)20 7930 3647

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COMRADES OF TIME

Boris Groys’s lecture at the TATE MODERN

Thursday 22nd July, 6.30-8pm
Tate Modern
Starr Auditorium
53 Bankside
London
SE1 9TG

Tickets £10

In this special lecture Boris Groys, will respond to the FRANCIS ALYS’ exhibition at Tate Modern with the provocative and counter-intuitive insight that has made him one of the most important thinkers and art critics today.

For more information on the event or to buy tickets go to:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/talksdiscussions/22015.htm

Or call the TATE box office on +44 (0)20 7887 8888

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Boris Groys is Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, and since 2005, the Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science, NYU. He has published numerous books including Art Power and The Total Art of Stalinism.

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Since Plato, philosophers have dreamed of establishing a rational state rules through the power of language. In this radical and disturbing account of Soviet philosophy, Boris Groys argues that communism shares that dream and is best understood as an attempt to replace financial with linguistic bonds as the cement uniting society. The transformative power of language, the medium of equality, is the key to any new communist revolution.

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For more information visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/g-titles/groys_boris_the_communist_postscript.shtml

To buy this book in the UK: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781844674305/The-Communist-Postscript

or: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Communist-Postscript-Boris-Groys/dp/1844674304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265807841&sr=8-1-spell

To buy the book in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Communist-Postscript-Boris-Groys/dp/1844674304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265807799&sr=1-1-spell

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Visit Verso’s new blog for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://versouk.wordpress.com/

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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 at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon Profile: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/

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

Wavering on Ether: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Global Capitalism

Global Capitalism

WHAT IS THE COMMON?

 

An International Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

10-11 October 2009, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Submission  deadline: September 5
Contact: info@kurrents.org

Keynotes: David Harvey, Yitzhak Laor, Jacques Rancière, Antonio Negri (unconfirmed)

New Sessions
• The Iranian Revolution 30 Years Later
• Constructing the Common in Contemporary China
• Conflictual Democracy and Institutional Production of Space

In the shadow of the global crisis of capitalism, the common, somehow obliterated in the recent past, has emerged as an indispensable and central notion. The conference addresses this notion both as a real movement and as an already present horizon, a dynamic principle, for societal life. It is a critical topic today, not only because the public, administrated by the state, is reduced to expendable assets for regulating a supposedly self-regulating machine called Market, but more importantly because the emerging forms of the common impose themselves with an unprecedented acuity and in opposition to the doxa of the private property.

The common refers not only to primary resources, such as water or ecological conditions on a planetary level, but it is at the same time a political force that traverses diverse fields of tension such as art and culture, law and gender relations. The question “What is the Common?” is addressed as a real agenda that conditions the thought. The conference is a program that extends over 4 years. Each year will treat two themes. The conference 2009 will welcome papers related to the following two axes:
1. The Common and the Economy
Which are the specific emerging forms of the common today and what defines its relation to the material conditions of production of values in contemporary capitalism? Under this axis, both theoretical discussions and case-specific investigations in areas such as autonomous popular organisations, regional movements or global changes in one specific economic sector are welcome.

2. The Philosophical Understanding of what the Common Is
The common has since Plato’s Republic been a central question for the philosophical thinking. What is the relation or non-relation between the common and the totality of social relations? In which form and based upon what ontological or existential categories does it emerge? What is the difference between the common as the name of a real movement and the nostalgies of the return to a simple life?

Submission Guidelines:
We are welcoming papers from all disciplines regardless of academic affiliation or other background. All Interested researchers are required to submit an abstract of no more than 500 words, not later than September 15. Submissions via email must be in MS Word, RTF, or PDF format. Presentations will be given in English. Presenters will each be given 30 minutes for their presentation, followed by a 15 minutes discussion with the floor. Each session will be appointed a chair. Please specify if you are interested to chair a session. Number of sessions are limited to 8. If accepted, you will be required to provide a complete version of your 10-15 page double-spaced paper by January 1, 2010. Your abstract should not include your name, but do include the following on a separate page: Name, paper title, affiliation (university, other), email address. 

Submissions should be sent either by electronic mail to: info@kurrents.org or as a paper copy to: Sylva Frisk, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Box 700, SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden.

About the Organization:
The conference is organized upon an original proposal by Dr Dariush Moaven Doust. He is also responsible for the organization of the conference and the head of the Scientific committee in which Tomas Jonsson, researcher at CEFOS, Professor emeritus Sven-Eric Liedman, History of Ideas, Professor Lennart Nilsson, CEFOS, Professor emeritus Jan Ling, Sylva Frisk, Director of Studies at the School of Global Studies participate. The host for the conference is the School of Global Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences.

Web site: http://www.kurrents.org/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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