Critical Knowledge and Praxis – Reminder

Paulo Freire

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE AND PRAXIS – REMINDER

ANGLIA RUSKIN SEMINAR

May 13th 2015, 3.30-6.30pm.

Marconi Building, Room 104, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford Campus.

Professor Dave Hill and Cassie Earl and the Department of Education are delighted to invite you to a special session of the CEJ (Critical Education and Justice) Research Group at Anglia Ruskin University:

 

Critical Knowledge and Praxis

With Professor Mike Neary, Dr. Sarah Amsler & Dr. Joss Winn from the University of Lincoln

 

The seminar will explore the fate of critical knowledge and praxis and how it might have a role in progressive politics and revolutionary struggles against current injustices created and exacerbated by the violence of capitalist abstractions: Money, the State and its other institutional forms, e.g. the neoliberal university.

A key issue for the seminar will be the extent to which it is possible to operate as a critical scholar within a neo-liberal university, and to what extent it is necessary to develop other social institutions to carry through with the implications that form the substance of our work.

 

Reading

Amsler, S. (2014) For feminist consciousness in the academy, Special Issue on Materialist Feminisms against Neoliberalism, Politics and Culture. Sarah’s new book ‘The Education of Radical Democracy‘ will be published in April.

Neary, M. (2014) ‘Making with the University of the Future: pleasure and pedagogy in higher and higher education’.  In: J. Lea (Ed.) (2015) Enhancing Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: engaging with the dimensions of practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Winn, J. (2015) The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy. Power and Education, 7 (1).

 

See: http://josswinn.org/2015/03/anglia-ruskin-seminar-critical-knowledge-and-praxis/

If you are coming from outside the University and need directions, please contact either Dave Hill (dave.hill@anglia.ac.uk) or Cassie Earl (cassie.earl@anglia.ac.uk)

**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/

Critical Knowledge and Praxis

Paulo Freire

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE AND PRAXIS

ANGLIA RUSKIN SEMINAR

May 13th 2015, 3.30-6.30pm.

Marconi Building room 104, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford Campus.

Critical Knowledge and Praxis

The seminar will explore the fate of critical knowledge and praxis and how it might have a role in progressive politics and revolutionary struggles against current injustices created and exacerbated by the violence of capitalist abstractions: Money, the State and its other institutional forms, e.g. the neoliberal university.

A key issue for the seminar will be the extent to which it is possible to operate as a critical scholar within a neo-liberal university, and to what extent it is necessary to develop other social institutions to carry through with the implications that form the substance of our work.

Reading

Amsler, S. (2014) For feminist consciousness in the academy, Special Issue on Materialist Feminisms against Neoliberalism, Politics and Culture. Sarah’s new book ‘The Education of Radical Democracy‘ will be published in April.

Neary, M. (2014) ‘Making with the University of the Future: pleasure and pedagogy in higher and higher education’.  In: J. Lea (Ed.) (2015) Enhancing Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: engaging with the dimensions of practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Winn, J. (2015) The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy. Power and Education, 7 (1).

See: http://josswinn.org/2015/03/anglia-ruskin-seminar-critical-knowledge-and-praxis/

**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/

 

Praxis and Critique: Liberation, Pedagogy, and the University

Herbert Marcuse

PRAXIS AND CRITIQUE: LIBERATION, PEDAGOGY, AND THE UNIVERSITY

International Herbert Marcuse Society Sixth Biennial Conference

Praxis and Critique: Liberation, Pedagogy, and the University

12-15 November 2015, Salisbury University (Salisbury, Maryland, USA)

 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Abstracts due May 20, 2015

 

In recent years, the problems and contradictions intrinsic to capitalist society have resulted in a number of manifest, seemingly permanent, crises. Many researchers, academics, and activists have seized on the urgency of recent coalescing crises—from environmental degradation to economic inequality, political instability to social unraveling, and beyond—in an attempt to ameliorate and analyze the consequences of these dilapidated social relations. The work of Herbert Marcuse aims to radically re-envision social relations via critical theory as a way to formulate a praxis of liberation. However, if we live in a society, as Marcuse puts it, “without negation,” how shall this critical rationality be cultivated?

The International Herbert Marcuse Society seeks papers for the 2015 biennial conference, “Praxis and Critique: Liberation, Pedagogy, and the University,” that address the broad pedagogical concerns of cultivating emancipatory rationality. Faculty, independent scholars, activists, artists, and others are invited to submit papers. Papers may want to address, but are certainly not limited to, the following problematics:

• What role can and should critical pedagogy play in today’s institutions of higher education? Given Marcuse’s emphasis on praxis, critical pedagogy cannot be limited to classroom space in universities – how can a critical rationality translate into programs of activism, agitation, and organization?
• How is the work of Marcuse, the Frankfurt School, and/or critical theory generally relevant to the current context of political, social, economic, and cultural struggles?
• What is the meaning of praxis and critique today? Do Marcuse’s contemporary interlocutors help us refine, understand, recast, or critique visions of a critical rationality?
• What can we learn from activists and scholars from a wide range of critical theories, dealing with liberation in areas such as critical race theory, intersectionality, LGBTQIA studies, disability studies, and postcolonial theory?
• How does Marcuse’s critical theory provide a lens through which to assess the current condition of advanced industrial society?

Student participation is also encouraged. The conference organizers are particularly interested in encouraging undergraduate and graduate student participation. To this end, we encourage faculty to teach related or special topics classes in fall 2015 and to bring students of all levels to the conference. Undergraduate students are invited to present papers in special concurrent sessions. Undergraduate and graduate students will also have the opportunity to submit conference papers for publication to special conference editions.

This conference is an interdisciplinary, multimedia engagement with the many dimensions of Herbert Marcuse’s work. So, in addition to the presentation of papers, the conference will also present artistic work.

Artistic Presentations:

The Salisbury University Gallery will present two related exhibitions.

The first is “Versprechen, dass es anders sein kann” (Promises that it can be different) by painter Antje Wichtrey.
Salisbury University Gallery Director, Elizabeth Kauffman, will curate the second exhibition.

For more information, contact the conference organizers:

Dr. Sarah Surak (smsurak@salisbury.edu) and Dr. Robert Kirsch (rekirsch@salisbury.edu)

 

**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/

Challenging Collectivities

Obsolete Capitalism

CHALLENGING COLLECTIVITIES

October 29 – 31, 2015

J. W. Goethe-University

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

CALL FOR PAPERS

In their political force as well as in the conditions of their constitution, collectivities entail essential ambivalences: processes of collectivization often carry totalizing tendencies with them or planish differences. At the same time, however, they possess emancipatory promise and transformative potential. Precisely because of its ambivalence, the concept of collectivity requires constant actualization and critical reflection. The ubiquity of collective phenomena warrants questioning well-established presuppositions and theories. To which constellations do we refer when we speak about collectivities? What are the forms of collectivity surrounding us today? Might concepts of collectivity and collective action-oriented political practice harbor diagnostic and emancipatory potential? Or does collectivity perforce imply serious problems and dangers?

The conference “Challenging Collectivities” raises such questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. Focusing on the role of collectivities, we want to theoretically reflect and empirically consider a wide range of contemporary phenomena. We are interested in developments such as contemporary social and political movements, the debate surrounding the so-called digital revolution associated with new forms of networking, the newly arising debate on the concept of life forms and their political or critical potentials, the relevance of a collective unconscious for the analysis of contemporary events, and discussions of global phenomena which invite us to reconsider collective formations – especially in regard to the concept of (maybe even non-human) agency. Thus, the conference engages questions

concerning the conditions and forms of collective action, the social transformation that occurs in social and political movements in continuation of and/or against established models, and the manifestations of violence that occur in processes of collectivization To approach these problems we suggest the following sub-topics. We welcome abstracts on these topics specifically or the general theme of the conference.

 

The Material of the Collective

How can we think the relation between subjects and collectives? Is a collective “the sum of all individuals”? Or do collectives have their own logic that always already transcends the sum of its parts? What – if anything – distinguishes collectives from society and social structures? Does it still make sense to talk about collectivity in times of the decentered subject? Recent debates (swarm theory, collective and artificial intelligence, Science and Technology Studies) raise questions about the material of the collective: Are non-human actants and matter impactful parts of collective phenomena? How can we (re-)conceptualize (collective) agency against this background? And: Does such a perspective constitute (political) opportunities or a variety of problems?

 

The Collectivity of Democracy

Democracy means collective self-determination. But who or what is this collective self? Must it be presupposed? Or is it lacking and should be created (in the future)? Does it exist as representation only? Or would a true democracy require it to be social reality? And what are the modalities of being- and/or acting-together that are (or should) be essential for a demos? Does collective will imply uniformity, consensus, or a reasonable aggregate in which the will of each individual is sublated? Is it therefore necessary to externally limit the collective will through individual rights in order to counter totalizing tendencies? Or is heterogeneity itself already the immanent and constitutive characteristic of a demos?

 

Law and Collectivity

The modern legal system claims to express a collective will. Moreover, by way of its reference to common law, it relies on collective practices as a pre-constitutional source. In statute law, however, the single law subject is the dominant category. How can one understand the relation between collectivity as the basis of legislation and individuation through law? Why can there be forms of collectivity in law (for example complicity in criminal law or even more complex forms of community law) whereas categories like property, accountability, or guilt are highly individualized and, in the current legal system, unimaginable as a collective category? What would a more collective mode of legal order mean?

 

Organization and Collectivity

Organizations – companies, associations, trade unions, universities etc. – are fundamental manifestations of collectivity. Conventionally, they are defined by clear affiliations, which are often highlighted by programs of identification, such as corporate identity-strategies. Against the background of digitalization and new opportunities of networking the question arises whether this drawing of boundaries and the dominant distinction between member/outsider are still timely for describing organizational processes. Which forms of organization are currently emerging beyond ‘classical’ organizations? How can one conceptualize the relation between institutions, organization, and protest? What forms of collectivities are organizations and what type of collectivity do they constitute?

 

Collective Action and Collective Agency

Who or what constitutes the possibility of collective action? Is there a reasonable way to distinguish collective action from collective agency? Is collective action antecedent to collectivity itself or does collectivity follow from collective action? Is there a specific form of collective action? Or are there rather many different forms of collective action, which are related to different life forms or discourses? And if so: What are the forms of collective action that enable action that transcends discourse and life forms?

 

Identity and Collectivity

Initiated especially by (queer-) feminist and postcolonial debates, collectivization qua identification has been intensely problematized. The reference to a homogeneous collective subject as a basis for political action hence possesses the danger of an identifying – often naturalizing – ‘locking-off’ and tends to lose track of differences or to deny their political productivity. If identification ceases to apply as a constituting factor of collectivities, how – if at all – can we think of a concept of collectivity that reacts upon these very critiques? How are categories of identity constituted that are able to politicize their own categories?

 

Experience and Collectivity

Subjectivity is constituted through experience. Is there a way to think about collective subjectivity as constituted through shared experiences? What characterizes such collective experiences and at what point do they shape the formation of collectives? To what extent can these collectives be understood as responses to particular experiences and the socio-historical realities underlying them? What role do stories and memories play here – such as those recalling the collapse of collective formations, or others, employing positive references to historical events? In what ways are memory and history/ies invoked or exploited in the politics of memory?

 

The Collectivity of Life Forms

“The Private is political!” This slogan stands for efforts to think collective life forms politically; for example in self-governing projects or in the context of feminist movements. In what does the political and social theoretical relevance of a critique of life forms consist? Or, rather, is ethical abstinence necessary? What would be the emancipatory potential of a politics of life forms? Are, for instance, new forms of collective cohabitation apt to open up larger political scopes of action? Or do forms like this gesture towards totalization?

 

The Psyche of/and Collectivity

Individual development requires participation in collective complexes. However, the complete absorption in such a collective might cause a loss of individuation. How, then, should we understand the collectivity of single psyches? What kinds of collectivity promote regression? What mass psychological impacts permeate authoritarian group structures? In contrast, what type of collective constitution yields emancipatory potential? In what manner can collectives function as a remedy for the psychological consequences of systematic violence? And how does collective trauma work against the agency of groups?

 

Economies of Collective Formations

Economic factors yield different collectives and are structurally embedded in them at the same time. How do we understand the historical potency of such forms? What changes in regimes of production and value creation become apparent in the formations currently emerging? What new forms of exclusion do they generate? To what extent do they urge us to rearticulate questions of collective and individual property as well as dispossession? What, in contrast, can be the role of alternative economic concepts and practices? What are the potentials of and limits to collective attempts to organize economies differently?

 

The Space of Collectivity

Where do we encounter collectivity? How is collectivity determined by space and how is space constituted through collectives? How do local conditions affect the holding, form, and/or appearance of a collectivity (squats, fabrics, university facilities etc.) and what kind of symbolism do these spaces convey? Is there a possibility to think space and collectivity together in a way that allows for a re-configuration of specific spaces that create thereupon new forms of democratic collectivity? And what kind of architecture prevents such an appropriation of spaces?

 

Collectivity as Methodology

Different theoretical traditions developed concepts of collectivity that have shaped political practice as well as empirical research in important ways – although, or even because they imply the refusal of any reductionism. We are especially interested in the tension between the conceptual and the empirical dimensions of collectivity: What role do theories about collectives play vis-à-vis empirical approaches? Which relations emerge in encounters of researchers and collective actors, for example in scholar activism? And to what extent do researchers reflect upon themselves as a collectivity within their academic practice?

 

The Collectivity of Art

Is art able to make a collective experience possible? Does, for example, the theatre have the capacity to disrupt the order of society as Plato suspected (and warned)? Might we deduce the possibility of an aesthetic opposition from this? Or does the audience – even after breaking down the ‘fourth wall’ – remain a passive recipient that merely consumes, and does art thereby stabilize structures of dominance? In what way do the ‘subjects’ of collective life appear in painting, theatre, film, and literature? One could also ask what role aesthetic self-expression plays for collectives?

 

Technical Details:

This call for papers addresses graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty members. We explicitly invite you to also submit work-in-progress or cooperative works.

Furthermore, we will gladly accept artistic contributions, lecture performances, and artistic

endeavors.

The conference language is English and German, with at least 50% of the presentations held in English. Abstracts may be submitted in both languages.

Abstracts should not exceed 400 words. Please attach a biographical note on a separate paper. Deadline for submission of abstracts is March 1st 2015.

Candidates will be informed by May 1st 2015 whether their paper has been accepted for the conference.

Paper presentations should be 20 minutes. They will take place in parallel panels during the three days of the conference. The panels are planned as discussion forums, meaning that each presentation will be followed by 20 minutes for discussion. In order to guarantee participation for everybody, we kindly ask the German speaking participants to provide an English summary of their papers beforehand. Papers will be selected through a blind review process. Therefore, please do not include your name or other references to the author on the abstract and make sure to clearly state the title of your proposal in the e-mail and in the filename of the document. We will ensure that at least 50% of the presentations will be assigned to women. Should you be neither an English nor German native speaker, we kindly encourage you to note this on a separate paper, since we will try to pay special attention to that in terms of equality.

A limited amount of daily allowance will be made available by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for graduate students coming as a group from countries of Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. If interested, please inquire.

Participants in need of childcare during the conference time, please indicate. In cooperation with the equality office of Goethe-University efforts will be taken to facilitate childcare.

 

Contact:

Please send your abstracts and questions to:

info@graduateconferencefrankfurt.de

http://www.graduateconferencefrankfurt.de

 

**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

Kapital Ideas: Analysis, Critique, Praxis

Teaching Marx

KAPITAL IDEAS: ANALYSIS, CRITIQUE, PRAXIS

Society for Socialist Studies

Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

June 2 – 5, 2015, University of Ottawa

http://www.socialiststudies.ca

Kapital Ideas: analysis, critique, praxis

Kapital Ideas are theories and analyses that help point us toward a better world through critique of the unequal, violent and exploitative one we now inhabit. They take inspiration from the author of Das Kapital, though they range widely over many issues which include ecology and political economy, gender and sexuality, colonization and imperialism, communication and popular struggles, but also movements and parties, hegemony and counter-hegemony, governance and globalization and, of course, class struggle and transformation.  Kapital Ideas are interventions that contribute to what Marx, in 1843, called the ‘self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age’.  In an era of deepening crisis and proliferating struggles, of grave threats and new possibilities, the need for these ideas, and for the praxis they can inform, could not be more acute.

 

Keynote Speaker

Himani Bannerji, York University, Toronto

Marx’s critique of ideology: its uses and abuses

 

Call for Papers

Our current Call for Papers, which lists sessions that are accepting paper proposals, is available HERE: http://socialiststudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2015CallForPapers-2_19Dec14.pdf . Abstracts (maximum of 100 words) for paper proposals should be submitted before Saturday, January 31, 2015.

To submit an abstract, please click HERE: http://conferences.uvic.ca/index.php/sss/sss2015 . You will be directed to our OpenConference website.

 

We hope to see you in Ottawa!

Bill Carroll, Jean Chapman and Elaine Coburn

SSS 2015 Programme Co-chairs

rosa1919@uvic.ca

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-papers-deadline-jan-31-society-for-socialist-studies-2015-conference-kapital-ideas-analysis-critique-praxis-june-2-5

 

**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/

Past and Present: Philosophy, Politics, and History in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci

PAST AND PRESENT: PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND HISTORY IN THE THOUGHT OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI

International Conference

18-19 June 2015

King’s College London

Speakers: Fabio Frosini (Urbino), Alex Loftus (KCL), Peter Thomas (Brunel); including contributions and chairing from: Carl Levy (Goldsmiths), Magnus Ryner (KCL), Anne Showstack Sassoon (Birkbeck), Leila Simona Talani (KCL), Cosimo Zene (SOAS).

The legacy of the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) has been widely acknowledged as one of the most significant intellectual contributions of the twentieth century. Even as the historical events of his life have faded from living memory, Gramsci’s thought has increased in influence and become diffused amongst a multitude of disciplines in the academic firmament; from philosophy to history and geography, through cultural theory and subaltern studies, to international relations, linguistics, critical legal studies and beyond.

In light of the widespread and heterogeneous deployments of his ideas, it seems apt and necessary to return to the texts themselves: Gramsci’s pre-prison and his prison writings, both the Prison Notebooks and the Letters from Prison. The aim of this conference is to bring together a new generation of scholars working on Gramscian themes in order to engage closely with his writings.

Working in collaboration with experienced Gramsci scholars, this conference is the first initiative of a group of early-career researchers and graduate students. Through a combination of panels and workshops, the conference will provide participants with the opportunity to present their work and to receive constructive feedback in a friendly and stimulating environment.

The two-day international conference also aims to contribute to the process of building links between Anglophone and international, in particular Italian, Gramsci scholarship. The organizers hope to create a network through which to share research and encourage interactions between researchers from different countries working on Gramscian thought and related topics. It is proposed that an edited collection of essays will be published as a product of the conference and further engagements.

Gramsci’s perspective is marked by a profound sense of the manifold connections between the explanation of the past and the analysis of the present. Our intention is collectively to investigate the rich potentialities of the theme ‘Past and Present’ in his thought. Participants are invited to explore the conceptual laboratory of Gramsci’s historical-political narration, as well as his endeavour to theorize the unity of theory and practice. This nexus between ‘explication’ of the past and strategic ‘analysis’ of the present is characteristic of the originality of Gramsci’s approach to the ‘question of theory’. More broadly, the conference aspires to study the way in which Gramsci’s historical perspective intermingles with his engaged concern for the future of a ‘big and terrible’ world, in the sense that might today be called ‘global history’.

Gramsci’s ability to dialectically unite seemingly opposed elements (i.e. civil society and the state, structure and superstructure, the spatial elements of historicism, or vice versa the multiple temporalities going across the political space) illuminates the capacity of his thought to stimulate critical renewals in various domains of thought. Further investigation of this critical project reveals the aspect of ‘reciprocal translatability’ that Gramsci identifies between different facets of the knowledge of reality as ‘philosophy’, ‘politics’ and ‘economics’. The conference aims to explore the ongoing elaboration of this ‘homogeneous circle’ (Notebook 4, § 46), that is, the constitution of Gramsci’s conception of the world and its relation to history, understood as a unitary and dynamic process.

Consequently, we encourage paper proposals that analyze Gramsci’s thought (either the prison or his pre-prison writings) from political, philosophical, economic, and historical points of view, whilst evoking the connections between these different dimensions. Inter-disciplinary papers that focus on the reappraisal of Gramscian concepts in the contemporary world (within cultural theory, post-colonial studies, International Relations, geography, history of science, etc.) are also welcome.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: the Marxian legacy and the philosophy of praxis; Gramsci and global history: the ‘integral historian’; the Gramscian analysis of modernity: crisis, hegemony and passive revolution; the Party and the role of the traditional and organic intellectuals; Gramsci and pragmatism: language, truth, ideology; Anti-economism and Gramsci’s critical economy; Gramscian cultural writings; Centre and periphery; From ‘subaltern social groups’ to global subalternity.

Speakers will have to cover their trip and accommodation expenses.

Abstracts of no more than 400 words should be sent by Friday 23rd January 2015 to: gramsciconference2015@gmail.com

Supported by:

–         Department of European Studies, King’s College London

–         Department of Geography, King’s College London

–         International Gramsci Society

–         International Gramsci Society – Italia

–         Ghilarza Summer School – Scuola internazionale di studi gramsciani

Organizing committee:

Francesca Antonini (Università di Pavia, Italy)

Aaron Bernstein (King’s College London)

Lorenzo Fusaro (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Mexico)

Robert Jackson (Manchester Metropolitan University)

 

For further information, please contact gramsciconference2015@gmail.com

Website: http://gramsciconference2015.blogspot.co.uk/

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/past-and-present.-philosophy-politics-and-history-in-the-thought-of-gramsci-international-conference-18-19-june-2015-king2019s-college-london

 

**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/

Another University is Possible

Education Crisis

ANOTHER UNIVERSITY IS POSSIBLE

Annual Conference

Call for Papers: 2015 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Conference Call for Proposals

Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies Association (US)

 

Another University Is Possible: Praxis, Activism, and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy

Riverside Convention Center, Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California

21-24 May, 2015

See: http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL TODAY!

Important Dates:

*       September 15, 2014: Submission System Opens  NOW OPEN
*       December 15, 2014: Submissions Due
*       February 15, 2015: Notifications Sent Out
*       February 15, 2015: Early Registration Opens
*       April 15, 2015: Early Registration Ends and Late Registration Begins

The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites proposals from its current and future members for participation in its thirteenth annual meeting in the Riverside Convention Center, Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California.

Proposals from all areas and on all topics of relevance to cultural studies are welcome, and are not limited to proposals that critically and creatively engage this year’s highlighted problematic.

This year’s theme, “Another University is Possible: Praxis, Activism, and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy,” plays on the World Social Forum’s motto, “Another World is Possible.” It expresses a commitment to the intellectual and political project of a radically different university. Moving beyond policy and pundit-driven discussions of the state and the future of higher education, we seek proposals that highlight socially-engaged scholarship and activism, and projects that explore the transformative possibilities embedded in the present. What forms and formations of research, pedagogy, praxis, and activism have emerged from the struggles being waged in, around, through, and in spite of institutions of higher education? What roles can culture, theory, imagination, and technology play in these struggles? Taking up cultural studies’ historical commitment to the interrogation of the relations among knowledge, power, and social transformation, the 2015 Cultural Studies Association conference seeks to provide an insurgent intellectual space for imagining, enacting, and mapping new forms of knowledge production and scholarly communication and community.

We are particularly interested in work that links the global neo-liberal conjuncture of higher education to local acts of collective resistance and action, and back again. We want to know more about how students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community partners are responding to the current social, legal, economic, financial, political, cultural, institutional, and intellectual challenges and possibilities: student debt as a means of financing higher education institutions; court cases that attack the history and practice of affirmative action; the rise in union activity on campuses; the re-entrenchment of the “humanities” as a division under “crisis”; the emergent emphasis on MOOCs and other online forms of education that extend the already dominant casualization of academic labor; the emergence of public and digital pedagogy and scholarship; the ambivalent politics of academic freedom; the reduction of education to vocational training and degrees to commodified credentials; the role of universities in reproducing or amplifying (rather than reducing) the social inequalities of contemporary capitalism; and the university as a site of capital accumulation and dispossession, among many other trends and tendencies.

As at previous CSA conferences, this year’s conference aims to provide multiple spaces for the cross-pollination of art, activism, pedagogy, design, and research by bringing together participants from a variety of positions inside and outside the university. While we welcome traditional academic papers and panels, we strongly encourage contributions that experiment with alternative formats and challenge the traditional disciplinary formations and exclusionary conceptions and practices of the academic.  We are particularly interested in proposals for sessions designed to document and advance existing forms of collective action or catalyze new collaborations.  We also encourage submissions from individuals working beyond the boundaries of the university: artists, activists, independent scholars, professionals, community organizers, and community college educators.

Proposals from all areas and on all topics of relevance to cultural studies are welcome, and are not limited to proposals that critically and creatively engage this year’s highlighted problematic. We welcome proposals from a range of disciplinary and topical positions, including literature, history, sociology, geography, politics, anthropology, communication(s), popular culture, cultural theory, queer studies, critical race studies, feminist studies, post-colonial studies, legal studies, science studies, media and film studies, material cultural studies, platform studies, visual art and performance studies.

About the Riverside Convention Center, Greater Los Angeles Area, California

The 2015 conference will be held at the beautiful, brand-new Riverside Convention Center, in downtown Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California. The closest airport to Riverside, California, for those of you flying in, is the Ontario, CA International Airport (ONT–sometimes referred to as the LA/Ontario International Airport).  More information about the venue, the city of Riverside, and the greater Los Angeles Area is available here:

http://www.riversidecvb.com/riverside-convention-center

Riverside is a hidden gem of Southern California, less than a half hour drive from the Ontario, CA International Airport, less than an hour’s drive from LA and about 90 minutes from San Diego. With its progressive landmarks, lively downtown, many fine restaurants, galleries and museums, and its proximity to so much of Southern California’s beautiful natural scenery and cultural sites, Riverside is a truly inviting and wonderful site for our conference.

Riverside is also home to several institutions of higher learning, with nearly fifty thousand college students populating the city, Riverside breeds an overall vibe of ambitious, critical energy. Riverside’s colleges and universities include: University of California, Riverside – One of the fastest growing colleges in the nation, UC Riverside is a national leader in cutting-edge research, community collaboration, and student diversity, La Sierra University, named “the most diverse university in the western U.S.” for the past four years by U.S. News & World Report, California Baptist University, and Riverside City College.

Submission Process and Timeline

All proposals should be submitted through the CSA online system, available at www.culturalstudiesassociation.org. Submission of proposals is limited to current CSA members. See the benefits of membership and become a member at www.culturalstudiesassociation.org.

The submission system will be open by September 15, 2014. Please prepare all the materials required to propose your session according to the given directions before you begin electronic submission. Notifications of acceptance/rejection will be sent no later than February 15, 2015.

In order to be listed in the program, conference registration must be completed online before May 1, 2015. All program information – names, presentation titles, and institutional affiliations – will be based on initial conference submissions.  Please avoid lengthy presentation and session titles, use normal capitalization, and include your name and affiliations as you would like them to appear on the conference program schedule.

Important Note about Technology Requests

All sessions run for 90 minutes and will have access to basic internet connection.  However, please note that unlike previous years, only about 50% of the rooms will have access to audiovisual equipment (projector, screen, speakers, etc.). Sessions that require audio-visual space or technical equipment must request these at the time of submission.  The Program Committee will do its best to provide reasonable accommodations, but accommodations are contingent upon the availability of resources and equipment. Any technology requests should be included as a note in the body of the initial submission, with a follow up email to Michelle Fehsenfeld at contact@csalateral.org.   Please only request projectors, screens, and speakers only if you plan to use them.  The CSA will be charged for every piece of equipment we rent/request.  A limited number of laptop computers will be available upon request but participants are expected to bring their own computers.

Please note that all session organizers/submitters must be CSA members for the 2015 calendar year at the time of submission

Conference Formats

Note: While we accept individual paper proposals, we especially encourage submissions of pre-constituted sessions. We also invite proposals that engage with this conference location and its many resources.
All conference formats – papers, panels, roundtables, workshops, and seminars – are intended to encourage the presentation and discussion of projects at different stages of development and to foster intellectual exchange and collaboration. Please feel free to adapt the suggested formats or propose others in order to suit your session’s goals. If you have any questions, please address them to Michelle Fehsenfeld at: contact@csalateral.org.

PRE-CONSTITUTED PANELS: Pre-constituted panels allow a team of 3-4 individuals to present their research, work, and/or experiences, leaving 30-45 minutes of the session for questions and discussion. Panels should include 3-4 participants. Proposals for pre-constituted panels should include: the title of the panel; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the panel organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of all panelists, and a chair and/or discussant; a description of the panel’s topic (<500 words); and abstracts for each presentation (<150 words). Pre-constituted panels are preferred to individual paper submissions.

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Successful papers will reach several constituencies of the organization and will connect analysis to social, political, economic, or ethical questions. Proposals for papers should include: the title of the paper; the name, title, affiliation, and email address of the author; and an abstract of the 20 minute paper (<500 words). Pre-constituted panels are recommended over individual paper submissions, though we welcome both.

ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. In contrast to panels, roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in advance by the organizer. The majority of roundtable sessions should be devoted to discussion. Roundtables are limited to no more than five participants, including the organizer. We encourage roundtables involving participants from different institutions, centers, and organizations. Proposals for roundtables should include: the title of the roundtable; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the roundtable organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of the proposed roundtable participants; and a description of the position statements, questions, or debates that will be under discussion (<500 words).

PRAXIS SESSIONS: Praxis sessions allow a facilitator or facilitating team to set an agenda, pose opening questions, and/or organize hands-on participant activities, collaborations, or skill-shares. Successful praxis sessions will be organized around a specific objective, productively engage a cultural studies audience, and orient itself towards participants with minimal knowledge of the subject matter. Sessions organized around the development of ongoing creative, artistic, and activist projects are highly encouraged. The facilitator or team is responsible for framing the session, gathering responses and results from participants, helping everyone digest them, and (where applicable) suggesting possible fora for extending the discussion. Proposals for praxis sessions should include: the title of the session; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the (lead) facilitator and of any co-facilitators; a brief statement explaining the session’s connection to the conference theme and describing the activities to be undertaken (<500 words). Please direct any questions about praxis sessions to Michelle Fehsenfeld atcontact@csalteral.org.

SEMINARS: Seminars are small-group (maximum 15 individuals) discussion sessions for which participants prepare in advance of the conference. In previous years, preparation has involved shared readings, pre-circulated ”position papers” by seminar leaders and/or participants, and other forms of pre-conference collaboration. We particularly invite proposals for seminars designed to advance emerging lines of inquiry and research/teaching initiatives within cultural studies broadly construed. We also invite seminars designed to generate future collaborations among conference attendees, particularly through the formation of working groups. Once a limited number of seminar topics and leaders are chosen, the seminars will be announced through the CSA’s various public email lists. Participants will contact the seminar leader(s) directly who will then inform the Program Committee who will participate in the seminar. Seminars will be marked in the conference programs as either closed to non-participants or open to all conference attendees. A limited number of seminars will be selected by the program committee, with a call for participants in the chosen seminars announced on the CSA webpage and listserv no later than 15 February 2015. Interested parties will apply directly to the seminar leader(s) for admission to the session by1 April 2015. Seminar leader(s) will be responsible for providing the program committee with a confirmed list of participants (names, affiliations, and email addresses required) for inclusion in the conference program no later than15 April 2015. Proposals for seminars should include: the title of the seminar; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the seminar leader(s); and a description of the issues and questions that will be raised in discussion and an overview of the work to be completed by participants in advance of the seminar (<500 words). Individuals interested in participating in (rather than leading) a seminar should consult the list of seminars and the instructions for signing up for them, to be available at the conference website by 15 February 2015. Please direct questions about seminars to seminars@csalateral.org. Please note that for them to run at the conference, seminars accepted for inclusion by the program committee must garner a minimum of 8 participants, including the seminar leader(s).

WORKING GROUP SESSIONS: All working groups have two sessions at their command. Working groups may elect to post calls on the CSA site for papers and internal submission procedures or handle the creation of their two working group sessions by other means. Working groups will facilitate the creation of two sessions drawing from, but not limited to, working group members. Working groups should create their proposals according to the specifications listed under their session format. When submitting to the conference website, working groups should select “Working Group” as their session format and include a note in the body of their submission designating the session as an official submission of the working group. Only Working Group organizers should submit Working Group session proposals through the conference submission system.  A listing of all CSA Working Groups is available here: http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/workinggroups

PANEL CHAIRS: We are always in need of people to serve as panel chairs. To volunteer to do so please submit your name, title, affiliation, and email address, as well as a brief list of your research interests through the conference website.

 

Registration Fees

Like our membership fees, the registration fees will be on a sliding scale: for more on this see:  http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/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

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

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

Critical Spaces: Disorienting the Topological

Panopticon

CRITICAL SPACES: DISORIENTING THE TOPOLOGICAL

London Graduate School

Critical Spaces: Disorienting the Topological

A graduate conference in the critical humanities

Kingston University, London

Monday 5^th January 2015

 

Keynote Speakers:

Claire Colebrook

Eyal Weizman

Eleni Ikoniadou

Fred Botting

 

Call for Papers:

“The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space.” — Michel Foucault ‘Of Other Spaces’

“Oh God! I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.” — Hamlet

Foucault’s assertion that the present epoch will be one of space immediately evokes the temporal. Whether we consider our epoch as modern, postmodern, or as non-modern, the philosophical treatment of space has been subordinated to time. Elizabeth Grosz has suggested that philosophy could draw on architecture to consider itself as a form of building or dwelling rather than as reflection of thought, evoking the spatial already implied by Heidegger. Occupy Wall Street and other recent anti-establishment protests in Brazil and Istanbul have been defined by journalist Bernardo Gutierrez as forming ‘anew architecture of protest’, convened by networks of consensus rather than dominant groups and ideology. Current theories and practices surrounding geopolitics, metamodelling, neuroscience, cartography and choreography support this growing emphasis on spatiality – whether focusing on produced space, social space and spaces of resistance, imaginary and poetic space, psychoanalytical and embodied space, sovereign space, performative space, digital space and/or virtual space.

This conference invites interdisciplinary approaches to the spatial. In particular we are interested in how thinking spatially or spatial practices reveal and open up disruptive, subversive or minoritarian fields within already existing discourses, be they philosophical, political, cultural or aesthetic. As Foucault has done in defining heterotopias, and as Edward Soja shows us through the idea of ‘thirding as othering’, it aims to rupture not only the particularities of those discourses, but the very possibility of thought itself through challenging existing borders, boundaries, horizons, surfaces and planes. We welcome proposals from all approaches including but not limited to: New Materialisms, Non-philosophy, Philosophy and Praxis, Cultural Studies, Political Theory, Geography, Architecture, Postcolonial Theory, Feminist and Queer Theory, Literature, Visual Cultures, and Art Theory and Practice, which consider space in the broadest terms. We also welcome proposals for practice based approaches and interventions.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to: lgscriticalspaces@gmail.com  by Friday 31 October 2014

At The London Graduate School blog: http://www.thelondongraduateschool.co.uk/blog/call-for-papers-critical-spaces-disorienting-the-topological/

 

**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

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

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

The Philosophy of Praxis: Marx, Lukacs and the Frankfurt School

University for Strategic Optimism

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS: MARX, LUKACS AND THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

OUT NOW

By ANDREW FEENBERG

The origins of “Western Marxism”

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1638-the-philosophy-of-praxis

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The early Marx called for the “realization of philosophy” through revolution. Revolution thus became a critical concept for Marxism, a view elaborated in the later praxis perspectives of Lukacs and the Frankfurt School. These thinkers argue that fundamental philosophical problems are, in reality, social problems abstractly conceived.

Originally published as Lukacs, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory, THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS traces the evolution of this argument in the writings of Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and Marcuse. This reinterpretation of the philosophy of praxis shows its continuing relevance to contemporary discussions in Marxist political theory, continental philosophy and science and technology studies.

————

ANDREW FEENBERG is the author of Critical Theory of Technology (1991), Alternative Modernity (1995), Questioning Technology (1999), Transforming Technology (2002), Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History (2005), and Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity (2010).

————-

“Feenberg’s subtle and wide-ranging study of Lukacs’ History and Class Consciousness reaches forward to Marcuse and the Frankfurt School and backwards into Marx’s 1844 manuscripts. The book offers a whole new framework in which to grasp the history of Marxist theory, at the same time restoring Marcuse’s centrality in it.” – Fredric Jameson

“A model of lucid and sophisticated intellectual history.” – Martin Jay

“A most fascinating and significant book.” – Theory and Society

“A vigorous and thoughtful reassessment of both Lukacs and the Western Marxist tradition … of great interest to anyone interested in critical theory or continental philosophy.” – Robert Pippin

“Feenberg achieves his goal of demonstrating the relevance of seemingly dusty and abstract philosophical conundrums not only to contemporary social theory but to politics as well.” – The American Political Science Review

“Feenberg’s sensitive and intelligent treatment of a complex constellation of interrelated problems in Marxist studies should commend his book to a wide audience of interested scholars.” – Man and World

“Poses the central problem of history in such a way that every reader can identify its elements…. The author knows the subject thoroughly, and illuminates many points in the texts of his main authors, as well as in those of such subsidiary figures as Marcuse and Habermas.” – The Review of Metaphysics

————

PAPERBACK: JULY 2014 / 272 pages / ISBN: 9781781681725 / $29.95 / £16.99 /$35.00 (Canada)

HARDBACK: JULY 2014 / 272 pages / ISBN: 9781781681732 / $95.00 / £60.00 / $108 (Canada)

ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN E-BOOK

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS is also available at a 40% discount (paperback) and 50% discount (ebook) on our website, with free shipping and bundled ebook. Purchasing details here:  http://www.versobooks.com/books/1638-the-philosophy-of-praxis

**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

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

Historical Materialism Toronto Conference – Registration

Crisis

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM TORONTO CONFERENCE – REGISTRATION

Confronting Crisis: Left Praxis in the Face of Austerity, War and Revolution
Historical Materialism Conference
York University, Toronto, Canada
May 8 – 11th, 2014
Registration Now Open

http://hmtoronto.org

Confronted with a global context of austerity, exploitation, imperialist aggression, ongoing colonialism, and ecological crises, the world has been witness to growing social and political struggles over the past decade. A wide range of rural- and urban-based labour and social movements have fought back against the current ‘Age of Austerity,’ while new modes and geographies of resistance against dispossession and tyranny continue to inspire social change in the Global South. Against this backdrop, the 2014 Historical Materialism conference at Toronto’s York University will aim to contribute to a collective discussion on how to extend and revitalize Left critique and praxis in the current conjuncture.

Confirmed speakers for the conference include:

Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Farshad Araghi, David Austin, Himani Bannerji, Tithi Bhattacharya, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Peter Kulchyski, Jason Moore, Richard Seymour, Panagiotis Sotiris, Lise Vogel, and Judith Whitehead.

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/hm-toronto-8-11-may-2014-registration-now-open

**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 at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Confronting Crisis: Left Praxis in the Face of Austerity, War and Revolution – Historical Materialism Toronto Conference – Call for Papers

Education Crisis

CONFRONTING CRISIS: LEFT PRAXIS IN THE FACE OF AUSTERITY, WAR AND REVOLUTION – HISTORICAL MATERIALISM TORONTO CONFERENCE – CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

Confronting Crisis: Left Praxis in the Face of Austerity, War and Revolution
Historical Materialism Conference
York University, Toronto, Canada
May 8-11th, 2014

 

Confronted with a global context of austerity, exploitation, imperialist aggression, ongoing colonialism, and ecological crises, the world has been witness to growing social and political struggles over the past decade. A wide range of rural- and urban-based labour and social movements have fought back against the current ‘Age of Austerity,’ while new modes and geographies of resistance against dispossession and tyranny continue to inspire social change in the Global South. Against this backdrop, the 2014 Historical Materialism conference at Toronto’s YorkUniversity invites proposals for papers, panels, and other kinds of conference participation that can contribute to a collective discussion on how to extend and revitalize Left critique and praxis in the current conjuncture.

We particularly encourage submissions that address the challenges and contradictions facing global anti-capitalist theory and action in the present. Some of the questions the conference strives to address include:

(Theme 1) What are the ideological blind spots of Left thought and practice, and how might they be redressed?

(Theme 2) How does the present historical moment challenge our understanding of the making of the modern global working class?

(Theme 3) How can Marxist theory be transformed to integrate an understanding of corporeality, identity and subjectivity in its analysis of capitalism and class politics?

(Theme 4) How might historical materialist theory account for the co-constitutive relationship between race, class, gender and sexuality, and what are the implications of such analysis for Left praxis?

(Theme 5) What are the contributions of anti-colonial struggles for internationalist Left politics and praxis today?

(Theme 6) What contributions and challenges do struggles for indigenous self-determination make to Marxist thought and vice versa?

(Theme 7) How can we read Marxist texts politically in the current conjuncture?

(Theme 8) What is the role of space, land, and urbanization in the development and crisis of imperialist, neo-colonial capitalism?

(Theme 9) What is the role of different modes of organization (e.g. parties, unions, student and social movements), and what challenges do they face in the fight against austerity?

(Theme 10) How might we conceptualize new modes of resistance, including the recent upsurge of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary currents, in the Global South?

(Theme 11) What is the specific role of spatial organization in the institution, reproduction and transformation of forms of imperialist, neo-colonial domination and relations of war?

(Theme 12) What are the contributions and challenges of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist politics to existing ecological crises?

(Theme 13) How can historical materialism assist us in understanding the dynamics of agrarian change under contemporary capitalism, particularly the global food crisis?

(Theme 14) How might historical materialist theory account for the dialectics of the rural and urban geographies of accumulation, domination, and resistance?

(Theme 15) What roles might culture, art and aesthetics play in confronting the crisis of capitalism and building Left movements?

 

The organizing committee specifically welcomes panel proposals that directly address the above questions. To make a submission for a panel, please include a working title and an abstract of no more than 300 words for the panel, along with the individual paper titles and abstracts of no more than 300 words. Please make sure to also include the names, email addresses and academic affiliations of all panelists.

For individual submissions, please include a working title, an abstract of no more than 300 words, as well as your name, email address and academic affiliation.

We strongly encourage all submissions to identify 1-2 themes from the above list that best describe the paper/panel topic.

The deadline for all submissions is January 10th, 2014.

For individual papers, please submit to: https://docs.google.com/ forms/d/1QDnUr_ NghgWxR9cYjGDg1T9njEUQa_ UHCZR85Nn_OPA/viewform  

For panel proposals, please submit to: https://docs.google.com/ forms/d/ 1A4xJHI1PMmgVzXzgP0P2nkr8joDrV bKIO-DOAzEM2Z8/viewform  

Please be advised that we cannot accommodate requests to present on a specific date or time slot and expect participants to be available for the full three days of the conference. The organizing committee also reserves the right to re-arrange panel proposals, if necessary.

For more information please contact historicalmaterialismt oronto@gmail.com or visit http://hmtoronto.org/.

 

**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

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

The Pedagogical Practices of Social Movements

Social Movements

THE PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Call for Papers Volume 6 Issue 1 (May 2014)

Interface: A journal for and about Social Movements

The pedagogical practices of social movements

Sara C Motta and Ana Margarida Esteves

In this special issue, we aim to deepen conceptualisations, analysis and practices of critical and radical pedagogies in our struggles for transformation. We seek to explore the pedagogical practices of movements by expanding our understanding of knowledge and how movements learn beyond solely a focus on the cognitive to the ethical, spiritual, embodied and affective.

Our aim is to systematize and document these practices and to provide conceptual, methodological and practical resources for activists, community educators and movement scholars alike. We are really keen to receive creative pieces including longer articles, dialogues, critical reflections on practice/particular projects etc and pieces that use visual art, photography, and video as means of critical reflection.

The May 2014 issue of the open-access, online, copyleft academic/activist journal Interface: a Journal for and about Social Movements (http://www.interfacejournal.net/) invites contributions on the theme of The Pedagogical Practices of Social Movements.

The pedagogical, understood as knowledge practices and learning processes, often takes a pivotal role in the emergence, development and sustainability of social movements and community struggles. In this issue of Interface we seek to explore the pedagogical practices of movements by expanding our understanding of knowledge and how movements learn beyond solely a focus on the cognitive to the ethical, spiritual, embodied and affective. Our aim is to systematize and document these practices and to provide conceptual, methodological and practical resources for activists, community educators and movement scholars alike.

Pedagogical practices can constitute important elements in the process of unlearning dominant subjectivities, social relationships, and ways of constituting the world and learning new ones. They can be central in the ‘how’ of movement construction and community building in spaces such as workshops, teach-ins, and through popular education. They can contribute to the building of sustainable and effective social movements through music, storytelling, ritual or through processes that surround strategy building, the sharing of experiences or simply friendship. They can help activists and organizers to learn through their participation in counter-hegemonic, grassroots initiatives such as community banks, local currencies and workers cooperatives. They can also be important aspects of movement relevant research.

In this special issue of Interface we ask the broad question, ‘What role do pedagogical practices have in the praxis of social movements and their struggle for political change and social transformation?’ The practices we would like to explore include formal methodologies such as Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry (OSDE), participatory action research, as well as methodologies of popular and community education inspired by feminist, Freirean, post-colonial and Gramscian approaches, among others, but also the more informal pedagogical practices which remain under-conceptualized and theorized and which include the role of the affective, the embodied (the body and earth for example) and the spiritual.

However, we also understand the politics and dynamics of movement and community education and learning to be contested terrain. We see how mainstream institutions and actors have co-opted the language and methods of popular education and movement methodologies. These processes of co-optation often neutralize their radical and political potential. We also understand that social movements often end up reproducing, through these practices, inequalities based on factors such as class, gender, race/ethnicity, educational level, expertise and role within movement organizations. Therefore, we would be very interested in receiving contributions based on “insider” knowledge about power dynamics behind knowledge production and learning within social movements (i.e. relationship between experts and non-experts, leaders and other members, impact of gender, class, race, educational level and expertise), and how such power dynamics determine whose “voices” end up being represented in the process and outcome of knowledge leaders and other members, impact of gender, class, race, educational level and expertise), and how such power dynamics determine whose “voices” end up being represented in the process and outcome of knowledge production and learning, and whose voices end up being silenced.

Among the more specific questions we would like to address in the issue are:

 What learning processes and knowledge practices are developed by movements?

 What is the role of formal methodologies and pedagogies in movement praxis?

 What is the role of informal pedagogies of everyday practice in the building of movements, the development of their political projects and fostering their sustainability and effectiveness?

 What is the role of the affective, embodied and spiritual in learning processes?

 What is the role of ethics in movement learning?

 What is the role of counter-hegemonic economic practices, such as those classified as “Solidarity Economy”, in learning processes within social movements?

 In what way do activist researchers contribute to the learning of movements?

 What politics of knowledge underlie the politics of social movements?

 Do the processes of ‘alternative’ education within social movements and collective struggles transform, disrupt or replicate hegemonic social relations?

 What pedagogical and political insights can be gleaned from exploring education for mobilization and social change?

We are very happy to receive contributions that reflect on these questions and any others relevant to the special issue theme and that fit within the journal’s mission statement (http://www.interfacejournal.net/who-we-are/mission-statement/).

Submissions should contribute to the journal’s mission as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s struggles, by developing analyses from specific movement processes and experiences that can be translated into a form useful for other movements.

In this context, we welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements — in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form. We thus seek work in a range of different formats, such as conventional (refereed) articles, review essays, facilitated discussions and interviews, action notes, teaching notes, key documents and analysis, book reviews — and beyond. Both activist and academic peers review research contributions, and other material is sympathetically edited by peers. The editorial process generally is geared towards assisting authors to find ways of expressing their understanding, so that we all can be heard across geographical, social and political distances.

We can accept material in Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Danish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Maltese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Zulu.

Please see our editorial contacts page (http://www.interfacejournal.net/submissions/editorial-contact/) for details of who to submit to.

Deadline and Contact Details

The deadline for initial submissions to this issue, to be published May 1, 2014, is November 1, 2013. For details of how to submit to Interface, please see the “Guidelines for contributors” on our website. All manuscripts, whether on the special theme or other topics, should be sent to the appropriate regional editor, listed on our contacts page. Submission templates are available online via the guidelines page and should be used to ensure correct formatting.

Details: http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Interface-5-1-CFP-vol-6-no-1.pdf

Sara Motta

**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

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