11 December, 2011

retirement

This year has been extraordinary, with such a vicious roll between high points and low (and way too many of the latter) that it threatened to come unstuck altogether. But things are really happening, and things I cared about even a year-and-a-half ago now seem completely distant and irrelevant.

Besides, between the two part-time jobs and the part-time degree, I find myself with little time to keep the blog in any meaningful state, and the rest of the time is given over to DTRTP, so I’m going to retire the blog (for now), bar the odd cfp and photo, which is all it’s been for a while now anyway. If you would like to get in touch with me about helping the campaign, please email infinitethought[at]hotmail.co.uk

I’m not speaking much next year, and have agreed to give all the talks I can reasonably do well in the time available, especially with ongoing legal situations coming to a head in the next few months, but I might be able to talk about the campaign if that’s useful to anyone at any point (I don’t want to speak about anything else really). We had a discussion at the Bank of Ideas with Doreen Massey and Teresa Hoskyns this afternoon, which was really interesting, particularly on the question of public/private/common space, and it clarified a few things: I’m feeling less and less interested in alienated, isolated forms of critique or anger or what have you, and more and more practically interested in the kinds of collective work I only really theorised about before. 

So, see you on the other side!

p.s. I also deleted everything on the blog from before the riots this year. Enough of all that callow crap from my 20s hanging around forever. If there was anything useful that I did delete (I dunno, the odd Badiou translation?), let me know and I’ll send it to you cos I cut and pasted everything into a word doc: 532,556 words from April 2004 onwards…now that’s a lot more than I would have guessed…feels good to ditch it though. 

11 December, 2011

london seminar on contemporary marxist theory

LONDON SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY MARXIST THEORY

14th December, 6pm

King’s College London, Strand Campus, Room S-3.18

Jairus Banaji (SOAS)

Retotalizing Fascism: reading Arthur Rosenberg through Sartre’s ‘Critique’

The global economic and financial crisis has witnessed a deepening of
interest in different forms of critical and radical thought and
practice. Following a successful series in 2010/11, the London Seminar
on Contemporary Marxist Theory in 2011/12 will continue to explore the
new perspectives that have been opened up by Marxist interventions in
this political and theoretical conjuncture. It involves collaboration
among Marxist scholars based in several London universities, including
Brunel University, King’s College London, and the School of Oriental
and African Studies. Guest speakers – from both Britain and abroad –
will include a wide range of thinkers engaging with many different
elements of the various Marxist traditions, as well as with diverse
problems and topics. The aim of the seminar is to promote fruitful
debate and to contribute to the development of more robust Marxist
analysis. It is open to all.

2011/12 Seminar Series

12th October, 6pm

King’s College London, Strand Campus, Room S-3.18

Alex Callinicos (King’s College, London)

Slavoj Zizek and the Critique of Political Economy

9th November, 6pm

King’s College London, Strand Campus, Room S-3.18

David McNally (York University, Toronto)

Monsters of the Market.

Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism

14th December, 6pm

King’s College London, Strand Campus, Room S-3.18

Jairus Banaji (SOAS)

Retotalizing Fascism: reading Arthur Rosenberg through Sartre’s ‘Critique’

11th January, 5pm

King’s College London, Strand Campus, Room K2.40

Simon Mohun (Queen Mary, University of London)

The Rate of Profit and Crisis: Lessons from the Data

22nd February, 5pm

K-1.56 Raked Lecture Theatre

Duncan Lindo (SOAS)

How and Why Banks Create Derivatives Markets

14th March, 6pm

K2.31 Raked Lecture Theatre

Susan Marks (LSE)

The Left and Human Rights

16th May, 5pm

S-1.06, Raked Lecture Theatre

Peter Hallward (Kingston University)

Title TBC

For further information, please contact:

Alex Callinicos, European Studies, King’s: alex.callinicos [at]
kcl.ac.uk

Stathis Kouvelakis, European Studies, King’s: stathis.kouvelakis [at]
kcl.ac.uk

Costas Lapavitsas, Economics, SOAS: cl5 [at] soas.ac.uk

Peter Thomas, Politics and History, Brunel: PeterD.Thomas [at]
brunel.ac.uk

10 December, 2011

apocalypse, kent, cfp

CALL FOR PAPERS

DON’T PANIC!
The Apocalypse in Theory and Culture
26 - May - 2012. University of Kent, Canterbury

Much contemporary discourse on history has emphasised its constructed nature, relating time’s flow to some human, anti-human or post-human agency. One potential danger of such an approach is that the real urgency of timeand history can to some extent be said to have been neutralised, relativised, made too impersonal, reduced to a system of signs. Recent crises, such as those of the world economy, terrorist/counter-terrorist attacks, and ecological collapse provoke a reconsideration of the Apocalypse. Consequently there has been a call for a return to a certain Apocalyptic discourse within anti- and post-humanist circles (Derrida, 2003; Callus and Herbrechter, 2004).

We must now ask if it is still possible and politically advisable to consider the end as something that can be resisted, deferred or if a revival of Apocalyptic discourse is needed. On the one hand, a renewal of Apocalyptic discourse seems to go against the deconstructive tendency to “de-dramatise the end” (Klaus R. Scherpe, 1986). On the other, this return does not necessarily lead to an unquestioned revival of metaphysics, but rather may open up the way to a third alternative. This third approach could consider the Apocalypse as something neither culturally constructed norunrelated to human and technological actions, as something neither wholly internal nor external.

This conference wishes to examine the return of the Apocalypse in contemporary theory and culture. Some of the questions in which we are interested include: What does a return to the Apocalypse mean today? How should theory respond in times of crisis? What do our narratives of the Apocalypse tell us about our perceptions of the end?

Suggested topics include the following and their interrelations:
- Capitalist crisis
- Bio-politics, bio-economy
- Post-humanism
- Eco-theory
- Apocalypse in Literature and Film (Zombie, disaster genres, etc.)
- Cultural and sociological studies of the Apocalypse
- The theology and mythology of the Apocalypse

Please send abstracts (350 words) and a short biography to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
by 20th February 2012.

The Conference is organized by Skepsi, a peer reviewed online postgraduate journal based in the School of European Culture and Languages at the University of Kent and funded by the University of Kent.

7 December, 2011

save classics at royal holloway

An unprecedented action by very young people to save Classics is happening at this institution. The students have occupied the corridor of the philistine management to protest against the cuts in Classics and the attempt to turn the university into a business training college.

They are very brave and very passionate and very young. Unfortunately the new Principal specialises in brutal action against young people trying to exert a democractic voice. If you have time, will, and energy, see the pages Occupy RHUL, or Save Classics at Royal Holloway.

6 December, 2011

even the roads agree

[This is a real road sign, I promise]

3 December, 2011

crime n punishment

I took this on the 29th Jan this year outside the Egyptian embassy.

2 December, 2011

open letter to colleagues at uc davis

I’ve signed this pledge; you can too at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Here is the bottom line:

UCD is one of several contested fronts in a much wider campaign against the marketization of higher education. As participants in this campaign, we pledge to suspend all professional association with UCD until Chancellor Katehi quits her post.

Open letter to colleagues at UC Davis
28 November 2011

Over the last couple of years, in the face of significant obstacles, students and staff from across the University of California system have taken a courageous stand in defence of public education. We the undersigned condemn the UC management’s continuing use of violence to suppress this campaign. Like many thousands of people all over the world, we condemn in particular police brutality against protestors at UC Davis ten days ago, on 18 November 2011. We note that such incidents of police violence stem from the decisions of UC managers to send riot police onto their campuses to suppress peaceful protests.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi has stated that she accepts ‘full responsibility’ for what happened on 18 November. We note that the Board of the UC Davis Faculty Association has issued a call for Chancellor Katehi’s immediate resignation, a call seconded, following a nearly unanimous vote, by the student General Assembly. As of 28 November, more than 104,000 people have made the same demand through an online petition. The UCD Department of English has issued a collective statement calling for the Chancellor’s resignation, the majority of the faculty of the Department of Physics have published a call for her resignation in Discovery magazine, and a group of faculty in the History Department have issued a similar statement; so has the Chair of the campus Graduate Student Association.

We write in support of these repeated calls for Chancellor Katehi’s resignation, as a preliminary but essential step in the restoration of appropriate relations between UCD managers and their students.

UCD is one of several contested fronts in a much wider campaign against the marketization of higher education. As participants in this campaign, we pledge to suspend all professional association with UCD until Chancellor Katehi quits her post.

Signed:

Alexander Anievas, St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford
Andrew Asibong, Senior Lecturer, Department of European Cultures and Languages, Birkbeck, University of London.
Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, King’s College London.
Noam Chomsky, Linguistics, MIT.
Dan Connell, Senior Lecturer in Communications and Political Science, Simmons College, Boston
Laurence Cox, Department of Sociology, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
David Cunningham, Principal Lecturer in English Literature, University of Westminster.
Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Stéphane Douailler, Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris 8.
Howard Feather, Sociology Department, London Metropolitan University.
Des Freedman, Reader in Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Greg Grandin, Professor of History, NYU.
Peter Hallward, Professor of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London.
Ian James, Lecturer in French, University of Cambridge.
Gordon Lafer, Associate Professor, Labor Education & Research Center, University of Oregon.
Neil Lazarus, Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick.
Jo Littler, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, Middlesex University.
Johanna Malt, Senior Lecturer in French, King’s College London.
Todd May, Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities, Clemson University.
William McEvoy, School of English, University of Sussex.
Peter Osborne, Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London.
Raj Patel, Center for African Studies, UC Berkeley.
Richard Pithouse, Rhodes University, South Africa.
Nina Power, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Roehampton University.
John Protevi, Department of French Studies, Louisiana State University.
Jason Read, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine.
William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara.
Sinéad Rushe, Lecturer in Acting and Movement, Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.
Stella Sandford, Reader in Philosophy, Kingston University London.
Bob Sutton, National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (UK), National Committee.
Peter D. Thomas, Lecturer in the Department of Politics and History, Brunel University London.
Alberto Toscano, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Jeffery R. Webber, Lecturer, Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London.
Slavoj Zizek, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana.

2 December, 2011

capital reading group from jan, goldsmiths

Capitalism and Cultural Studies – Prof John Hutnyk:

Tuesday evenings from january 10, 2012 – 5pm-7pm Goldsmiths RHB 309 Free – all welcome.

No fee (unless, sorry, you are doing this for award - and that, friends, is Willetts’ fault – though the Labour Party have a share of the blame too).

✪

This course involves a close reading of Karl Marx’s Capital (Volume One).

The connections between cultural studies and critiques of capitalism are considered in an interdisciplinary context (cinema studies, anthropology, musicology, international relations, and philosophy) which reaches from Marx through to Film Studies, from ethnographic approaches to Heidegger, from anarchism and surrealism to German critical theory and poststructuralism/post-colonialism/post-early-for-christmas. Topics covered include: alienation, commodification, production, technology, education, subsumption, anti-imperialism, anti-war movement and complicity. Using a series of illustrative films (documentary and fiction) and key theoretical texts (read alongside the text of Capital), we examine contemporary capitalism as it shifts, changes, lurches through its very late 20th and early 21st century manifestations – we will look at how cultural studies copes with (or does not cope with) class struggle, anti-colonialism, new subjectivities, cultural politics, media, virtual and corporate worlds.

The lectures/seminars begin on Tuesday 10th January 2011 between 5 and 7pm and will run for 10 weeks (with a week off in the middle) in the Richard Hoggart Building (RHB 309), Goldsmiths College. Students are required to bring their own copy of the Penguin, International Publishers or Progress Press editions of Karl Marx Capital Vol I. Reading about 100 pages a week. (Please don’t get tricked into buying the abridged English edition/nonsense!)

Note: The Centre for Cultual Studies at Goldsmiths took a decision to make as many as possible of its lecture series open to the public without fee. Seminars, essays, library access etc remain for sale. Still, here is a chance to explore cultural studies without getting into debt. The classes are MA level, mostly in the day – though in spring the Capital course is early tuesday evening. We usually run 10 week courses. Reading required will be announced in class, but preliminary reading suggestions can also be found by following the links. RHB means main building of Goldsmiths – Richard Hoggart Building. More info on other free events from CCS here.

2 December, 2011

recent words and one image

[This was part of the gigantic metal barrier erected around Trafalgar Square on November 30th, presumably to prevent all those communist robots we have from pitching tents there]

If you read Dutch you can read my piece on horizontality (“Lig neer, sta op! De opmars van horizontaliteit”) here.

If you read Greek you can read a piece on #OccupyLsx here.

I recently reviewed the excellent The Assault on Universities here for Stir. Stir get a nice mention in Housman’s roundup of new online journals here. I visited the shop today and bought all my Christmas presents, and you should too.

I also discussed the Assault book with one of the editors, Michael Bailey, and Andrew McGettigan (also for Stir) here.

There’s a piece I wrote on the closure of philosophy departments for The Philosophers’ Magazine here.

I’ve also got pieces in the latest edition of The Paper and the periodical LABOUR, but these are meatworld only.

1 December, 2011

representation on strike and everything