Contradictions

CONTRADICTIONS: A JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL THOUGHT

Call for Papers

A New journal

Kontradikce /Contradictions: A Journal for Critical Thought

We are seeking submissions of scholarly articles and theoretical essays that skirt the disciplinary boundaries of political philosophy, social theory, and cultural critique. This peer-reviewed journal, based in Prague, aims to critically revive and update Central and Eastern European traditions of radical thought, bringing them to bear on the historical present and bringing them into international discussions of the theoretical problems involved in emancipatory social change.

The journal is therefore especially interested in 1) articles that delve into the often overlooked or forgotten history of radical left thought in our part of the world and assess this legacy's contemporary significance; 2) articles that describe and develop related and parallel traditions of thought originating in other regions, bringing these traditions into conversation with the traditions of Central and Eastern Europe; 3) articles that analyze Soviet-type societies and their troubled relationship to historical and contemporary movements for social emancipation; and 4) articles that critically engage with the ideological assumptions and social conditions of "post-communism," that is, of the discursive association of the communist project with Soviet-type societies and, thus, with a "failed" and irretrievable past.

With these thematic problems in mind, we ask what specific contributions to critical social theory can arise out of the post-Communist experience—that is, out of the historical conflation of communism (the idea and project) with Communism (the party and party-run states) and the subsequent de-legitimation of the former along with the latter. Our focus is thus both geographically specific and global, as we aim to bring together the specific intellectual legacy of those parts of Europe formerly under Communist Party rule with w orldwide reflections of the "fall" of communism as a leading political and intellectual force. Out of this situation, we ask what new visions can emerge.

The journal will be published once a year as a double issue in multilingual format, with one part in English and one part in Czech and Slovak. Submissions are welcome in any of these three languages (English, Czech, or Slovak).

The first issue, with a submission deadline of October 31, 2015, will focus thematically on assessing the current moment and the state of critical social—and in particular Marxist—thought a quarter century after the fall of governments in Central and Eastern Europe that officially sanctioned Marxism while also constraining its development as a tradition of social critique. Submissions are encouraged, but not required, to take this focus into account.

Articles are welcome in the following categories:

· "Studies" and "essays": These may be articles of a more or less traditional academic character, but with an emphasis on the social significance of the material presented and on original and provocative argumentation. But we also welcome more essayistic contributions that break with some of the conventions of scholarly form. We are interested in rigorously theoretical essays, works of high scholarly value but which might not find a place in other scholarly journals. In this kind of writing, insightful generalization and shrewd observation will be given more weight than an exhaustive accounting for "existing literature" or a detailed description of research methodology. In other words, we have in mind essays that continue in the genre of most classic works in the modern history of ideas, from Rousseau's Discourses through Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and Karel Kosík's Dialectics of the Concrete. More traditionally scholarly articles should be about 4000-9000 words long. Essays can range from 3000 to 10,000 words.

· "Translations" and "materials": Here we include important contributions to Central/Eastern European social thought that can be brought to international attention in English translation; internationally important works in new Czech or Slovak translations; and previously unpublished or long-unavailable "materials," accompanied by annotation that presents the materials' significance to contemporary readers (these may be submitted in English, Czech, or Slovak). 3000-10,000 words.

· "Reviews" of recent publications in critical social thought. Reviews may be brief (500-2000 words) or may constitute longer "review studies" (2000-5000 words).

Send all submissions to jgrimfeinberg@gmail.com.
Further information available on www.facebook.com/kontradikce.
First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-journal-contradictions

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

Marx, Justice and Education

MARX, JUSTICE AND ALIENATION

A SPECIAL CALL FOR PAPERS

New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry

In spite of its clear and distinguished pedigree in European political philosophy and theology, the concept of alienation is now associated, almost exclusively, with Marxian critical theory and analysis. Yet, even within the orbit of Marxian thought the meaning and function of the concept of alienation has not always had a comfortable or stable position. Pointing to polysemic and intermittent use in the Paris Manuscripts, and the absence of explicit formation in Capital, Louis Althusser advised discarding alienation like other “old philosophical themes” (Althusser 1967.) Granted, there is a degree to which Marx’s own deployment of alienation has several different conceptions and connotations, but the Grundrisse and other textual sources provide evidence that alienation, its semantic elasticity notwithstanding, remained central to Marx’s political economic analysis and his theory of history, even while it appeared to ‘go underground’, so to speak, in his late thought.

Part of the confusion around this concept arises from the fact that Marx appears to use alienation as a kind of normative foundation, one which informs his various critiques. A central historical rendering tends to describe workers’ inability to fully realize their inner life in capitalist society outside of market forces, hence they are separated from their “species being.” Adopted from Feuerbach, and initially developed in the Paris Manuscripts, Marx tends to understand species-being as comprising the distinctive features of human being which when expressed facilitate the conditions for human life to flourish. The ability to freely make and create is central to this conception. But under capitalism the majority of people are unable to exercise their capabilities. In this respect, alienation is a normative assessment of the conditions of life and the potential possibility to fulfill necessary elements of them themselves. One can see residue elements of this sentiment in the language in and around the ideas associated with dignity, humanity, and human flourishing.

In terms of the analysis of capitalist social relations, Marx’s conception of alienation is narrower and is applied to studies of exploitation in the labour process. Alienation in this respect refers to how workers are separated or estranged, from their products. As a social system, capitalism is structurally dependent upon separating workers from their products and therefore requires dominating means to force workers to comply in the reproduction of capitalist social relations. Thus separation implies subordination. Additionally, there is a reconstructed rendering of alienation wherein Marx’s concept of alienation can be reduced to “the notion that people create the structures that dominate them” (Postone and Brennan 2009, 316). Herein, alienation is a process by which persons are co-opted to reproduce their subordinate conditions.

While the idea of alienation has never quite disappeared from popular and scholarly consciousness, in recent years the impetus to understand these structures seems more urgent than it did only a decade ago. Indeed, when Leo Panitch, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber argue that, for many, “crisis is the new normal” (Panitch, Albo, and Chibber 2012, ix), they articulate the conditions under which people both struggle to eke out the means of existence and make sense of the world today as well as the structural constraints which rigorously intercede and perpetuate social misery. 

Increasingly, capitalism is at the center of critical attention. This is evidenced by the fact that Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which details he inequalities generated under capitalism (hardly a revelation), seems to struck a chord in the popular press, so to speak. So to have Milanovic’s The Haves and the Have-Nots and Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality. Unfortunately, these analyses, while detailing economic developments more broadly, are silent on issues of labor, working conditions, and the prospects for people to cultivate their inner life under contemporary capitalism. For this reason, alienation still nevertheless provides a useful focus to explore contemporary social thought. There is a need for old philosophical themes.

This special issue of New Proposals seeks to collect and showcase scholarship primarily concerned with using, refining, or deploying the concept of alienation. Given the diverse expressions of alienation we invite contributions that explore the historical, analytical, and practical underpinnings of the concept, its contemporary fate, and speculations on the trajectory of this idea.

Recommended Length:

Peer-Reviewed academic articles: 4’000-6’000 words.

Shorter comments and arguments: 1’500- 2’500 words

Please send queries and expressions of interest (including title, a 200 word abstract, a brief outline of the argument, affiliation, and contact details) via email to the co-editors.

Scott Timcke – snt2@sfu.ca

Graham MacKenzie – gsmacken@sfu.ca

Details at: http://newproposals.blogspot.ca/2014/09/old-philosophical-themes-marx-justice.html

‘New Proposals’: http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/index

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‘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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.co.uk

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Glenn Rikowski’s latest paper, Crises in Education, Crises of Education – can now be found at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8953489/Crises_in_Education_Crises_of_Education

Glenn Rikowski’s article, Education, Capital and the Transhuman – can also now be found at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/9033532/Education_Capital_and_the_Transhuman

London Conference in Critical Thought 2014

LONDON CONFERENCE IN CRITICAL THOUGHT 2014

CALL FOR PAPERS: London Conference in Critical Thought 2014, 27th–28th June, Goldsmiths, University of London

CFP dead­line: 10 March 2014

LCCT 2014 Call for pa­pers (pdf)

The third an­nual London Conference in Critical Thought (LCCT) will offer a space for an in­ter­dis­cip­linary ex­change of ideas for scholars who work with crit­ical tra­di­tions and con­cerns. It aims to provide op­por­tun­ities for those who fre­quently find them­selves at the mar­gins of their de­part­ment or dis­cip­line to en­gage with other scholars who share the­or­et­ical ap­proaches and interests.

Central to the vision of the con­fer­ence is an inter-​institutional, non-​hierarchal, and ac­cess­ible event that makes a par­tic­ular ef­fort to em­brace emer­gent thought and the par­ti­cip­a­tion of emer­ging aca­demics, fos­tering new av­enues for critically-​oriented schol­ar­ship and collaboration.

The con­fer­ence is di­vided into them­atic streams, each co­ordin­ated by dif­ferent re­searchers and with sep­arate calls for pa­pers, in­cluded in this doc­u­ment. We wel­come paper pro­posals that re­spond to the par­tic­ular streams below. In ad­di­tion, pa­pers may be pro­posed as part of a gen­eral stream, i.e. with no spe­cific stream in mind. Spanning a range of broad themes, these streams provide the im­petus for new points of dia­logue. Read the full call for pa­pers here.

Topics:

Aesthetic Refusals: Oppositional Citizenship and Public Culture

Conceptions and Practices of Critical Pedagogy

Critical Approaches to Care Relationships

(Dis)orders of Migration

Dissenting Methods: Engaging Legacies of the Past, Defining Critical Futures

‘en­titled’

‘everyday polit­ical’

How Does One Think Difference?

Legal Critique: Positions, Negotiations and Strategies

Moving Through the Intersection? Interrogating Categories and Postintersectional Politics

Philosophy and Critical Thought Inside and Outside The University

Pragmatism and Critical Traditions

Sounding the Counterfactual: Hyperstition and Audial Futurities

Strategies of Silence

Street Level: Towards a Critical Discourse on Urban Aesthetics

Subjects in Space(s): Navigating Multiplicity

The Critical Brain

The Human After Anthropocentrism? Life. Matter. Being.

Time Discipline

What is the Question of Critique?

Please send paper/​presentation pro­posals with the rel­evant stream in­dic­ated in the sub­ject line to paper-​subs@​londoncritical.​org. Submissions should be no more than 250 words and should be re­ceived by the 10thMarch 2014.

Participation is free (though re­gis­tra­tion will be required)

lon​don​crit​ical​.org /​/​inquiries@​londoncritical.​org /​/​@londoncritical

LCCT Website: http://londoncritical.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LCCT-2014-Call-for-Papers.pdf

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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

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com  

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

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