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THE ASSAULT ON UNIVERSITIES: A MANIFESTO FOR RESISTANCE
The UK White Paper on universities that was published in June contains yet more proposals that will embed the market ever deeper into our educational system through the entrance of private providers and the extension of a logic of financialisation. The deadline for submissions is 20 September and we encourage you to make a response (http://bit.ly/jpLET3).
We would also like to let you know that the manifesto has now been published in a book, 'The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance' (Pluto Press) which contains a series of short essays identifying the consequences of the reforms as well as possible alternatives. We are sure you will find it both stimulating and useful in your response to the attacks on higher education.
Details of the book are at: http://bit.ly/lKgYdE.
You can also use the book and manifesto as the focus for a meeting, debate or other form of campaign activity where you work.
We would be delighted to help arrange a meeting on your campus and to build up a head of steam against the government's disastrous reforms.
No university is immune and there will certainly be a good audience for a lively and topical meeting.
Please don't hesitate to contact us: hemanifesto@gmail.com (or d.freedman@gold.ac.uk if you have trouble accessing gmail).
With best wishes
Des Freedman
Michael Bailey
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All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com
RADICAL PHILOSOPHY NEW YORK CONFERENCE 2011
Radical Philosophy
New York Conference 2011
Columbia University, New York
Friday 21st October 2011, 9am – 7.30p
The event is free but advance registration is essential, to:
radicalphilosophyrsvp@gmail.com
Sessions:
Postcolonial Worlds
Representing Capitalism
Biocapital and Security
Temporalities of Crisis
Politics of Information
Speakers:
Claudia Aradau – RP/International Relations, King's College London
Souleymane Bachir Daigne – Philosophy, Columbia University
Tim Bewes – English, Brown University
Antonia Birnbaum – Philosophy, University of Paris 8
Finn Brunton – Information, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Marilena Chaui – Philosophy, University of São Paulo
David Cunningham – RP/English, University of Westminster
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui – Workshop on Andean Oral History, Bolivia
David Golumbia – Media, University of Virginia
Harry Harootunian – Literature, Duke University
Esther Leslie – RP/English, Birkbeck, University of London
Rosalind C. Morris – Anthropology, Columbia University
Mark Neocleous – RP/Politics, Brunel University, London
Peter Osborne – RP/Philosophy, Kingston University London
Kristin Ross – Comparative Literature, New York University
Kaushik Sunder Rajan – Anthropology, University of Chicago
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – University Professor, Columbia University
Programme details and abstracts @: http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/uncategorized/radical-philosophy-conference-2011
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic
MARXISM AND EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION FOR REVOLUTION
CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS
Special Issue of Cultural Logic
http://clogic.eserver.org/
“Marxism and Education: International Perspectives on Education for Revolution”
Issue Editors: Rich Gibson & E. Wayne Ross
FOCUS OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
The core issue of our time is the reality of the promise of perpetual war and escalating color-coded inequality met by the potential of a mass, activist, class-conscious movement to transform both daily life and the system of capitalism itself. In this context, schools in the empires of the world are the centripetal organizing points of much of life. While the claim of capitalist schooling is, in the classics, education, “leading out,” the reality is that schools are segregated illusion factories, in some cases human munition factories. Rather than leading out, they encapsulate.
Mainstream educational and social research typically ignores, disconnects, the ineluctable relationships of what is in fact capitalist schooling, class war, imperialist war, and the development of varying forms of corporate states around the world.
At issue, of course, is: What to do?
The long view, either in philosophy or social practice is revolution as things must change, and they will.
Connecting the long view to what must also be a long slog necessarily involves a careful look at existing local, national, and international conditions; working out tactics and strategies that all can understand, none taken apart from a grand strategy of equality and justice.
GUIDELINES
The editors are seeking manuscripts that explore education for revolution and are informed by Marxist perspectives. We are particularly interested in manuscripts that explore and examine:
* local/regional contexts and educational activism linked to global anti-capitalist movements;
* broad foundational and historical themes related to education and revolution (e.g., philosophy, social movements, community organizing, literacy, popular education, etc.); and
* organizational and practitioner perspectives.
The editors are also interested in reviews of books, film, and other media related to education for revolution.
Article manuscripts should be approximately 5,000-10,000 words in length (20-40 pages), although we will consider manuscripts of varying lengths. The editors prefer that manuscripts be prepared using either APA or Chicago styles. Manuscripts should be submitted as email attachments (Microsoft Word or RTF) to the both editors: rgibson@pipeline.com and wayne.ross@ubc.ca.
Authors interested in submitting manuscripts should email manuscript title and a brief description to the editors by December 1, 2011. Final manuscripts are due April 1, 2012.
ABOUT CULTURAL LOGIC
Cultural Logic, which has been online since 1997, is a non-profit, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal that publishes essays, interviews, poetry, and reviews (books, films, and other media) by writers working in the Marxist tradition.
E. Wayne Ross
http://www.ewayneross.net/
wayne.ross@mac.com
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
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CAPITORG: EDUCATION AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
This paper is my first writing, relating to my first public appearance (apart from seminars / lectures with my own students), for three years – apart from the eulogy for my father’s funeral (written on 21st February 2009). Furthermore, Dublin was only my second trip outside the UK in 32 years; so in many respects it was something special for me. Thus: it felt a bit like the first leg of a ‘comeback’ tour!
I would like to thank the people in the Praxis & Pedagogy group at The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCam) in Dublin for inviting me (especially Glenn Loughran). They were wonderful hosts.
The paper was completed in London at breakneck speed (during the ‘marking madness’ season) on 23rd May 2011, and was delivered to an audience at The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, in Dublin, on 25th May. It was revised on 27th May, went through further editing and proof reading on 6-7th September, and was finally posted to The Flow of Ideas on 8th September 2011.
The full reference and link to the paper is:
Rikowski, G. (2011) Capitorg: Education and the Constitution of the Human in Contemporary Society, A paper prepared for the Praxis & Pedagogy Research Seminar, The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM), Dublin, Ireland, 25th May 2011, available online at ‘The Flow of Ideas’: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Capitorg
Note: the paper reads better if you click onto the ‘Print Friendly’ option at the end of the page.
The tremendous flyer for the event can be viewed at: http://www.gradcam.ie/glenn_rikowski.pdf
Praxis and Pedagogy
The group is convened by Glenn Loughran, artist, activist, and PhD Scholar at the NCAD and GradCAM. Other members include John Buckley (NCAD/GradCAM), Edia Connole (NCAD/GradCAM), Susan Gill (DIT/GradCAM) and Thomas McGraw-Lewis (DIT/GradCAM).
The group convenes Wednesdays bi-weekly.
For more information on joining the Praxis & Pedagogy seminar series, and/or related activities see http://www.gradcam.ie/, or email the group at praxis@gradcam.ie
Praxis & Pedagogy is at: http://praxispamphlet.wordpress.com/
Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND MARXIST-HUMANISM
THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND MARXIST-HUMANISM: RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA’S DIALOGUE WITH HERBERT MARCUSE AND ERICH FROMM AS A WINDOW ON MARXISM IN AMERICA
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011
2:00-4:00 PM
Community Room A, Westside Pavilion, Los Angeles
(Westside Pavilion is at Pico & Westwood Boulevards; Community Room A is on east side of the mall, third floor, behind food court; 3 hrs. free parking in mall lot)
Speakers:
Kevin Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins
Kelly Green, student activist
Changes in technology and in the overall structure of modern capitalism – as well as debates over dialectics -- were at the center of an important dialogue among Marxists in the U.S. The discussion took place between the Marxist-Humanist and feminist philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse and the social psychologist Erich Fromm, both formerly of the Frankfurt School. Their dialogue is manifested in books such as Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of Man, and Dunayevskaya’s Philosophy and Revolution, and in their correspondence, which is to be published in book form next year.
Suggested readings:
1. Kevin Anderson, “A Preliminary Exploration of the Dunayevskaya-Marcuse Dialogue (with excerpts from their correspondence and comments by Douglas Kellner): http://www.kevin-anderson.com/preliminary-exploration-dunayevskayamarcuse-dialogue-1954-79-excerpts-correspondence-comments-douglas-kellner/
2. Kelly Green, “Technology, Labor, and the Transcendence of Capital: Revisiting the Marcuse-Dunayevskaya Debate”, in: http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/articles/technology-labor-transcendence-capital-revisiting-marcusedunayevskaya-debate-kelly-green/
3. Raya Dunayevskaya, “The ‘Automaton’ and the Worker,” in Philosophy and Revolution, pp. 68-76
4. Herbert Marcuse, “The New Forms of Control,” Ch. 1 of One-Dimensional Man, at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/one-dimensional-man/ch01.htm
Future meeting (same time and location):
October 8 (date tentative): On the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War: Marx’s writings on race, class, and slavery before and during the Civil War.
Sponsored by West Coast Marxist-Humanists http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/
Mail to: arise@usmarxisthumanists.org
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
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NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES FROM U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS – UPDATE 28th AUGUST 2011
http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/
AUGUST 2011
1. DAVID BLACK, “‘NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE’ AND BLOOD AND FLAMES ON ENGLAND’S STREETS: 1981, 1985 AND 2011” -- The explosion of rage and revolt on the streets of British cities, recalls the dramatic “uprisings” of the 1980s. The author, a resident of the riot-hit London Borough of Haringey, looks at what has changed and why it matters.
2. BA KARANG, “OSLO MASSACRE AND THE ‘REASONING’ OF THE FAR RIGHT” -- In the aftermath of the Massacre in Norway, Norwegian-African Ba Karang examines the ideological strands of the Far Right in the thinking of Anders Breivik.
3. PETER HUDIS, “COMMENTS ON ‘WHAT MORE COULD WE WANT OF OURSELVES!’, JACQUELINE ROSE’S REVIEW OF THE LETTERS OF ROSA LUXEMBURG” -- In responding to Rose’s review in London Review of Books: http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/books/the-letters-of-rosa-luxemburg/ Hudis discusses Luxemburg’s differences with Lenin, her writings on imperialism and indigenous communal social forms, and her worldview as both “open” and “single-minded.” Originally appeared on the Verso Books authors’ blog, June 21, 2011.
4. DALE PARSONS, “LABOR AT THE CROSSROADS” -- The capitulation on the part of Obama and the Democrats to the far-Right agenda of the Republicans in the latest battle over raising the deficit ceiling raises the issue of whether capitalism is undermining its own conditions of existence.
5. KELLY GREEN, “TECHNOLOGY, LABOR, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF CAPITAL: REVISITING THE MARCUSE-DUNAYEVSKAYA DEBATE” -- In the 1960s and 1970s, Herbert Marcuse and Raya Dunayevskaya developed differing responses to the new stage of capitalist production represented by automation.
6. ELI MESSINGER, “REVIEW OF RICHARD GREEMAN’S BEWARE OF VEGETARIAN SHARKS” –Veteran socialist Greeman’s book collects his essays on the radical movement, as well as biographical and theoretical reflections.
7. ELI MESSINGER, “REVIEW OF SLAVOJ ZIZEK ET AL., LENIN RELOADED” -- This review of one of the few recent books devoted to Lenin’s thought – with much discussion of dialectics -- is particularly timely now that Lenin Reloaded is appearing in Spanish, Turkish, and other languages.
8. KHALFANI MALIK KHALDUN, “BURIED ALIVE INSIDE INDIANA SCU UNIT: A LOOK AT SUGGESTIONS TO MODIFY CURRENT CONDITIONS AND CREATE A MORE CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT” -- This piece by political prisoner Khalfani Malik Khaldun, speaks to the issues that have helped foment the hunger strike of prisoners in Pelican Bay, California, as well as elsewhere in California. Now is the time to demonstrate support for those wrongly incarcerated and suffering the terrible abuses of the U.S. criminal injustice system.
9. RINITA MAZUMDAR AND HEATHER TOMANOVSKY, “DIALOGUE ON MARX, GENDER, KINSHIP, AND HUMAN EMANCIPATION” -- Dialogue on Tomanovsky’s essay, “Marx, Gender, and Human Emancipation,” which originally appeared on this website: http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/articles/marx-gender-and-human-emancipation-%E2%80%93-by-heather-tomanovsky/
10. STEVEN COLATRELLA AND PETER HUDIS, DIALOGUE ON MARX’S CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAM – Dialogue over Hudis’s essay on “Directly and Indirectly Social Labor: What Kind of Human Relations Can Transcend Capitalism?” which appears on this website: http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/articles/directly-and-indirectly-social-labor-what-kind-of-human-relations-can-transcend-capitalism-by-peter-hudis/
11. DAVID BLACK, “ADORNO FOR REVOLUTIONARIES?” -- In Adorno for Revolutionaries Ben Watson attempts to show how Theodore Adorno, starting with the commodity form, outlined a revolutionary musicology, a passageway between subjective feeling and objective conditions. In extending the analysis beyond the confines of ‘highbrow’ classical music Watson aims to ‘detonate the explosive core of Adorno's method’.
12. PETER HUDIS, “READING ROSA” – Interview with Hudis on The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg with Red Pepper (London)
13. THE LETTERS OF ROSA LUXEMBURG, EDITED BY ANNELIES LASCHITZA, GEORG ADLER AND PETER HUDIS, TRANSLATED BY GEORGE SHRIVER (VERSO 2011) -- Links to reviews in New Politics and elsewhere
14. MARX AT THE MARGINS: ON NATIONALISM, ETHNICITY, AND NON-WESTERN SOCIETIES, BY KEVIN ANDERSON
Links to reviews in Le Monde Diplomatique, Counterfire, Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch, and elsewhere.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
1. KEVIN ANDERSON, “ARAB REVOLUTIONS AT THE CROSSROADS” – The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and the uprising in Libya have exhibited a post-Islamist and post-nationalist character. After challenging both the political and the economic order, they face dangers from old forces like the military and the Islamists (Egypt) or of violent repression (Libya).
2. PETER HUDIS, “THE LIFE, LETTERS, & LEGACY OF ROSA LUXEMBURG – Video of a presentation at a symposium marking the publication on the Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, New York University Law School, March 14, 2011
THE SITE ALSO INCLUDES OTHER ARTICLES FROM THE PAST DECADE BY U. S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS AND THEIR INTERNATIONAL COLLEAGUES.
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THE BEACH BENEATH THE STREET: THE EVERYDAY LIFE AND GLORIOUS TIMES OF THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
BY MCKENZIE WARK
PUBLISHED: 22 AUGUST 2011
"The lack of politicisation in the recent riots around Britain can be frustrating to those steeped in French theory, those who see the riot as what Martin Luther King described as the “language of the unheard”. But London 2011 is quite evidently not Paris 1968. A new book about the ideas that led to that moment in Paris sheds light on quite how different the two countries’ traditions are…
Wark has done us a great favour by explaining how situationist ideas (which included a proto-internet, an information super-network free of government control) still represent the sharpest and most surprisingly prescient critiques of the contemporary city." Edwin Heathcote, FINANCIAL TIMES
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EVENTS:
August 23, 2011, 8.00pm
Cafe OTO
18—22 Ashwin street, Dalston
London E8 3DL UK
McKenzie Wark appears at cafe OTO to talk about his book on the life and times of the Situationist International, The Beach Beneath the Street.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/191-the-beach-beneath-the-street-at-cafe-oto
August 24, 2011, 7.00pm
Housmans
5 Caledonian Road , King's Cross
London N1 9DX
McKenzie Wark’s new book on the subject The Beach Beneath the Street: The Glorious Times of the Situationist International, explores anew the history of the movement and connects the Situationist’s work to new practices in communication, built form, and everyday life.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/196-the-glorious-times-of-the-situationist-international
August 25, 2011, 7.00pm
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7QX UK
Writer McKenzie Wark explores the diversity of the Situationist International in his new book The Beach Beneath the Street, re-reading their history in the light of our contemporary experience of communications, architecture, and everyday life.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/188-the-beach-beneath-the-street-new-new-babylon
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McKenzie Wark’s history of the Situationist International writes against twenty-first century boredom with art and politics, in which both have ‘ceased to be modern, and finding it too passé to be postmodern… is now merely contemporary.’ Creating a new kind of historiography from the group’s legendary oeuvre, Wark re-presents the SI’s history in light of contemporary experiences to shake us out of our boredom and re-kindle the explosive potential of everyday life.
Over 50 years after the Situationist International appeared, its legacy of Marxism mixed with 20th century European artistic avant-garde continues to influence activists, artists and theorists. From the Invisible Committee’s bestselling The Coming Insurrection to Iain Sinclair’s psychogeographic explorations, the work of the Situationists echoes through twenty-first century thought. Yet, despite the rich possibilities, its breadth, diversity, and potential impact are still largely unexplored. Wark’s volume is a radical re-imagining of the Situationist legacy, which reconnects their work to new practices in communication, architecture, and everyday life.
Arguing that ‘Situations are temporary, singular unities of space and time… They call for a different kind of remembering,’ Wark takes readers on a tour of the movement from bohemian after-hours drinks in the cellars of 1950s St. Germain-des-Prés to the mythical beach ‘sous les pavès’ of the explosive days of May ’68.
Blending history and narrative, biography and literature, Wark traces the group’s development as an ensemble creation, rather than the brainchild of its most famous member, Guy Debord. Roaming through Europe and the lives of those who made up the movement – including Constant, Asger Jorn, Michèle Bernstein, Alex Trocchi and Jacqueline De Jong – Wark uncovers an international movement riven with conflicting passions, expanding the gaze beyond the Paris coterie.
Taking up Guy Debord’s famous injunction, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” Wark delves into the SI’s diverse body of work to re-present the legendary Situationists in a way that ignites the possibility of resistance for our time. Wark puts the Situationist experiments into context for twenty-first century struggles, and in doing so, suggests that while the Situationists failed to escape the world of twentieth-century spectacle, there might still be hope for us to escape the twenty-first century, while we still can.
The book jacket is also a fold out poster, Totality for Beginners. A collaborative graphic essay, the beautifully rendered poster employs text selected by McKenzie Wark with composition and drawings by Kevin C. Pyle
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PRAISE FOR THE HACKER MANIFESTO
“This is a perceptive, provocative study, packed to the seams with acute analysis.” Terry Eagleton, NATION
“Wark’s book challenges the new regime of property relations with all the epigrammatic vitality, conceptual innovation, and revolutionary enthusiasm of the great manifestos.” Michael Hardt, co-author of EMPIRE
“Infuriating and inspiring in turn, A Hacker Manifesto will spawn a thousand theses, and just maybe spawn change.” Mike Holderness, NEW SCIENTIST
“A Hacker Manifesto will yield some provocative ideas and real challenges to a world in which everything is commodified.” Eric J. Iannelli, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
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MCKENZIE WARK is the author of A HACKER MANIFESTO, GAMER THEORY, 50 YEARS OF RECUPERATION OF THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL and various other books. He teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 720 7 / $26.95 / £14.99 / $33.50CAN / Hardback / 224 pages
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For a look into MCKENZIE WARK work visit:
http://vectorsjournal.org/issues/7/totality/
For more information about THE BEACH BENEATH THE STREET or to buy the book visit:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/980-the-beach-beneath-the-street
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Visit Verso’s website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers:http://www.versobooks.com
Become a fan of Verso on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Verso-Books/205847279448577
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**END**
‘I believe in the afterlife.
It starts tomorrow,
When I go to work’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)
‘Maximum levels of boredom
Disguised as maximum fun’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com
TWO MORE REVIEWS OF ‘MARX AND EDUCATION’ BY JEAN ANYON – PATRICK AINLEY, AND ADAM SANCHEZ
Patrick Ainley reviews Jean Anyon’s ‘Marx and Education’ (Routledge, 2011) in the latest update to the Marx & Philosophy Society Review of Books. See: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2011/366
Adam Sanchez also reviews ‘Marx and Education’ by Jean Anyon in the latest issue (No.78) of International Socialist Review. See Sanchez’s review, Radical education theory 101, at: http://www.isreview.org/issues/78/rev-marxeducation.shtml
In my view, both of these reviews rather skate over, or ignore, many of the glaring faults in Anyon’s book. However, I think as many people as possible should read it; in that way, it might become more apparent regarding what the real tasks are for Marxist educational theory.
The obsession with Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist America (1976) continues. Of course, it is a classic work of Marxist educational theory, and continues to be useful. However, I would like to think that Marxists have made some progress in their thinking on education since the seminal work of Bowles and Gintis. See Sarah Knopp’s review, What do schools produce? of the newly-republished classic at: http://www.isreview.org/issues/78/featrev-schooling.shtml
Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
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Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski
DEBT AND THE COMMONS THREE-DAY SEMINAR
August 18, 19, and 20 – Three-Day Seminar on Debt & the Commons – with Silvia Federici, George Caffentzis, David Graeber
CONTENTS:
0. About the Seminar
1. Longer Introduction
2. Seminar Schedule
3. A Bibliography
_____________________________
0. About the Seminar
When: Thursday, Friday, Saturday / August 18,19,20
Who: Free (please rsvp, details below)
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor, New York City
What: 3 Day Seminar with Silvia Federici, George Caffentzis, David Graeber
Beyond Good and Evil Commons is a three day seminar focusing on debt, economic crisis and the production of commons
The seminar organizes itself with and around the work of three individuals: Silvia Federici, George Caffentzis, and David Graeber
It will take the shape of 2 sessions per day, each session building around a talk by Silvia, George, and/or David and followed by collective discussions.
It is being organized in the spirit of collective inquiry inspired particularly by recent anti-debt organizing in NYC but draws also from a number of international contexts in which new political cultures have developed to challenge the command of money, austerity and debt in the crisis. Moreover, it builds off previous seminars organized in the space with friends over the last years.
The idea is, at least partially, to develop and test political concepts that help us better orient our understanding of these new political cultures but also aid us in further developing our own. Our starting point is an attempt to bring together a politics through both an analysis of debt anthropologically and an anti-capitalist perspective on the commons.
The hope is to achieve some focus, to sharpen our terminologies and analytical tools, to direct our collective intelligence toward a new orientation of existing organizing efforts and guide new interventions as well, to better know what, how and with whom. It is a difficult and elusive hope. It also relies on enough of us approaching the seminar with the idea of collectively enacting an enlarged framework for political action (which implicates many different practices).
We know that many on our list also live in different parts of the world. For this reason, we have put together a website with many readings as a resource. We also hope to be able to put some recordings from the presentations for those who are interested in following or connecting with this seminar. We also make the effort to articulate the motivations for the inquiry in the hopes that we can also build upon one another's efforts.
For those planning to attend, we ask you to please RSVP, as it will allow us to better prepare.
You can do so by writing to seminars [the at sign] 16beavergroup.org with rsvp in subject line.
The event is free, but we will be making a daily collection to cover basic expenses.
_____________________________
1. Longer Introduction
Molecular Investigations / Seminars
This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we will continue a collective journey and experiment.
Over the last years, we have tried to organize with friends collective seminars (e.g., Continental Drift, Connective Mutations, Something Becomes Visible) which give participants an opportunity to have a rich intellectual experience attempting to raise critical questions about how we live, think, struggle - in an open, autonomous, non-institutional, non-commodified, non-authored situation. Those seminars have attempted to cross-weave intellectual efforts with activist and artistic practices. Moreover, rather than merely become attempts to represent ideas, knowledge, or knowingness, the seminars have been a part of an effort to situate and suggest, through the work of specific individuals, where we may devote further work collectively in the coming years. And to build potential solidarities across disciplines, practices, and approaches.
At their best, they have been like small, concise, intellectual bombs detonated carefully, collectively, not far from Wall Street, with all intents to illuminate the cracks in the edifices of those buildings, and on the ground, on the very terrain we cohabit. They have been suggestions for paths of individual, collective projects, militant investigations: artistic, intellectual, political, economic, activistic, and beyond.
In a period which has seen the neoliberal machine produce a seemingly invincible force of financialization, mega-gentrification, and militarization: together with a multitude of friends and contributors, we built up a counter-image and research of those aforementioned cracks. We have done this collectively, autonomously, and as a direct counter-force to the commodification and competitiveness that has all too often marked intellectuality in these same times. In doing so, we have placed ourselves, along with many other initiatives emerging globally, into a new situation, for the generation and maintenance of critical discourses, analyses, and practices.
An important struggle today is to realize how these practices, whether artistic, intellectual, or otherwise can most effectively combat the emergent paradigms of racism, militarization, and a more formulated, articulated war by the wealthiest elite and corporate interests on the very fabric of human and planetary reproduction.
For some people, six years ago, an introduction like this may have appeared as potentially catastrophic (or utopian), alarmist, or delirious.
In the midst of the recent insurrections in London, massive revolts against forced austerity measures in Spain, Greece, and throughout Europe, revolutionary resistance in North Africa and the Middle East, we find ourselves having to acknowledge that these efforts of collective research have not only been substantiated, but today ask how can they conjoin to actions, global political processes unfolding in our midst.
Today, the cracks appear as gaping holes, through which one of the most radical transformations of the world irrupts before our eyes.
Living amidst the civil war in Lebanon, a friend of the space once remarked that there is no official day, where everyone is notified that a civil war has commenced. It begins as a small series of loosely related events, which only later, can be reconstructed as a civil war with precise dates of commencement and end.
'Returning to Normal life'?
How can one speak of returning to 'normal life' in the midst of a post-nuclear Japan? Where do we draw the limits of solidarity with that reality? Is the solidarity expressed as far as the radioactivity travels? Or will it end with the struggle to end nuclear plants or nuclear arms in every country? How can one speak of returning to 'normal life' in the midst of this historic transfer of common wealth to private banks and the continued intransigence on the part of those who govern (and in most cases, even their opposition parties) in confronting (rather than engendering) growing inequalities, processes of enclosure, social and ecological destruction? Will the outrage end when each particular group, being effected by cuts, saves a small piece of the pie to continue doing what they were before with even less resources? Will it end with a broad 'new deal' or 'social contract' as even many of the staunchest critics of neoliberalism hope?
Or can we imagine and build toward another horizon of struggle beyond the specificity of resisting nuclear technology or local/national austerity measures tied to financial speculation and crimes? How to connect to already occurring processes of revolt or production of commons? And can the efforts to build upon such processes of resistance be done without addressing the basic terms upon which we reproduce our lives?
The Proposal
The proposal is to collectively approach two notions which have valence in contemporary movements but call for further interrogation:
The Commons
There has been a great resurgence over the last decade or more in thinking about and elaborating the notion of the commons. As George Caffentzis writes: "The ‘commons’ has undergone a remarkable transformation in the last fifteen years, from a word referring rather archaically to a grassy square in the centre of New England towns to one variously used by real estate developers, ‘free software’ programmers, ecological activists and peasant revolutionaries to describe very different, indeed conflicting, purposes and realities., ... "What accounts for this resurgence? What are the merits of this concept and its potential dangers as 'two streams, coming from opposing perspectives' begin to utilize and mobilize it?”
In exploring the prospects for a commons that is resistant to capitalism, one key position of this seminar, and it is a position, time and again, emphasized by Silvia Federici's work, is the incorporation of basic insights of feminist critique concerning the centrality of reproduction within any social, economic, or political regime. Moreover, her consistent attention to women's struggles to maintain spaces which are common – engender communal forms of life and social reproduction (historically and today), especially in impoverished parts of the world – points us to the necessity of learning from and using these experiences to better understand what resistance to capitalism can mean.
Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis have been two very important figures in conceptualizing and interrogating this notion of the commons as well as historic and contemporary processes of enclosures. In addition to their own writings, their work within the Midnight Notes collective has been an inspiration for sustained, collective, engaged research outside of the disciplining / enclosing that can happen in the university or academy. With their collaborators, they have offered some of the most decisive, direct, historically and geographically expanded account of capitalist accumulation and struggles of resistance. Their political commitments have sometimes overshadowed their theoretical contributions, and this seminar will be an opportunity to give space to those contributions and begin what we hope will be a longer inquiry together with them.
Debt
Whether it is through the imposition of or the resistance to debt, processes from above or below, one can see that debt obligations have been a central figure of political considerations.
From student debt strikes
To millions losing their homes or being foreclosed upon; from financial instruments imposed upon countries underwriting new enclosures; to the dismantling of social provisions and justifying politically motivated austerity measures, which rely upon seemingly objective 'hard' economic 'realities': debt is the terrain upon which various actors and discourses take shape.
But can an anthropological inquiry into debt help us view these processes and struggles in a new light? Can such an inquiry help us build upon contemporary struggles against debt?
David Graeber is among other things, an anarchist, a thinker, an anthropologist, and an activist. His intellectual contributions have been timely, pertinent, useful, and yet antagonistic to the established norms pertaining to each of those three terms. Thus one could speculate, under the regime of capitalist realism, his contributions would be characterized as 'historical', 'inapplicable', 'unrealistic'; but somehow this has not been the case. David's accessible approach to writing, as well as his insistence to situate his work in places where struggle takes place, has made his work resilient to dismissal. His current book entitled 'Debt: The First 5000 Years' is more than a theorization of debt: it is also a trenchant treatise exposing tangible limitations of imagination and language for describing the range of human relations existing historically and today. As David writes:
"This book is a history of debt, then, but it also uses that history as a way to ask fundamental questions about what human beings and human society are or could be like—what we actually do owe each other, what it even means to ask that question. As a result, the book begins by attempting to puncture a series of myths—not only the Myth of Barter, which is taken up in the first chapter, but also rival myths about primordial debts to the gods, or to the state—that in one way or another form the basis of our common-sense assumptions about the nature of economy and society. In that common-sense view, the State and the Market tower above all else as diametrically opposed principles. Historical reality reveals, however, that they were born together and have always been
intertwined. The one thing that all these misconceptions have in common, we will find, is that they tend to reduce all human relations to exchange, as if our ties to society, even to the cosmos itself, can be imagined in the same terms as a business deal. This leads to another question: If not exchange, then what?"
One Goal
A hope is, that for these three days, we could give our energies to these three individuals and one another. And construct together a kind of machine which could collectively take us to the center of two critical nodes in perceiving, understanding, and struggling with/against our contemporary reality.
A short parting note on London and beyond:
In 2005, with the revolts in Paris, pundits could characterize and particularize those revolts as disaffected and disenfranchised youth or even worse dismiss them by mobilizing xenophobic fears. There never was room for entertaining the racist readings of those events. And the events in Norway this summer further clarify where such a critique is coming from and headed. But the events in Paris still left many wondering what was the political horizon or meaning of those revolts.
In the summer of 2011, any analysis of events, like those in London unfolding these last days, cannot but be read as part of a disarticulated yet emerging globalized picture of revolt against 'capital', capitalists, and the various state forms that have advocated on their behalf.
Thus, this seminar takes place in the midst of these events and struggles. Thus, there is an additional hope that collectively we can consider what global solidarity can look like, unfolding across different modes of doing, producing, and thinking in light of such events.
The seminar has been organized with and by Silvia, George, David, 16 Beaver Group, This Is Forever, and various individuals affiliated and not affiliated with other spaces and initiatives in New York.
_____________________________
2. Schedule
THURSDAY - August 18
Doors open at 4:00
Session 1
4:30 - 6:45 Silvia / George
light food
Session 2
7:15 - 9:30 David
FRIDAY, August 19th
Doors open at 4:00
Session 3
4:30 - 6:45 Silvia / George
light food
Session 4
7:15 - 9:30 David
SATURDAY, August 20th
Doors open at 1:00
Session 5
2:00 - 4:30 David
light food
Session 6
5:00 - 7:30 Silvia / George
food
Please note:
This schedule is a script of what we have planned. The actual seminar times and order may be altered according to how things unfold. Best place to follow changes or updates will be on our website for the seminar: http://www.16beavergroup.org/silvia_george_david/
_____________________________
3. The Bibliography
A full and updated bibliography can be found on the seminar website with additional texts: http://www.16beavergroup.org/silvia_george_david/
Below, we have listed a shorter selection of readings:
-\ \ \ Midnight Notes
The New Enclosures n.10: http://www.midnightnotes.org/newenclos.ht
-\ \ \ Silvia Federici
Feminism And the Politics of the Commons: http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/federici_feminism_politics_commons.pdf
-\ \ \ George Caffentzis
The Future of 'the Commons': Neoliberalism's 'Plan B' or the Original Disaccumulation of Capital?
http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/caffentzis_future_commons.pdf
-\ \ \ David Graeber
Debt: The First Five Thousand Years (overview from Mute 2009): http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/graeber_overview_mute.pdf
All from DEBT, THE FIRST 5, 000 YEARS
On the Experience of Moral Confusion: http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/graeber_debt_chapter_1.pdf
A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations: http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/graeber_debt_chapter_5.pdf
1971–The Beginning of Something Yet to Be Determined: http://sduk.us/silvia_george_david/graeber_debt_chapter_12.pdf
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16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10004
For directions/subscriptions/info visit: http://www.16beavergroup.org/
TRAINS:
4,5 Bowling Green
2,3 Wall Street
J,Z Broad Street
1,9 South Ferry
R Whitehall
**END**
‘I believe in the afterlife.
It starts tomorrow,
When I go to work’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)
‘Maximum levels of boredom
Disguised as maximum fun’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
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