NEVER WORK
Cardiff
University Conference
Friday 10
July 2015
Call for Papers
“A corpse
rules society – the corpse of labour.” – Manifesto Against Labour, Krisis-Group
Since the
1970s modern societies have been increasingly faced with social issues caused
by a reliance on a form of life that technological development is making
redundant: work. Competition drives
companies to eject human beings from the labour process even while it relies on
those people as consumers and producers of value. Equally, more human beings
than ever before depend upon the capitalist production process for their
survival, yet at this historical juncture it appears no longer to have need of
them. It is this contradiction that some contemporary social critics have
diagnosed as the basis of a crisis of civilisation through which we are
currently living. The symptoms of this crisis are manifold and, one can argue,
affect every aspect of society: privatisation, financialisation and economic
crises, mass unemployment, the casualisation of labour and austerity
programmes, regional conflict, the rise of political extremism, growing wealth
inequality, individualisation, school shootings and the ever-growing number of
people suffering from narcissistic personality disorders, to name but a few.
Despite the
sheer scale of problems that society currently faces, the dominant social
discourse has rarely considered that a crisis of the very categories of
capitalist society could be the source of the problem. Work, in particular, is
central to modern notions of individual and collective identity, of morality
and even of human nature. It is the means through which individuals are
expected to realise themselves and to gain access to social wealth. It is
perhaps for this reason that, while work is often seen as central to resolving
the current crisis – either through calls for higher wages and the right to
work or through attacks on immigrants and the unemployed – it is rarely seen as
the problem in itself. The aim of this conference is therefore to ask what might
a critique of work usefully offer us in addressing contemporary social issues
and, if one will allow it, the possibility of a greater crisis of modern civilisation.
Contributors
might consider:
·
What
kinds of critique of work are necessary, on the basis of what criteria and in
the name of what alternatives?
·
What
hampers such a critique and how can we remove, go around or through these barriers?
·
What
critical theories can usefully contribute to a contemporary critique of work?
·
How
can contemporary social movements benefit from a critique of work?
·
How
might a theoretical critique of work manifest itself practically and how might
critiques of work in practice inform theoretical critiques?
·
What
lessons can we learn from historical and contemporary social movements against
work?
·
What
might a critique of work tell us about the political, economic and
psychological forms and changes that society is currently experiencing?
·
What
are particularly unexamined aspects of the critique of work that need
addressing?
·
How
widespread and persistent are critiques of work in contemporary social movements
and what kinds of critique of work have they developed?
·
What
useful relationship might the critique of work have with critiques of the
state, patriarchy, politics and other social forms?
·
What
alternatives to work still exist, have existed and might exist?
Confirmed
keynote speakers will be: Anselm Jappe
(author of Guy Debord, Les Aventures de la marchandise, Crédit à mort) and Norbert Trenkle (author of Die Große
Entwertung, Dead Men Working). Both of our keynotes are members of the wertkritik,
or “critique of value”, school of Marxian critique.
Abstracts
of 350 words, with a small bio, should be sent to Dr Alastair Hemmens (hemmensa@cardiff.ac.uk) by 20 February 2015.
The
conference itself will take place at Cardiff University, Wales, on 10 July 2015.
This research
is funded by the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship: Dr Alastair Hemmens,
“‘Ne travaillez jamais’: The Critique of Work in Nineteenth- and
Twentieth-Century French Thought, from Charles Fourier to Guy Debord.”
**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
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