CFP: Marxism (and related) Matters - November 20th and 21st 2013

[Alon Lischinsky]

(with apologies for cross-posting)

Call for Papers

Marxism (and related) Matters

Following the successful conference Marxism Matters, the Media
Discourse Group at De Montfort University, and the Meccsa Social
Movements Network, is pleased to announce a new call for papers. This
is the Social Movements Network first conference following its recent
creation. Keynote Speakers to be announced shortly.

(To subscribe to the MeCCSA Social Movements Network mailing list,
please go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/MECCSA-SMN)

The follow-up conference will be held at De Montfort University on the
20th and 21st November 2013, and will address a number of issues
arising from the original event.

As the first conference noted, the economy has been nominated in
public debate as capitalist in nature, while Marxism (together with
attendant perspectives) has once again become visible as a viable mode
of critical analysis.

Since 2011, a number of significant developments have taken place. It
is now clear that austerity has been used as a weapon against the most
vulnerable, while entire political systems have been subjugated to the
rule of a trans-national bureaucratic elite, in some cases
‘temporarily’ supplanting the elected bourgeois parties that oversee
the imposition of public sector cuts.

Some commentators have argued that the pan-European resistance
represented by groups like the Indignados has begun to decline, while
others point to the renewed energy that is directed into the communal
defence of those threatened with eviction and, in the case of those
already dispossessed, with deportation.

Meanwhile, Leftists have been driven to consider new initiatives and
alliances, from the Left Unity project in the UK, through the revival
of the Feminist/Socialist current represented by the re-launch of
Beyond the Fragments, to the attempt to reconfigure the Leninist
project (associated with theorists like Dean, Zizek and Badiou).

Some activists on the Left have drawn inspiration from the Libertarian
tradition, while others have attempted to emphasise the need to
analyse the real location of ‘the enemy’ – not, they suggest, a
distant ruling-class, but a more local managerial authority that can
be identified and opposed.

On the Right, meanwhile, xenophobia and ‘proto-fascist’ movements
(electoral or otherwise) have thrown down a challenge to any form of
rational or progressive assessment of the crisis. The State, as an
‘ensemble of power’ centres (Jessop, 2008) appears especially
formidable, as both outright repression and behavioural measures are
used to pacify the social order.

We welcome papers that address the following, though suggestions are
welcomed from across the field of sociology, media and cultural
studies, political economy and related fields:

Social Movements and New Technology
Socialist-Feminism
The Occupy Movement
LGBT organisation
Online/Offline Activism
Marxist Political Economy
Theories of the State
The Libertarian Communist tradition
The ‘communist’ horizon
The Portuguese Revolution (nearly) 40 years on
Syndicalism and Workplace Activism
The state of the trade unions
Marxist perspectives on Austerity
Violence and Resistance
The Spanish Revolution
The Dictatorship of the Markets
Consensual decision-making
Internationalism and Nationalism
The Far Right

Please send brief abstracts (c200 words) to Stuart Price
(sprice at dmu.ac.uk) and Ruth Sanz Sabido (rsanzs at dmu.ac.uk). The
closing date is 14th July 2013.
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