"Power to the People?," Radical Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck College, University of London, May 9, 2009.

... masses, proletariat, workers, soviets, nation, community, subalterns, multitude, commons... `Power to the people!' was once a revolutionary slogan, but reference to government by the people and for the people soon became an empty cliché of the post-revolutionary status quo. The people has become a notoriously ambiguous and contested term, for which numerous alternatives have been proposed: the proletariat, the workers, the masses, the soviets, the nation, the community, the multitude, the commons... And now? How might we assess the different conceptions of political change embodied in these often conflicting ideas? What is the political and philosophical significance of `the people' today?

PROGRAMME:

Plenary (chair: Peter Osborne, RP):

• Gayatri Spivak (Columbia University, NY), "They, the People"

1. The General Will (chair: Peter Hallward, RP)

• David Andress (Portsmouth), "The General Will on the Street: Parisian Activism, Sovereignty and Power, 1789–93"
• Sophie Wahnich (CNRS, Paris), "How Do the People Make Themselves Heard?"

2. Urban Collectivities (chair: David Cunningham, RP)

• AbdouMaliq Simone (Goldsmiths), "Urban Intersections and the Politics of Anticipation"
• Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester), "Reflections on the Post-Political City"

3. Population & Biopolitics (chair: Claudia Aradau, RP)

• Couze Venn (Nottingham Trent), "Biopolitics, Diasporas and (Neo)Liberal Political Economy"
• Encarnacion Gutierrez Rodriguez (Manchester), "Feminist Strategies Revisited – Sexopolitics, Multitude and Biopolitics"

4. Class, Commons & Multitude (chair: Esther Leslie, RP)

• Massimo De Angelis (UEL), "Crisis, Tragedies and the Commons"
• Daniel Bensaid (University of Paris-VIII), "Can We (Still) Break the Vicious Circle of Domination?"

£25/£10 unwaged Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk.