"Communism, a New Beginning?," Cooper Union, New York, October 14-16, 2011.

Organised by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek.

A new conference with leading thinkers to discuss the continued relevance of the communist idea.

"The long night of the left is coming to a close" wrote Slavoj Zizek and Costas Douzinas in their introduction to The Idea of Communism.   The continuing economic crisis, the shift away from a unipolar world defined by American hegemony, and the ecological crisis mean that growing numbers of people are keen to explore an alternative, and to re-discover the idea of communism. With the advent of the Arab awakening millions have sought new ways to overcome corruption and dictatorship.

Responding to Alain Badiou's proposition of the ‘communist hypothesis’, the leading thinkers of the left convened in London in 2009 to discuss the perpetual, persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common. Two years later, the discussion continues—this time in New York.

www.verso.com

Pub: "Marx, Politics and . . . Punk." MEDIATIONS: THE JOURNAL OF THE MARXIST LITERARY GROUP 25.1 (2010).

Editors' Note

Fredric Jameson: A New Reading of Capital

Is Capital about labor, or unemployment? Does Marxism have a theory of the political, or is it better off without one? Fredric Jameson previews the argument of his forthcoming book, Representing Capital.

Anna Kornbluh: On Marx’s Victorian Novel

As out of place as Marx himself might have been in Victorian England, Capital is less out of place than one might have thought among Victorian novels. But this does not have to mean that its mode of truth is literary. Anna Kornbluh explores the tropes that propel Capital in order to establish the novel relationship Marx produces between world and text.

Roland Boer: Marxism and Eschatology Reconsidered

The variations on the thesis of Marxism’s messianism are too many to count. But is it plausible to imagine that Marx or Engels took up Jewish or Christian eschatology, in any substantial form, into their thought? Roland Boer weighs the evidence.

Reiichi Miura: What Kind of Revolution Do You Want?  Punk, the Contemporary Left, and Singularity

What does punk have to do with Empire? What does singularity have to do with identity? What does the logic of rock ‘n’ roll aesthetics have to do with a politics of representation? What does the concept of the multitude have to do with neoliberalism? The answer to all these questions, argues Reiichi Miura, is a lot more than you might think.

Alexei Penzin: The Soviets of the Multitude: On Collectivity and Collective Work: an Interview with Paolo Virno

One of the principle conundrums that confronts the theorization of the multitude is the relationship it entails between individual and collective. Alexei Penzin, of the collective Chto Delat / What Is To Be Done?, interviews Paolo Virno.

http://www.mediationsjournal.org/

Cfp: "Marx and Aristotle," Eighth Annual Conference, Marx and Philosophy Society, Institute of Education, University of London, June 4, 2011.

Main Speakers:

Jon Pike (Open University)
Tony Burns (Nottingham)
Scott Meikle (Glasgow)

The Marx and Philosophy Society aims to encourage scholarly engagement with, and creative development of, the philosophical and foundational aspects of Marx's work. The society welcomes contributions from any philosophical or political position.

Visit: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/.

Recent Reviews on MARX AND PHILOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS.

New reviews just published online:

• Tom Steele on Edward Carpenter
• David McLellan on Marxism and religion
• Alexander Marshall on Mészáros
• Jeremy Spencer on Rancière
• Clara Fischer on Engels and feminism
• Meade McCloughan on Benjamin and Brecht

Download the reviews here: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/.

Recent Reviews on MARX AND PHILOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS. June 14-19, 2010.

• Negri, Antonio.  Reflections on Empire.  Trans. Ed Emery.  Cambridge: Polity, 2008.
• Negri, Antonio.  Empire and Beyond.  Trans. Ed Emery.  Cambridge: Polity, 2008.

Reviewed by John McSweeney.

• Rancière, Jacques.  The Aesthetic Unconscious.  Trans. Debra Keates and James Swenson.  Cambridge: Polity, 2009. 

Reviewed by Owen Hulatt.

• Mei, Todd S.  Heidegger, Work and Being.  London: Continuum, 2009.

Reviewed by Robert Farrow.

• Burkett, Paul.  Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy.  Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009.

Reviewed by Gerry Gold and Steven Harris.

• Amartya Sen, Amartya.  The Idea of Justice.  London: Allen Lane, 2009.

Reviewed by David Marjoribanks.

Download the reviews here: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks.

New Reviews at MARX AND PHILOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS.

New reviews just published online in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books: · Peter Amato on G.A. Cohen · Tom Eyers on Alberto Toscano · Daniel Whittall on Alex Callinicos · Terrel Carver on Tristram Hunt · Paula Cerni on Habermas · Rich Daniels on Adorno And a new list of books for review. Download the reviews here: www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/.

Cfp: "Immigration against the Empire." Inaugural Issue of PRO/VISIONS (forthcoming).

About pro/visions pro/visions is a new magazine/journal (double blind peer-reviewed) that seeks to push critical theory beyond the academy and into the streets. Therefore the content will reflect rigorous (and playful) thought but using language that is accessible to anyone. We seek to create a space for theory to meet praxis (and the ivory tower the people/s). Think Gramsci's "organic intellectual" meets Chuck D and they get into a fist fight--with the world. "immigration against the Empire" This issue situates immigration (and other forms of nomadism) as a disruptive event against Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's concept of Empire. Between Arizona's new immigration law in the United States and the French government's response to immigration, it would seem that as the "Third World" pops up in the "First World" neo-liberal policing comes into view of the Global North. In light of the various reactions to these events, responses from the radical Left, in and outside of academia, need to be formulated in order to map resistances and the role of the immigrant and the exile within the Empire. Articles should be connected to the following suggested topics: •Specific case scenarios of immigration in and between geopolitical regions around the globe. •Legal, ethical and political controvery/ies concerning immigration policy. •The political role of the undocumented worker within U.S. and global paradigms •Underground immigrant support networks and their clashes with the "minutemen" •Conceptions of identity in relation to immigration •Spanglish (or other creoles) as political act •Strategies for immigrant solidarity, locally and globally •Immigration as a response to neo-liberal forces •Illegal immigration as a form of resistance to politics and ideology •Systems of race, gender and other social norms within nomadism submission guidelines: Submissions are welcome in all languages, with a preference toward English, Spanish and Spanglish. Articles must be between 2,000 and 3,000 words in length with endnotes and a bibliography. Citations should follow the latest version of MLA. Abstracts must be between 150 and 300 words. A short biographical description of 3-5 lines should be included. contact: If you are interested in submitting to pro/visions, please send an abstract by email to provisions.editors@gmail.com no later than July 1, 2010. Final versions of articles will be due August 1, 2010.

"Abstraction, Universality and Money," 7th Annual Conference, Marx and Philosophy Society, Institute of Education, University of London, June 5, 2010

• Richard Seaford (Exeter), "Money, Abstraction, and the Genesis of the Psyche"
• Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths), "The Dead Pledge of Society: Methodological Problems and Political Consequences of 'Real Abstraction'"
• Christopher Arthur, "Abstraction, Universality and Money"

Graduate Panels:

• Jan Sailer (Freiburg), "Securities: The Purest Form of Abstract Wealth"
• Nick Gray (Sussex), "Abstraction, Universality, Money and Capital"
• Marina Vishmidt (Queen Mary, University of London), "Art in and as Abstract Labour"
• Brian Fuller (York, Toronto), "Materialism and Dialectic: Reading Marx after Adorno"
• Tim Carter (Sussex), "Alienation and Domination in Marx and Wittgenstein"
• Chris Allsobrook (Sussex), "The Ideological Normative Grounds of Immanent Critique"

Further details: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/society.

Pub: MARX AND PHIOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS March 24, 2010.

New reviews just published online in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books : · Ted Benton on The Ecological Revolution · Mary Evans on Simone de Beauvoir · Nick Gray and Meade McCloughan on Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy · Ishay Landa on Marx’s Philosophy of Nature, Action and Society · Rajeev Sehgal on Work And new list of books for review. Download the reviews here: www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/.

Collini, Stefan. "A Life in Politics: NEW LEFT at 50." GUARDIAN Februar 13, 2010.

New Left Review at 50: no balloons, of course, and definitely no party games. The very idea of "celebration" smacks of consumerist pseudo-optimism. Mere chronology is, after all, an untheorised concept. We should see it as not so much an ­anniversary, more an over-determined conjuncture. It is hard not to be intimidated by New Left Review. At times, the journal can seem like an elaborate contrivance for making us feel inadequate. One's relation to it conjugates as an irregular verb: I wish I knew more about industrialisation in China; you ought to have a better grasp of Brenner's analysis of global turbulence; he, she, or it needs to understand the significance of community-based activism in Latin America. For many Guardian readers (and others), the journal functions like a kind of older brother whom we look up to – more serious, better informed, better travelled, stronger, irreplaceable. Well, maybe a tiny bit solemn at times (we could draw lots for who gets the job of telling Perry Anderson to lighten up), and perhaps when we were out of touch for longish stretches, life seemed a bit easier. But then we meet up and it's a case of respect at first sight, all over again. It hasn't always been like this: even older brothers had rocky periods in their youth – misguided enthusiasms, failed relationships, moody withdrawals. Some readers may remember times when NLR seemed hell-bent on sectarian purism, theoretical slavishness and a wilful opacity. It has been through several changes of identity in the past 50 years, and memories of some of these earlier phases may hamper the efforts that it has made recently to reach out to a more diverse readership. But there is a lot in that history to be proud of. The journal has, in its own unbending fashion, registered and responded to huge changes in the world during this half-century, and in doing so has made a stock of ideas available well beyond the ranks of those who may at any point have shared its particular form, or forms, of Marxism (an allegiance that has itself modulated, perhaps even attenuated somewhat, over the decades). Some things about the journal, however, don't change. What other publication would take out a full-page advertisement in a national newspaper announcing its "quinquagenary issue"? NLR has been accused of many things, but never of populist dumbing-down. The biography of the review cannot be reduced to a formula: its experience so far has been too rich and too contradictory. But it would be fair to say that a journal that began life hoping to animate and express organised popular movements on the left soon became a more emphatically theoretical enterprise, albeit with certain Leninist or Trotskyist longings held in reserve. Then, in the 1980s, it began to interpret its intellectual task in more expansive terms, and since 2000 it has been self-consciously a "journal of ideas" – on the left, to be sure, but distant from radical movements in the present or any worked-out political blueprint for the future. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/13/new-left-review-stefan-collini.

Pub: Jean-Jacques Lecercle and Gregory Elliot, A MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

Lecercle, Jean-Jacques, and Gregory Elliot. A Marxist Philosophy of Language. Chicago: Haymarket, 2009. The purpose of this book is to give a precise meaning to the formula: English is the language of imperialism. Understanding that statement involves a critique of the dominant views of language, both in the field of linguistics (the book has a chapter criticising Chomsky’s research programme) and of the philosophy of language (the book has a chapter assessing Habermas’s philosophy of communicative action). 
The book aims at constructing a Marxist philosophy of language, embodying a view of language as a social, historical, material and political phenomenon. Since there has never been a strong tradition of thinking about language in Marxism, the book provides an overview of the question of Marxism in language (from Stalin’s pamphlet to Voloshinov's book, taking in an essay by Pasolini), and it seeks to construct a number of concepts for a Marxist philosophy of language. 
The book belongs to the tradition of Marxist critique of dominant ideologies. It should be particularly useful to those who, in the fields of language study, literature and communication studies, have decided that language is not merely an instrument of communication. Further information is here: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/A-Marxist-Philosophy-of-Language.

Pub: MARX AND PHIOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS January 15, 2010.

• J.K. Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy, and J.K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics; Reviewed by Richard Schmitt
• Amy E. Wendling, Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation; Reviewed by Chris Arthur
• Bill Martin, Ethical Marxism: the Categorical Imperative of Liberation; Reviewed by David Marjoribanks
• Bernard Reginster, The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism; Reviewed by Meade McCloughan
• Andrew Chitty and Martin Mcivor, eds., Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy; Reviewed by David McLellan

Download the reviews here: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks.

Cfp: "The Dialectic,'' 2010 Institute on Culture and Society, Marxist Literary Group, St. Francis Xavier University, June 15-20, 2010.

The Institute will feature consecutive (as opposed to parallel/simultaneous) sessions, consisting of traditional panels, roundtables, film screenings, performances, and social events. Additionally, intensive daily reading and discussion groups will be held on “Adorno and the Materialist Dialectic” led by Rich Daniels, on Fredric Jameson’s Valences of the Dialectic led by Nicholas Brown, and on other facets of dialectical thought (volunteers are invited to submit proposals for further reading groups). Well-known for its intellectual rigor and collegial atmosphere since being founded by Fredric Jameson and a number of his graduate students in 1969/70, the ICS brings together emerging and established scholars each year for 5 full days of dialogue and collaboration. As is custom, the Institute’s organizers attempt to keep critical production high and participants’ costs low. In 2010, participants will, once again, be able to select from several on-campus housing options, which at StFX are cost-efficient, new and beautiful, and will contribute to the friendly and social environment the Institute thrives upon. Housing options include individual rooms, shared apartment-style residences, hotel-style residences, and more—each option will include generous common spaces and close proximity to the conference center. Detailed information regarding housing, travel, and further logistics will be sent out to all participants. For general information on St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia and the facilities the Institute will utilize, see: http://stfx.ca/ (StFX has just launched a new website, so please excuse potential glitches as our webmasters streamline content and infrastructure). Confirmed speakers for the 2010 ICS include: Ian Balfour (York University) Karyn Ball (University of Alberta) Nicholas Brown (University of Illinois at Chicago) Eric Cazdyn (University of Toronto) Ainsworth Clarke (University of Illinois at Chicago) Rebecca Comay (University of Toronto) Rich Daniels (University of Oregon) Len Findlay (University of Saskatchewan) Barbara Foley (Rutgers University) Jason Gladstone (Wake Forest University) Peter Hitchcock (City University of New York) Neil Larsen (University of California, Davis) Leerom Medovoi (Portland State University) Modhumita Roy (Tufts University) Imre Szeman (University of Alberta) Daniel Worden (University of Colorado) The organizing committee is now accepting proposals for individual presentations and panels (3 presentations plus respondent/4 presentations). We are particularly interested in work that engages with any facet of dialectical critique and dialectical thought (including antecedents and rigorous refutations thereof). However, as always, any work that engages seriously with the Marxist tradition will be considered. Selected papers of each Institute will be published in Mediations, the journal of the Marxist Literary Group (http://mediationsjournal.org/). As indicated above, we also accept proposals for reading groups, roundtables, film screenings, and cultural performances that deal with the Institute’s special topic. Proposals for individual papers should be 250 words in length, include A/V requests (if necessary), a short bio sketch, and contact information. Panel proposals should include a brief rationale for the panel (100 words or less), bio sketch and contact information of the panel organizer, as well as presenters' names, bio sketches and contact information, paper titles, and abstracts of no more than 250 words each. Proposals for all other events should follow the same formula (descriptions should also not exceed a length of 250 words for each presenter/performer). Please send submissions as .doc, .docx, or .pdf files by Monday, February 15, 2010 to: 2010mlgics@gmail.com. For questions about the ICS, logistics, travel and other concerns, contact: nilgesm@gmail.com.

"Another World is Necessary: Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives," University of London, SOAS and Birbeck, November 27-29, 2009.

6th Annual Historical Materialism Conference. Speakers include: Shlomo Sand Julian Stallabrass Peter Hallward Fredric Jameson Other speakers include: Gilbert Achcar * Robert Albritton * Kevin Anderson * Jairus Banaji * Wendy Brown * Alex Callinicos * Vivek Chibber * Hester Eisenstein * Ben Fine * Ferruccio Gambino * Lindsey German * John Holloway * Bob Jessop * David McNally * China Mieville * Kim Moody * Peter Osborne * Leo Panitch * Moishe Postone * Sheila Rowbotham * Hillel Ticktin * Kees Van Der Pijl * Hilary Wainright Panels include: APOCALYPSE MARXISM * ART AGAINST CAPITALISM * CLASS AND POLITICS IN THE 'GLOBAL SOUTH' * COGNITIVE MAPPING, TOTALITY AND THE REALIST TURN * COMMODIFYING HEALTH CARE IN THE UK * CUBAN REVOLUTION AND CUBAN SOCIETY * DERIVATIVES * DIMENSIONS OF THE FOOD CRISIS * ECOLOGICAL CRISIS * EMPIRE AND IMPERIALISM * ENERGY, WASTE AND CAPITALISM * FINANCE, THE HOUSING QUESTION AND URBAN POLITICS * GLOBAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS * GRAMSCI RELOADED * INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRISIS * LABOUR BEYOND THE FACTORY * LATIN AMERICAN WORKING CLASSES * LINEAGES OF NEOLIBERALISM * MARXISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE * MIGRATION * PHILOSOPHY AND COMMUNISM IN THE EARLY MARX * POSTNEOLIBERALISM * RACE, NATION AND ORIENTALISM * RED PLANETS: MARXISM AND SCIENCE FICTION * REMEMBERING PETER GOWAN AND CHRIS HARMAN * REVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AUTONOMIST MARXISM AND THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY * SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM IN THE US SOUTH * STUDENT MOVEMENTS AND YOUTH REVOLTS * THE CRITIQUE OF RELIGION AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM * UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS AND SOCIALIST BIOPOLITICS.

Cfp: "Marxism and Psychology," Department of Psychology, University of Prince Edward Island, August 5-7, 2010.

In the history of social thought, it is difficult to find a more divisive figure than Karl Marx. For many, the mere mention of his name conjures up images of totalitarian regimes dominating nearly every aspect of an individual’s existence. Yet for others, Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production draws attention to the fact that our beliefs, thoughts, and desires inevitably emerge against the background of specific cultural, historical, and social practices. The purpose of this conference is to bring students, scholars, and activists together to discuss exciting issues at the intersection of Marxism and Psychology. While it is clear that a number of organizations are making important contributions to this area of study, we believe that the time is right to open up a space for students, scholars, and activists from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to reflect on the role that Marxism can play in psychological theory, research, and practice. In bringing together scholars at the forefront of research in Marxism and Psychology, we also hope to give new students and activists an opportunity to interact with individuals who have made significant contributions within this area. By organizing an impressive collection of plenary participants, we hope to foster an environment where students, activists, and scholars can identify potential graduate advisors, research assistants, and participatory investigators. This year, confirmed plenary participants include: John Cromby Raquel Guzzo Lois Holzman Gordana Jovanovic Joel Kovel Athanasios Marvakis Morten Nissen Ian Parker Carl Ratner Hans Skott-Myhre Thomas Teo Biographical information for the plenary participants can be found on the conference website. We welcome submissions for individual papers and panel sessions. For individual papers, please submit an abstract (150-200 words) no later than January 15, 2010. For panel submissions, please include an abstract (150-200 words) for each paper as well as a brief description of the panel (150-200 words). Please submit all materials to marfken@upei.ca. Abstracts should either be in the body of the email or sent as an attachment (DOC or PDF format). For further information, please visit the conference website: http://vre.upei.ca/mprg/

"New Marxian Times," Seventh Annual Conference, Rethinking Marxism, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 5-8, 2009.

Update: The programme is here: http://pervegalit.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rethinking-marxism-program.pdf. Original Post (August 17, 2009): 'New Marxian Times' is dedicated to exploring the possibilities and challenges of Marxism for understanding and engaging with the contemporary world. Neoliberal capitalism, long criticized by Marxists and others on the Left, is now going through its own long-term economic and social crises. What new possibilities do these crises create for Marxist and other progressive ideas and visions? How does Marxism, and left-wing thought more generally, need to be rethought to respond to these challenges? Decades of declining real wages with rising levels of exploitation and economic inequality, increasingly unaffordable energy costs, and a loss of the illusion of middle-class status characterize large parts of the world, in the North as well as the South. Declining state support for social welfare programs, privatization and deregulation, record levels of migration of people, growing urban slums, and increasingly authoritarian state interventions in the lives of ordinary citizens have become the norm in the past two decades. Concurrently, multiple environmental crises (from climate change and global warming to increasing food insecurity, water shortages and health challenges) have been receiving increased attention. From the anti-elite sentiments expressed in response to the bailout of the financial industries to emerging anti-immigrant and nationalist efforts and ethnic and religious-based movements, average people are feeling both angrier and more insecure in response to current conditions. And the elites have few if any answers to the economic and social crises that beset the existing national and international orders. Perhaps coalescing in the financial crisis acknowledged in the autumn of 2008, these dynamics represent both a significant crisis for currently constituted capitalism and modes of governance as well as a set of challenges and possibilities for all of us concerned with working towards a non-exploitative and more equitable world. In that light, we are seeking intellectual, political, and cultural works that address the possible contributions that Marxist ideas and forms of analysis can make in responding to the challenges of these new times. Human rights, democracy, environmental concerns, new organizing movements in South America and elsewhere throughout the globe, the growth of social activisms represented as anarchist, anti-imperialist, or in response to globalization, workers subjectivities and movements, contradictions within emerging and transitional economies, emergent nationalisms, and debt and the credit crises all represent possible areas for contributions to new thinking about the role of Marxist theories, cultures, and politics in today’s world. We strongly encourage papers that address these topics in relation to the global south. Of course, we also understand the vital importance of analyzing history in order to help us to understand and respond to contemporary conditions. To understand the new, we must reflect upon and learn from the old. In that light, we are also interested in panels and papers that emphasize historical analysis such as the history of Marxism(s), labor history, historical analysis of academia, histories of social movements and political practices, the historical development of Marxist/Socialist feminism, imperialisms, and the historical relationships between class and race- based movements. Visit the conference webpage here: http://rethinkingmarxism.org/conf/index.php/gala/NewMarxianTimes.

Gray, John. "The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World." NEW STATESMAN August 27, 2009.

Priestland, David. The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World. London: Allen Lane, 2009. It cannot be long before progressive opinion begins to look back on communism with nostalgia. Whatever they may have been like in practice, communist states were established to embody ideas that progressives understood and to a large extent shared. The Soviet Union and Maoist China were seen as advancing the cause of humanity and many on the left judged it best not to make too much of any crimes these regimes committed along the way. However imperfectly, communism continued an authentic tradition of European radical humanism. One of the many virtues of David Priestland's The Red Flag is that it places communism squarely in this tradition. Citing Marx's description of Prometheus as "the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar", Priestland shows how Marx's Promethean world-view has animated communist movements and regimes throughout their history. In the preface to his dissertation, Marx wrote, in the words of Aeschylus: "In sooth all gods I hate. 'Tis better to be bound on a rock than bound to the service of Zeus." In Marx's variation on the Promethean myth, heroic humanity wages war against religion, inequality and subservience to nature. Priestland shows that this modern mythology was propagated right up to the end of communist Russia. As a graduate student at Moscow State University in 1987-88, studying (in secret) Stalin's Terror half a century earlier, he found himself "at the centre of a curious communist civilisation: my neighbours had come from all corners of the communist world - from Cuba to Afghanistan, from East Germany to Mozambique, from Ethiopia to North Korea - to take degrees in science and history, but also to study 'scientific communism' and 'atheism', the better to propagate communist ideology at home . . . The system was unravelling and revealing its secrets, but it was still communist." Just over 20 years later, that curious communist civilisation has all but vanished from the face of the earth. . . . Read the whole review here: http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/08/communism-communist-soviet.

Leszek Kołakowski (1927-2009).

Update: Please see the following obituaries:

• Daily Telegraph, July 20, 2009 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/5873129/Leszek-Kolakowski.html)
• New York Times, July 20, 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/world/europe/21kolakowski.html?_r=2)
• London Times, July 22, 2009 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6722105.ece)

Original Post (July 17, 2009): The distinguished Polish philosopher and historian of ideas was best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his acclaimed three-volume history, Main Currents of Marxism. For further information on his life and career, visit his Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Ko%C5%82akowski.

Barber, Michael. Review of Bill Martin's ETHICAL MARXISM. NDPR (May 2009).

Martin, Bill. Ethical Marxism: the Categorical Imperative of Liberation. Chicago: Open Court, 2008. Bill Martin seeks to restore to Marxist discourse, characterized often by an economic reductivism and philosophical positivism traceable to Karl Marx himself, neglected or even rejected ethical dimensions that have found a high point of expression in the ethics of Immanuel Kant. This admirable project of restoration recaptures ethical dimensions at least implicit in the work of Marx and more explicit in the early work, insofar as Marx's "fourth" formulation of the categorical imperative, namely to overthrow the conditions that degrade humanity, suggests how his project extends Kant's insights to the political and economic realm. This recovery of ethics also will entail that Marxists must address issues of subjectivity, intentionality, and normativity, which Marx may have thought his systemic analyses rendered irrelevant. It further entails that they must examine what is ethically required beyond simply advancing class interests, particularly of those to be found only in advanced capitalist nations. An ethical Marxism will also oppose any teleology or strict laws for history, in which humanity's goals could be achieved without any free, human effort and in which, as a result, such effort would seem no longer really to matter. At the same time, because ethics cannot transform society by itself, Martin wants to retain Marx's systemic analyses that begin with a primary focus on production and the commodification of labor, the producer of value. Marx, however, did not appreciate as well as Lenin did how capitalism was expanding globally through the colonial era until it reached its present imperialist status in which those who are competitively advantaged economically employ assorted strategies (including military force) to dominate others, instrumentalize their lives, and acquire resources, cheap labor, and markets. Since for Martin imperialism, with its devastating effects, is the ethical question of our time, he opposes Ronald Aronson's reformist and social-democratic post-Marxist foundationalism in favor of one that is revolutionary and communist. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16065.

"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.