Conference – 1989-2009: The East European Revolutions in Perspective

1989-2009: The East European Revolutions in Perspective

Organised by: Debatte. Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe

Location and date: London, 17-18 October 2009.

Keynote speakers:

Caroline Humphrey, Boris Kagarlitsky, Gáspár Miklós Tamas, Peter Gowan, Alex Callinicos, Bernd Gehrke, Catherine Samary.

Deadline for abstracts and panel proposals: 22 June 2009.

Rationale

Debatte is marking the twentieth anniversary of the revolutionary upheavals of 1989 by inviting scholars and students of Central and Eastern Europe to reflect upon the events of that year, their causes and processes, and the ensuing transformation of the region. In line with Debatte’s credo, the conference encourages critical and inter-disciplinary contributions. Especially welcome are papers that:

• examine the part played by social movements in overthrowing regimes and bringing about democratic change
• explore the power relations involved in the post-1989 restructuring of Central and Eastern Europe
• look afresh at the seminal contributions and debates in this area of research
• investigate ways in which research on 1989 and the transition has affirmed, deconstructed or challenged dominant ideological conventions

Topics for inquiry

Promising areas for papers include:

• The dissolution of the Soviet system. The roles played by relative economic decline, military competition, social and cultural change, the Western media. Comparison with the trajectory of ‘communism’ elsewhere: China, North Korea, Cuba etc
• Revolution and social change. The question of the ‘revolutionary’ nature of the events of 1989. Comparative revolutions and pseudo-revolutions. The contribution of social movement theories to analysing processes of mobilisation etc. in 1989. The history of dissident, resistance and reform movements
• Post-1989 transitions
• Geopolitical: Russia and the West; E.U. enlargement
• Geo-economic: Central and Eastern Europe’s changing location within the global division of labour; labour migration
• Geo-ideological: what has become of the Cold War mentality?; the repositioning (‘othering’?) of Central/Eastern Europe within Western discourse
• Economic: neoliberal reform; ‘shock therapy’; comparative economic policy
• ‘Bringing labour back in’: working-class recomposition and industrial relations
• Political and social: expansion and privatisation of the public sphere; the restructuring of social power ; elite continuities and discontinuities; democratisation and ‘managed democracy’; the evolution of Communist parties and of pre-1989 currents of dissidence and resistance; changing gender roles and relations; old and new nationalisms (including the break-up of Yugoslavia); the environment, transport and climate change
• Anthropological: cultures of everyday life; the ethnography of societies in ‘transition’; new forms of division and exclusion
• Cultural: new freedom, new censorship; the changing role of the artist; developments in cinema, literature, art and music; the creation of collective memories and narratives of the pre-1989 era
• Historiography of post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: assessing the debates and breakthroughs; identifying gaps and silences in the scholarly literature

Papers and panel proposals

Submission of a panel proposal: The proposal should be no longer than 500 words, and should include the panel convenor’s full name and e-mail address, as well names and e-mail addresses of at least two other panel participants.

Questions, as well as submissions of panel proposals and abstracts, should be directed to Gareth Dale,
For updates: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0965156X.asp

Anarchist Studies Network – 2008 conference

The Anarchist Studies Network (a Political Studies Association specialist group for the study of anarchism) holds its first annual conference between 4-6 September 2008 hosted by the Department of Politics, IR and European Studies, Loughborough University, UK.

Themed sessions include:

• Proudhon and Modern Anarchism
• Anarchism and Ethics
• Religious Anarchisms
• Re-imagining Revolution
• Libertarian Communism
• Anarchism, Labour & Syndicalism
• Anarchist Approaches in Empirical Political Analysis

More information from the Anarchist Studies Network.

Looking For Lukács symposium

Looking For Lukács: A symposium in the School of Social Science, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, June 25th 2008 1:00pm – 5:00pm, Room EB.G.11

In an era when the hegemony of capitalism within Western culture appears to be almost unchallengeable, can we afford to ignore one of the greatest critics of capitalism’s fundamental cultural processes? A range of recent and current work to be presented here has taken up the challenge of Györky Lukács, arguably the father of ‘Western Marxism’.

Speakers and Titles

Andrew Hemingway

Totality vs. Reification: The Significance of Romantic Anti-Capitalism in History and Class Consciousness

Andrew Hemingway is Professor in History of Art at University College London. His publications include Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956 (2002) and the edited volume Marxism and the History of Art: From William Morris to the New Left (2006).

Tim Hall

Materialism and Metaphysics: Lukács & Adorno

Tim Hall is senior lecturer in International Politics at the University of East London where he teaches courses on the history of political thought and contemporary political philosophy. He is the co-author of Theories of the Modern State: theories & ideologies (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) with Erika Cudworth and John McGovern and has written various articles and reviews on Critical Social Theory. He is currently working on a book on Adorno and Hegelian Marxism.

Timothy Bewes

How to Escape from Literature: Lukács, Cinema, and The Theory of the Novel

Timothy Bewes is Associate Professor at Brown University. He is the author of Cynicism and Postmodernity (1997) and Reification, or the Anxiety of Late Capitalism (2002), both published by Verso, and is currently working on a book called The Event of Shame: Literature after Colonialism.

Andy Fisher

Allan Sekula’s ‘Novelistic Fantasy’: Lukács, Aesthetic Totality and the Literary Problematisation of Photographic Form.

Andy Fisher is an artist and Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College. Most recent publication, ‘Beyond Barthes: Rethinking the Phenomenology of Photography’, Radical Philosophy, No. 148, March / April, 2008. Coeditor of Photography and Literature in the Twentieth Century, eds. David Cunningham, Andrew Fisher and Sas Mays, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005.

Stewart Martin

The art of capital in Lukács

Stewart Martin is a member of the editorial collective, and reviews editor, of Radical Philosophy, and teaches philosophy and art at Middlesex University.

Attendance is free and open to all.

To register email Jeremy Gilbert: J.Gilbert@uel.ac.uk

For transport info: http://www.uel.ac.uk/ssmcs/about/location.htm

1968: Turning Point – call for conference papers

Multi-disciplinary Postgraduate Conference

1968: Turning Point

10th – 11th October 2008
Queen’s University, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

1968 was a crucial year in the history and politics of Northern Ireland as the civil rights movement took to the streets, but this agitation was, if anything, defined as much by its global as local character. Across the world the year witnessed scenes of mass street protests and demonstrations, confrontation between states and their citizens, and calls for revolutionary action and social change. 1968 would prove to be an epoch-making year not just for Northern Ireland.

Forty years on, Queen’s University has organised a series of events to reflect upon and re-evaluate the events of 1968 both within and beyond the Northern Irish context. As part of this commemoration Queen’s is planning a two-day postgraduate conference entitled “1968 Turning Point.”

We invite scholars to give 20-minute papers on the political, social and cultural significance of 1968 from a wide range of disciplinary and international backgrounds, including anthropology, history, film studies, political science, sociology, social movement theory, literary studies and cultural theory.

Topics to address may include:

• The Northern Ireland civil rights movement and other civil rights movements; movements for social change; anti-Vietnam and CND demonstrations;
• The New Left and the Old Left;
• The role of women and women’s rights movements;
• Student agitation and demonstrations (both specific case studies and comparative analyses);
• The literature, culture and media representations of 1968 and ’68ers; the legacies and influences of ’68;
• State responses and the role of counter-demonstration groups (both specific case studies and comparative analyses)

* This should not be viewed as an exhaustive list. Papers will be considered on related themes. *

Please send a 300-word abstract in Microsoft Word format to the following e-mail address: conference-1968@hotmail.com. Abstracts should be submitted by no later than Friday, 4th July 2008.

We are planning to publish a volume of selected papers presented at this conference.