CfP: Democracy in Global Perspective (Oxford)

Democracy in Global Perspective:

Globalization, Neo-liberalism, and Resistance

Third Oxford Graduate Conference in Political Theory

University of Oxford   |   28th-29th April 2014

Contemporary processes of neo-liberal globalization present significant challenges for democratic politics: notably, the concentration of power in multinational corporations and financial capital, the growing influence of international political and financial institutions, and widening inequalities within and between states. The past few decades, however, have also been characterized by a range of radically democratic practices of resistance, encompassing the ‘alter-globalization’ movement, the so-called ‘pink tide’ in Latin America, and more recent anti-austerity movements.

This conference aims to advance discussion on core elements of democratic theory—popular sovereignty, citizenship, and human emancipation—and what they might mean in a global perspective, beyond the nation-state. It seeks to explore the challenges and possibilities facing contemporary democratic politics by addressing global structures of power that escape popular control.

In an era of neo-liberal globalization, whither democracy? When more and more areas of public life are being subjected to the demands of the market rather than the democratic forum, are we necessarily consigned to a de-politicizing, technocratic mode of governance? What avenues still remain for democratic politics, and what role do grassroots resistance movements have to play in this respect? This conference encourages papers addressing such concerns, and related issues, from a range of approaches within political theory.

Keynote speakers

Two keynote addresses will be given by Professor Wendy Brown (Berkeley) and Dr. Rahul Rao (SOAS).

Submissions

We invite proposals for papers from graduate students working in diverse theoretical traditions, including critical social theory, philosophy, political economy, geography, history, and international relations. Practitioners and scholar-activists are also encouraged to attend and participate. Accepted papers will be arranged into themed panels, including discussion by Oxford graduate students and faculty members. There will also be a roundtable discussion involving Oxford faculty and the keynote speakers.

Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Global governance, global capital, and state sovereignty
• Global financial and economic crisis
• Austerity, debt, and structural adjustment
• Feminist perspectives on global political economy
• Gender, agency, and resistance
• Race, modernity, and de-coloniality
• Empire, neo-imperialism, and resistance in the Global South
• Uneven development, international trade, and the world system
• Commodification of the global commons
• Global supply chains and organized labour
• Land, ecology, and indigenous resistance
• Globalization from below: local and global citizenship
• Space, place, and migration
• Transnational social movements and global solidarity
• Neo-liberal governance and the democratic subject

Proposals should be no longer than 500 words for papers of approximately 20 minutes. We welcome proposals that address the intersections of multiple topics. Submissions are due by 31st January 2014and accepted papers must follow in full by 31st March 2014. Please submit abstracts formatted for blind review, along with your name and a brief academic CV, to oxfordpoliticaltheory@gmail.com. Registration details to follow shortly.

Call for Papers: Rosa Luxemburg's 'Accumulation of Capital'

Call for papers on Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital:

'100th Anniversary of “The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism”

En Oxford: Understanding Neoliberal Legality (CfP)

CfP: Understanding Neoliberal Legality | Workshop, Oxford University, 21 June 

Workshop: Perspectives on the Use of Law By, For, and Against the Neoliberal Project

Whilst neo­lib­eral insti­tu­tional and eco­nomic reforms have attrac­ted sub­stan­tial schol­arly atten­tion in recent dec­ades, the role of law in the neo­lib­eral story has been rel­at­ively neg­lected. Yet law, broadly under­stood, fea­tures in vari­ous prom­in­ent aspects of the content, form, and mode of the neo­lib­eral pro­ject and of efforts to res­ist it. This day-​long work­shop at the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford will draw together estab­lished and emer­ging schol­ars research­ing vari­ous aspects of the role of law in the con­struc­tion and con­test­a­tion of neoliberalism.

The ques­tions and dilem­mas to be inter­rog­ated in the workshop’s dis­cus­sions include the following:

• In what ways has neo­lib­eral restruc­tur­ing shaped and been shaped by estab­lished legis­lat­ive, judi­cial, and penal pro­cesses?
• How is law engaged by the neo­lib­eral state in its rela­tions with dis­sent?
• To what extent have the sites at which social change can be pur­sued been altered by neo­lib­eral policy and ideo­logy, or remained the same?
• What are the pos­sib­il­it­ies and chal­lenges facing polit­ical groups or move­ments that choose to engage the law in neo­lib­eral times? What about those that choose to break the law?
• How has the neo­lib­eral period cla­ri­fied or com­plic­ated our under­stand­ing of the nature of law and of lib­eral legality?

The range of schol­ar­ship address­ing aspects of these import­ant ques­tions at the nexus of neo­lib­er­al­ism and leg­al­ity spans a panoply of the­or­et­ical and empir­ical ana­lysis of the ways in which law is broken, upheld, and sub­ver­ted by, for, and against the neo­lib­eral pro­ject in the UK and abroad. Potential paper top­ics reflect­ing this diversity include, but are not lim­ited to, the fol­low­ing themes:

• the­or­isa­tions of social move­ment strategy with respect to law
• crim­in­al­isa­tion of dis­sent
• cri­tiques and pos­sib­il­it­ies of human rights act­iv­ism
• cur­rent left gov­ern­ments as law­makers
• the­or­et­ical inter­ven­tions on the nature of (neo­lib­eral) law
• new con­sti­tu­tion­al­ism
• dis­cip­lin­ary logics of late cap­it­al­ism
• intensi­fy­ing impacts of power and priv­ilege on access to legal chan­nels
• law and order agenda
• crim­in­al­isa­tion of poverty
• state of excep­tion
• cur­rent trends in police repres­sion
• media rep­res­ent­a­tions of protest
• migra­tion and ‘illegal’ personhood

Inter­ested par­ti­cipants should send their name, insti­tu­tional affil­i­ation, and an abstract of a max­imum of 250 words to honor.​brabazon@​politics.​ox.​ac.​uk by 20 May, 2013. The work­shop intends to ini­ti­ate ongo­ing dia­logue and col­lab­or­a­tion, and it is hoped that selec­ted pro­ceed­ings from the work­shop will be pub­lished as a spe­cial issue or edited volume. Regrettably, we can­not cover the cost of travel or accom­mod­a­tion for par­ti­cipants, but we will provide a lunch and cof­fee break dur­ing the workshop.

From: Critical Legal Thinking

Critical Legal Conference 2013

Call for Papers: (Critical Legal Thinking)

It is 24 years since Queen’s Uni­ver­sity Bel­fast last hos­ted the Crit­ical Legal Con­fer­ence. In that time, North­ern Ire­land has under­gone sig­ni­fic­ant polit­ical and social change spurred on by a dif­fi­cult (and ongo­ing) pro­cess of, and yet stead­fast com­mit­ment to, recon­cili­ation and recon­struc­tion. The ques­tions grappled with in this jur­is­dic­tion are argu­ably mirrored in the dis­courses of diverse crit­ical thinkers and artists as they con­tend with the implic­a­tions of the post­struc­tural event in late mod­ern cul­ture and polit­ics. The CLC annual con­fer­ence 2013 invites you to sub­mit abstracts reflect­ing on the role and mean­ing of recon­struc­tion and its the­or­et­ical, cul­tural, polit­ical, eco­nomic, aes­thetic, philo­soph­ical and soci­olo­gical manifestation.

As crit­ical thinkers we are often called on to jus­tify our attach­ment to Der­ridean decon­struc­tion, Heide­g­gerian ‘destruct­ive retrieve’, or But­lerian per­form­ativ­ity. Our crit­ics accuse us of blind­ness to mater­i­al­ity, polit­ics or ‘real­ity’ often unsat­is­fied by the clas­sic Deleuzian response that cri­tique is in itself an act of res­ist­ance. The theme of recon­cili­ation and recon­struc­tion might include, but is not lim­ited to, dis­cus­sion on:

• law’s crit­ical pro­ject in the age of austerity
• the (re)construction of the legal per­son and the body politic
• impro­vised com­munit­ies and ways of being in society
• the role of art and cul­ture in con­tested polit­ical territories
• crit­ical read­ings of the devel­op­ment of ‘gov­ernance’ projects
• the fem­in­ist pro­ject in an era of altern­at­ive modernities.

Sim­il­arly, the theme invites deeper reflec­tion on the concept of trans­ition. This might include re-​reading the pro­ject of human rights; how to con­ceive com­munity and social devel­op­ment; understanding/​regenerating urban spaces; how to remem­ber the past/​the role of memory in recon­struc­tion; the rela­tion­ship between viol­ence and law and the mean­ing of justice.

The con­fer­ence theme is broadly con­ceived and del­eg­ates are encour­aged to sub­mit stream pro­pos­als. Dead­line for stream pro­pos­als (to be sent to the e-​mail below) is Monday 15 April 2013. Dead­line for paper pro­pos­als (to be sent to stream organ­isers) is Fri­day 31 May 2013. For more inform­a­tion, see the CLC 2013 web­site or e-​mail clc2013[at]qub[dot]ac[dot]uk.

Convocatoria: "On Revolution, After 50 years" (U. Diego Portales, Chile)

CFP: Hannah Arendt’s “On Revolution” after 50 years

September 25–26, 2013

Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile

Keynote speakers:

Jean Cohen (Columbia University)

Robert Fine (University of Warwick)

In March 1963, The Viking Press published Hannah Arendt’s book “On Revolution”. Since then, the book has provoked a significant amount of controversy, yet at the same time it has been relatively neglected compared to Arendt’s other major works. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its publication, the present conference seeks to explore the legacy of “On Revolution”, assessing its relevance for contemporary social and political thought. We invite proposals for presentations that engage with the historical analyses, theoretical positions, and political conclusions of Arendt’s book. 

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

-  Revolutionary experiences and traditions

-  New beginning, foundation, event: Moments of extraordinary politics

-  Relations and tensions between the political and the social

-  Self-government, radical democracy, and the council system

-  Sovereignty, law, and constituent power

We welcome submissions of both complete papers and extended abstracts of around 500 words. They may be in English or in Spanish and must be prepared for blind review. They should be sent to coloquio_onrevolution@mail.udp.cl. The deadline is June 28, 2013. Notices of acceptance will be sent by July 15, 2013.

The conference is hosted by the Instituto de Humanidades and the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales e Historia of the Universidad Diego Portales. For additional information, please contact the organizers, Rodrigo Cordero Vega and Wolfhart Totschnig, at the email address above.

Call for Papers: The Courtroom as a Space of Resistance

The Rivonia Trial 50 Years On: the Courtroom as a Space of Resistance

18-20 June 2013 – University of Pretoria

2014 marks the 50th Anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s historic performance of resistance in the Rivonia Trial, an event widely recognized as “the trial that changed South Africa”. Fifty years after Rivonia, law and the courtroom continued to be the prominent, even the pre-eminent, sites of domination and resistance throughout the world. If communism and Nazism formed the spectre that haunted political justice in the second half of the 20th century, terrorism has become its focal concern in the 21st century.

In recent times, a diverse range of thinkers have attempted to rework and reconfigure conceptions of space, resistance, authority, domination, rights, responsibility, justice, and law’s own place in practices of domination and subjectification. The courtroom has been a key public space where these discursive formations are resignified, articulated, navigated, displaced, and enforced. In celebration of the landmark event that was the Rivonia trial, we want to invite papers that explore the hegemonic and subversive potentials of the space of the courtroom in the light of emerging theoretical, sociocultural,and literary interrogations.

We encourage interdisciplinary contributions that explore not only the Rivonia trial, but also other historically and politically significant trials that open up a space for dialogue on the transformative opportunities, communicative or strategic, of the trial. The organizing committee invites proposals that includes but extends well beyond, the following:

· The legacy of the Rivonia trial1

· The legacy of the Treason trial2

· The courtroom as a site of resistance [specific trials]

· The Courtroom and technologies of domination [specific trials]

· Trials of ‘terrorists’

· The trial of rupture

· Performativity, and theatricality in the courtroom

Selected papers will be published as an edited volume on the ‘Legacy of the Rivonia trial’.

Please submit abstracts and proposals of no more than 350 words to rivoniatrial50@gmail.com by 20

April 2013.

Organised by Professor Emilios Christodoulidis (Glasgow), Professor Karin Van Marle (Pretoria), and

Awol Allo (Glasgow)

Sponsors

Brown University (Brown International Advanced Research Institute), University of Pretoria,

University of Glasgow (Kelvin/Smith scheme)

1 Nelson Mandela’s Speech from the Dock.

2 Nelson Mandela’s preliminary objection, and his plea for mitigation during the Treason Trial