Our fourth talk this term! Stewart Motha questions the "archaic belief in sovereign solitude"!

SOVEREIGNTY ENISLED

with Stewart Motha

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 1 December, 2015 @ 5-6:45PM

Sovereignty has defied the many obituaries that have heralded its demise or imminent end. Its resurgence might be observed among the erection of borders to limit the movement of migrants, the new nationalisms in Europe, declarations of war and emergency following terrorist attacks, and struggles for economic independence amidst externally imposed austerity measures. In each instance the underlying assumption is that sovereignty represents the possibility of being secure, independent, and autonomous. These measures repeat an archaic belief in the possibility of sovereign solitude – the sense that a sovereign subject or people are capable of being and thriving if they are enisled. The discussion will explore the conditions and implications of such sovereign assertions. We will consider the UK’s expulsion of Chagos Islanders in order to shore-up the security interests of the United States in the Indian Ocean, and Australia’s excision of islands from its territory and internment of refugees offshore. In each instance a sovereign exceptionalism proclaims a self-sufficiency that is undermined by the need for political and legal alibis. Should the political response on the left be based on the essential plurality of being, or another (sovereign) solitude – the sense that the other must remain, as Derrida suggested, ‘wholly other’?

Stewart Motha is Reader in Law at Birkbeck Law School, University of London. He is a critical legal theorist working on sovereignty, violence, and aesthetics. His current research is focused on the Indian Ocean region – including Australia, the Chagos Islands, Sri Lanka, migration and refugees, and South African post-apartheid jurisprudence. He is currently working on a book, Archiving Sovereignty (forthcoming with Michigan University Press).
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Welcome to the fourth of this term's Critical Theory and Practice seminars. The aim of these talks is to integrate radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk consists of a presentation followed by a Q&A session (and trip to the Anchor pub round the corner). We record each session, so if you can't make it, like our pages so you get updated once the video is uploaded. Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) and Cambridgeshire Left.

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

Did you miss Alex Anievas? Check out his talk, Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism and the 'Rise of the West': Beyond the Eurocentric Cage!

Alexander Anievas is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) In Cambridge. His research focuses on the development of non-Eurocentric approaches to international historical sociology and political economy, with a particular emphasis on the study of epochs of macro-historical change and conjunctures of interstate conflict, war and revolution. He is the author of 'Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945', and co-author of 'How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism'.

Priyamvada Gopal explores the role of the intellectual in our third lecture this term!

WHAT ARE INTELLECTUALS FOR? REVISITING EDWARD SAID AND THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION

with Priyamvada Gopal

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 3 November, 2015 @ 5-6:45PM
All lectures start 5:15PM

This talk – or rather, a set of provocations for discussion in relation to the question of praxis – revisits the case made by Edward Said in his Reith Lectures for the intellectual (who can never be 'private') as a "curmudgeonly' voice of opposition whose place it is 'to publicly to raise embarassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma…to be someone who cannot be co-opted by governments or corporations, and who raison d’etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. His insistence that the intellectual had a vocation and that that vocation was to represent the forgotten – both histories and peoples – was intrinsically tied up with his advocacy. often glossed over in readings of his work--of a 'critical humanism.' Priyamvada will ask us what the implications of this model of 'democratic criticism' are for the question of the relationship between critical theory and political practice while also examining some of the limitations of Said's conceptualisation of the 'exilic' and, via Adorno, 'homelessness'.

Priyamvada will speak to the above concerns for around half an hour, but the emphasis will be on open discussion and conversation. It would therefore be helpful if you had a chance to read Said's Reith lectures on 'Representations of the Intellectual'.

These can be found here.

Priyamvada Gopal is Reader in Anglophone and Related Literatures in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. She has published two books: Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence and The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration. She is currently working on a third, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonialism in the Making of Britain. She has written for various newspapers and magazines in Britain, USA and India including Guardian, The Hindu, The Nation and al-Jazeera.
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Welcome to the third of this term's Critical Theory and Practice seminars. The aim of these talks is to integrate radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk consists of a presentation followed by a Q&A session (and trip to the Anchor pub round the corner). We record each session, so if you can't make it, like our pages so you get updated once the video is uploaded. Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) and Cambridgeshire Left.

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

Drew Milne on Marx / Critical Theory / Ecology

Watch lecturer, poet and critical theorist Drew Milne deliver the first talk in Critical Theory // Practice on Marx / Critical Theory / Ecology.

Drew Milne is a lecturer in the English Faculty, University of Cambridge, specialising in modern drama, poetry and critical theory. He edited the anthology 'Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader' (1996) with Terry Eagleton; and the anthology 'Modern Critical Thought: An Anthology of Theorists writing on Theorists' (2003). He has published a number of essays on critical theory, including essays on Adorno, Habermas, Marcuse, and Derrida.

Our second talk this term! Alex Anievas gives an international historical account of the origins of capitalism!

RETHINKING THE ORIGINS OF CAPITALISM AND THE "RISE OF THE WEST": BEYOND THE EUROCENTRIC CAGE

with Alex Anievas

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 3 November, 2015 @ 5-6:30PM

Mainstream historical accounts of the development of capitalism describe a fundamentally European process - a system born in the mills and factories of England or under the guillotines of the French Revolution. Drawing on his groundbreaking book with Kerem Nisancioglu, 'How the West Came to Rule', Alexander Anievas tell a very different story, offering a unique interdisciplinary and international historical account of the origins of capitalism. Anievas argues that contrary to dominant wisdom, capitalism’s origins should not be understood as confined to the geographically and culturally sealed borders of Europe, but as the outcome of a wider array of global processes in which non-European societies played a decisive role. Through an outline of the histories of Mongolian expansion, New World discoveries, Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry, the development of the Asian colonies and bourgeois revolutions, Anievas will give an account of how these events and processes came together to produce capitalism.

The book: Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu 2015: Capitalism: A History of Violence. Pluto Press.

Alexander Anievas is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) In Cambridge. His research focuses on the development of non-Eurocentric approaches to international historical sociology and political economy, with a particular emphasis on the study of epochs of macro-historical change and conjunctures of interstate conflict, war and revolution. He is the author of 'Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945', and co-author of 'How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism.
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Welcome to the second of this term's Critical Theory and Practice seminars. The aim of these talks is to integrate radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk consists of a presentation followed by a Q&A session (and trip to the Anchor pub round the corner). We record each session, so if you can't make it, like our pages so you get updated once the video is uploaded. Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) and Cambridgeshire Left.

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

Our termcard is here! Check out talks in our seminar series this term!

Come to our first talk this year on Marxism / Critical Theory / Ecology with Drew Milne!

MARX / CRITICAL THEORY / ECOLOGY

with Drew Milne

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 20 October, 2015 @ 5-7PM

Contemporary politics throws up ecological crises with gathering intensity: from Fukushima and fracking and new nuclear power stations to genetic modification plant technology. The Volkswagen emissions scandal is a symptom of the deep ecological corruption of capitalism, offering clear demonstration of the limits of green capitalism. The necessity for developing political alliances across red and green political perspectives has never been clearer. Problems at the level of political practice nevertheless reflect widespread suspicions that Marx and Marxism lack a relevant understanding of ecology, while the priorities of climate change activism often come into conflict with traditional labour movement politics. This talk seeks to glean some of the fragmented theoretical resources suggested by Marx and by neo-Marxist traditions of critical theory, so as to develop a contemporary politics of ecology.

Dr Drew Milne is a lecturer in the English Faculty, University of Cambridge, specialising in modern drama, poetry and critical theory. He edited the anthology 'Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader' (1996) with Terry Eagleton; and the anthology 'Modern Critical Thought: An Anthology of Theorists writing on Theorists' (2003). He has published a number of essays on critical theory, including essays on Adorno, Habermas, Marcuse and Derrida.
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Welcome to the first of this year's Critical Theory and Practice seminars! Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) and Cambridgeshire Left, the aim of these talks is to integrate contemporary radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk will consist of a presentation followed by an open-ended Q&A session (and a trip to the pub).

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

Seminars for Michaelmas 2015/2016

The speakers for the Michaelmas term in the academic year 2015/2016 is now finalised. We are pleased to confirm the following speakers and topics:

Tuesday 20th October | Drew Milne (Cambridge) | 'Karl Marx/Critical Theory/Political Ecology'

Tuesday 3rd November | Alex Anievas (Cambridge) | 'Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism and the "Rise of the West": Beyond the Eurocentric Cage'

Tuesday 17th November | Priyamvada Gopal (Cambridge) | '"What are intellectuals for?" Revisiting Edward Said and the Question of Representation'

Tuesday 1st December | Stewart Motha (Birkbeck) | 'TBC'

All seminars will take place in Mill Lane Lecture Room 4 and will start at 5pm.

Capitalism, Crisis and the Limits of Representation with Alberto Toscano

CAN CAPITAL BE SEEN?

with Alberto Toscano

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 19 May, 2015 @ 5-7PM

Can Capital be seen? In this talk, Alberto Toscano discusses his latest book "Cartographies of the Absolute", which surveys the disparate answers to this question offered by artists, film-makers, writers and theorists over the past few decades. It zooms in on the crises of representation that have accompanied the enduring crisis of capitalism, foregrounding the production of new visions and artefacts that wrestle with the vastness, invisibility and complexity of the abstractions that rule our lives. This work not only develops new methods for tracing the complex geography of global capitalism, but also engages with the challenge of producing a politics that can transcend the limits imposed by Capital.

Alberto Toscano is a reader in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also a member of the editorial board of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory. Alberto Toscano's work is both an investigation of the persistence of the idea of communism in contemporary thought and a genealogical inquiry into the concept of fanaticism. He is author of The Theatre of Production (2006), Fanaticism: The Uses of an Idea (2010), and his latest book, Cartographies of the Absolute (2015).

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Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE), the aim of these talks is to integrate contemporary radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk will consist of a presentation followed by an open-ended Q&A session (and a trip to the pub).

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

The Personal, the Political, and the Reduction of Politics with Lorna Finlayson

THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL AND THE REDUCTION OF POLITICS

with Lorna Finlayson

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge

The famous slogan of second-wave feminism, “The personal is political”, has by now become such a commonplace that it may scarcely occur to us to ask what it really stands for. It is used so often, and by writers and activists of such different leanings, that it is in danger of losing its meaning altogether.

I argue that it is necessary to revisit the context of the so-called ‘second wave’ if we are to restore content to what has become almost an empty phrase, and that doing so yields an understanding of the slogan as primarily making a point about modes of resistance to oppressive structures such as patriarchy: political struggle must not only aim to transform the personal, but must be conducted in and through this supposedly ‘private’ realm. However, this raises an apparent dilemma – one of which second-wave feminists were already aware, but which perhaps is particularly salient now – between a dogmatic ‘personal solutionary’ approach (which threatens to reduce feminism to the policing of individual lifestyles) and a vapid ‘choice feminism’ (which presents all options as ‘equally valid’ and even as ‘liberating’). Both variants, in their different ways, seem to end up robbing feminism of its politics rather than staying true to the original intention to politicise the personal. I suggest that drawing on critical theory, and on the notion of ideology-critique in particular, can help us to avoid the horns of this dilemma and to preserve the insight behind one of feminism’s favourite clichés.

Lorna Finlayson is a Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at King's College, University of Cambridge.

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Welcome to the first of this year's Critical Theory and Practice seminars! Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) and Cambridgeshire Left, the aim of these talks is to integrate contemporary radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk will consist of a presentation followed by an open-ended Q&A session (and a trip to the pub).

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice

Greece and the future of Europe: Resistance, Solidarity and the Promise of Democratic Socialism with Costas Douzinas

GREECE & THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

with Costas Douzinas

Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday, 10 March, 2015 @ 5-7PM

The recent election of the first ever Radical Left government in Greece was the culmination of a long period of resistance to neoliberal capitalism and bio-political governance. New forms, subjects and strategies of resistance have developed all over the world since 2010 and Syriza’s election was the first victory for the Left in our ‘age of resistance’. This talk will discuss the historical character of the Syriza victory and the prospects of democratic socialism in the 21st century’.

Costas Douzinas is Professor of Law and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London. Douzinas has published extensively in legal theory, public law, human rights, moral and political philosophy, critical theory and aesthetics. His books includePostmodern Jurisprudence, Justice Miscarried, The Legality of the Contingent, Nomos and Aesthetics, Law and the Image, The End of Human Rights, Critical Jurisprudence; Adieu Derrida; Human Rights and Empire, The Idea of Communism, Philosophy and Resistance in the Crisis, The Meanings of Rights. His work has been translated in 14 languages.

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Organised by Cambridge Defend Education (CDE), the aim of these talks is to integrate contemporary radical theory with political practice and activism. Each talk will consist of a presentation followed by an open-ended Q&A session (and a trip to the pub).

For more about our upcoming events:

https://www.facebook.com/criticaltheorypractice