Power to the People?
... masses, proletariat, workers, soviets, nation, community, subalterns,
multitude, commons...
Saturday 9 May 2009
Radical Philosophy Conference, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London
`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?
£25/£10 unwaged
Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk
Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd' should be sent to: Radical
Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent
Park Campus, Bramley Rd, London N14 4YZ
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
BOOK NOW!
Registration and further details: matt.charles@blueyonder.co.uk
Cheques payable to `Radical Philosophy Ltd' should be sent to: Radical
Philosophy Conference, Peter Osborne, CRMEP, Middlesex University, Trent
Park Campus, Bramley Rd, London N14 4YZ; or on the day.
