Wars of Position: Marxism and Civil Society International Conference
| Dates: | 8 June 2017 - 10 June 2017 |
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| Times: | All day |
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| What is it: | Conferences |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| How much: | TBC |
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| Who is it for: | University staff |
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‘In Russia’, wrote Antonio Gramsci, ‘the State was everything’ and ‘civil society primordial’; in the highly-developed West, civil society formed ‘permanent fortifications’ which the revolutionary party would have to occupy and transform in order to take and hold power.
No Marxist parties in the West made a revolution. Historical analysis of their failure has been abundant, but insufficiently attentive to parties’ approaches to civil society in Gramsci’s sense (i.e. social practices and institutions outside the government, judiciary and repressive state apparatus). This international and interdisciplinary conference is at once historically grounded and attuned to contemporary debates on the Left. It brings together: analysis of the theory and practice of twentieth-century Marxist parties in relation to civil society; analysis of contemporary Left formations’ approaches to civil society; analysis of the ‘idea’ of communism today and the relevance or obsolescence of ‘the party’ as an organizational form in the twenty-first century.
Key-note speakers:
Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York. Author of books including Crowds and Party (2016), The Communist Horizon (2011), Democracy and other Neoliberal Fantasies (2009)
Stathis Kouvelakis, Reader in Political Theory, King’s College, London and former member of Syriza’s Central Committee. Author of Philosophy and Revolution: From Kant to Marx (2003)
Kevin Morgan, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History, University of Manchester. Author of books including Bolshevism, Syndicalism and the General Strike: The Lost Internationalist World of A.A. Purcell (2013), Labour Legends and Russian Gold (2006), The Webbs and Soviet Communism (2006).
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