How to fix the USA

Slavoj Žižek talks new book, Occupy Wall Street at SIPA

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/10/24/slavoj-Žižek-talks-new-book-occupy-wall-street-sipa

[…]

Žižek rose to prominence in his native Yugoslavia, where he said he was “a mid-level dissident, enough to be jobless but not enough to be arrested.” His popular anti-capitalist cultural philosophy attracted an overflowing crowd, some who had come from outside the University just to see him speak.
Žižek was at Columbia to talk about his new book, “2011: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously,” but he touched on a wide array of other topics. Moderator Stathis Gourgouris, professor of classics at Columbia, started this panel on “one of the most provocative thinkers of our time” by noting that “moderating Žižek is an impossible event.” Gourgouris, along with Lydia Liu of East Asian Languages and Bruce Robbins of English, admitted that they found it difficult to put up arguments against Žižek or stop him once he got going.

Building on the arguments in his book, which sold out at the door, Žižek cited many philosophers from the Core Curriculum, including Marx, Rousseau and his “big love,” Hegel. Paraphrasing one of Hegel’s central ideas in reference to the crises of 2011, Žižek said, “Before the Fall, paradise was stupid animality. Only retroactively can we generate the specter of what we have fallen from.” “2012: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously” is Žižek’s take on the revolutions and upheavals of 2011, which he said he views as key turning points in the questioning of capitalism.

Before these revolutions, he argued, capitalism was a dogma, de-politicized because it was such an unquestionable part of our society. “Here, there are more people who believe that Armageddon is coming than that capitalism should be adjusted,” Žižek said. But the global economic collapse began to rip a hole in the fabric of these dogmas, Žižek said.

“Bankers were always greedy. Capitalism as it is today cannot be regulated,” he said. “It simply gave them the tools to realize that greed.” This financial crisis, Žižek argued, led to Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and the upheavals in Europe. In this new multi-centric world, countries like China, which subscribe to ‘communist,’ non-traditional models of capitalism, are swiftly gaining the upper hand, he added. The world should start to question just what it means to go beyond the constraints of capitalism.

During the question and answer period, Žižek was confronted by a Maoist who wanted a debate. Instead of dismissing him, Žižek called out his arguments and set a date for the contest to thunderous applause and laughter.

[…]

Famous Marxist turns heads and challenges assumptions

http://cpreview.org/2012/10/political-minutes-slavoj-zizek/

by Ella Louise Every-Wortman

If you’re not familiar with Slavoj Zizek, the prophetic philosopher and cultural theorist from Slovenia, the first thing you should know about him is that he has opinion on just about everything.  When listening to him speak, you are guaranteed to fully comprehend less than 50 percent of everything he says, be thoroughly annoyed by his fidgeting, and yet still, ultimately, manage to be absolutely blown away.   Tuesday night’s panel featuring Slavoj Zizek alongside Columbia’s own Stathis Gourgouris, Lydia Liu, and Bruce Robbins was no exception.

In his introduction Stathis Gourgouris, Professor of Comparative Literature, commented that Zizek produces thought and writings at a “super human speed and scale.” Although the official topic of the panel was discussion of Zizek’s newest book The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, in which Zizek argues that the“events of 2011 augur a new political reality,” Zizek structured his presentation around five “short interventions.” Demonstrating an incredible propensity for analysis of our current unique existence as a globalized world, Zizek left the audience with several troubling thoughts, claiming ultimately “our times are a time of un-doing” requiring us to reimagine the political sphere as it is and as it could be.  Zizek predicts “a divorce on the horizon between capitalism and democracy” and argues that, as our political landscape begins to change, we must think more radically and ask more radical questions if we are to emerge from our current state of political upheaval.  Despite the heavy nature of the discussion, Zizek managed to keep a light tone throughout, even ending his presentation with the declaration, “Now I exposed myself like Jesus Christ”.

Although he takes a radical, Marxist approach, Zizek’s conjectures still contained grains of truth that could be appreciated by everyone regardless of political background. Furthermore, in representing ideas of extreme radicalism, Zizek forces us all to bring into question our own political ideals and, most importantly, to defend them.  This idea was made evident by the panel portion that followed Zizek’s initial presentation.  In this section of the evening Robbins, Liu, and Gourgouris each offered critiques of Zizek’s arguments, which were followed by a final rebuttal by Zizek.

Engaging, entertaining, and witty, Zizek was undeniably the star of the panel.  Initially, I doubted the sense in even bringing in additional panelist\s, but hearing Zizek’s response to the critiques of Gourgouris, Liu, and Robbins completely changed my opinion.  Zizek was completely invigorated by the opportunity to debate.  He thoughtfully rebuked criticisms with well-crafted answers that tended to contain a few more curse words than his prepared portion, much to the audiences’ delight.  During the question and answer portion, Zizek even promised a particularly discontented attendee the opportunity to debate him on the merits of communism when he returns to New York in April.  I personally am looking forward to the event but fear slightly for this man – if there was one lesson to be learned from Tuesday night’s panel it is that, if you debate Zizek, you will lose. The impassioned manner in which Zizek debates reminds us that this is what politics is supposed to be: real debate, real radicalism, and real ideas.

Historical Materialism Conference

http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-historical-materialism-ninth-annual-conference-london-8-11-november

CfP: Historical Materialism Ninth Annual Conference, London, 8-11 November

CfP: The Ninth Annual HM Conference will take place in Central London from 8-11 November 2012

The Ninth Annual HM Conference will take place in Central London from 8-11 November 2012

Weighs Like a Nightmare

Historical Materialism Ninth Annual Conference

Has Marx been reanimated once again? From mainstream media to academia, this question hangs in the air. The old ghosts of revolution appear to be shaking off their shackles and getting agitated. What is this spirit? Who are the militants haunting this ramshackle capitalism? Are these new spectres - stalking the streets of Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, Athens, Spain and Wall Street and beyond - or direct descendants of socialist and communist ones? How does the past haunt the present? How might the present haunt the future?

As new conflicts and struggles emerge, the old questions refuse to go away: What type of organisation is needed to sharpen the conflicts, if any? Who are the agents of history and change? Is the scope of political action national or international? What is the political value of alliances and fronts? Does history cunningly work a progressive path through and around the contingencies of struggle? Are the same mistakes to be made, the same failures repeated?

The ninth HM annual conference focuses on the returns and the persistence of political forms and theoretical problems, on the uses and abuses of the history of Marxism in this turbulent present and on the ways and forms in which an inheritance of various Marxist traditions can help us to organise and to act in contemporary struggles.

We invite proposals for presentations or panels (with two or three suggested participants) on topics such as: the echoes of the past in the present; learning or not learning from the past; the reanimation of revolution; history as farce, history as tragedy; historiography and Marxism; cycles; circulation; anti-memory as a political stance; new histories of capital and the labour movement; Marxism and 'deep history'; theory as history; the role of archival sources in history and the place of theory; rhythms of historical development, combined, uneven or otherwise; concepts of pre-capitalism; the question of successive modes of production; historical or other materialisms; the return of radical politics in Eastern Europe and elsewhere; post-communism; the endless afterlives of 'Classical' Marxists and 'Western' Marxist theorists and others who refuse to go away; the reruns of crisis; the role of memory and the revisioning of history; forgotten figures suddenly blasted into contemporary relevance; perma-war; imperial ghosts and their legacies, racism's haunting returns; old and new world orders; old and new cultures; avant-gardes and rearguards; the re-reading of classic texts; the question of Marxism's relation to tradition; ideas of inheritance and 'selective tradition'; recovery; recuperation; periodisation; continuities and discontinuities; narratives of new and old beginnings (of history, of culture, of the Left, of Marxism).

[…]

Interview with Dr. Dr. Božidar Debenjak (in Slovenian)

http://tvslo.si/predvajaj/dr-bozidar-debenjak/ava2.72234783/