Dear Potential Contributor,
For many of us, revolution doesn’t refer just to a transformation of a
political system. It’s also about a change of heart: r/evolution in our
relationships with ourselves, each other and the land. With life itself.
Are you drawn to, moved by or curious about revolutionary love? Would you
like to share something of your love(s)? Do you know of others who might
want to contribute? If so, please do pass this invitation on them.
This letter to you, to many of you, comes from a vision. In it is a book of
love letters. They come from around the world, beautiful in their diversity
of form and focus, beautiful in their shared love of freedom and equality,
their love of life. In this vision, too, are street parties and poetry
nights, protests and lazy mornings, friendly discussions and tense moments,
deserts and forests, oeans and gardens, romances and loves that have no
name. There are details out of focus, not yet present or not yet known. It
is a vision of a world where many worlds, many loves, are possible.
A great philosopher, one who knows the wisdom of love, referred to the state
as the coldest of all cold monsters. This potential book, and the process of
it’s birth, might be a source of warmth, of heat.
You might consider yourself a revolutionary, with or without adjectives. Or
maybe you sense the power of love to transform consciousness, relationships,
entire cultures. If not, would you like to?
A Call for Revolutionary Love Letters
It might be a traditional letter, a poem, a short story, a mini essay, a
picture, a report from an event. It might be something that you or I have
yet to imagine. The love letter might only be a small part of a bigger
picture. How might you craft it with love? On your own, or with friends or
lovers, comrades or strangers? Will making love letter(s) be part of an
event, or an event in itself? Could the process help nourish communities or
movements, families or friendships?
You are also warmly invited to interpret revolutionary love for yourself,
for yourselves. As permaculture teaches, the most productive spaces are
often at the edge. What do you see, what do you feel, at the edges of love
and revolution? What would you like to?
Just to be clear, love does not have to be limited to romance. It need not
exclude anger or a rage. It can be very practical. It might be love for a
person or a place, a movement or an idea, an item or an event. It may have
no object, no boundary, no end.
You don’t need to write/make your own love letter in order to contribute. Do
you know of existing works that might fit in such a collection? Could you
point them out to me? Or volunteer to translate into English? Would you like
to organise a loving event without necessarily worrying about submitting a
letter? Perhaps you might accept this simply as an invitation to nurture
your own capacity to love. That in itself is a contribution.
Deadline for writing 1st May, 2012.
Word limit: 2,000 (or one US letter/A4 page for artwork)
Language: some form of English, more or less (including English translation
alongside another language)
Multiple, anonymous and/or collective submissions all welcome
Submissions, queries, etc to Jamie.Heckert@gmail.com
Call For Papers
As editors of a book proposal accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholar Publishing, we announce a call for submissions to a collection of essays exploring the connection between concepts of time and social change. The volume will have a strong focus on interdisciplinarity, the fusion of theory with practice, and presenting possibilities for ways in which the consideration of alternative notions of time could bring about social change. Thus it is not only practical philosophy papers that we invite, but also contributions from fields such as literary studies, media studies, cultural studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, sociology and political science.
The Revolution of Time in a Time of Revolution
The year 2011 marked a global turn in acts and ideas about revolution. Western culture and media categorized uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other nations as ?the Arab Spring.? Yet revolution does not take part only on the national stage: radical social change is constantly being called for globally on the levels of gender, race and class, reflecting a future-oriented view of time that aims to change the thrust of history. Merely looking into the future is itself a limited way of evaluating approaches through which we can create a more just society. Philosophers have long critiqued the patriarchal, linear notion of time reflected in national narratives and teleological worldviews, which often function only to reinforce the status quo. Marx himself calls for an end to temporal limitations, while Negri considers the possibilities of kairos time, and Deleuze and Guattari the importance of becoming, expanding into Agamben?s and Benjamin?s notions of messianic time. Time is thus not simply socially constructed notions of linearclock time and teleological conceptions of history, but rather time is an encounter that differs according to human experience. Julia Kristeva?s work on women?s time, for example, outlines the cyclical temporalities and specific subjectivities unique to women, while Robert Levine suggests that climate can have an effect on the pace of life in various countries, although postcolonial writers have critiqued this perspective as at least uninformed if not racist.
Literary, postcolonial and media studies conceive time as something that can be reversed or stopped altogether, portraying history as plural and emphasising the subversive and oppressive facets of time ideologies. Nations are held together by popular conceptions of shared times which often function to exclude minorities and repress their actual histories, while class antagonisms are partly characterised through ideas of productive time and leisure time.The breaking and rupture of such a standardized conception of time which remains that of Western Modernity is the task of the essays being collected in this work, seeking ?to brush history against the grain? as Benjamin would have it. Non-Western belief systems have also put forward alternative conceptions of time. Indigenous cosmologies, for instance, portray time as cyclical, while Buddhism separates time into tiny moments or even offers possibilities of transcending time. Literary, postcolonial and media studies conceive time as something that can be reversed or stopped altogether, portraying history as plural and emphasising the subversive and oppressive facets of time ideologies.
The Revolution of Time in a Time of Revolution is interested in the intersection between theory and practice, including case studies that consider ways in which ideologies of time and alternative temporalities can be useful for solving conflicts and overcoming stereotypes created around questions of gender, race, ethnicity and socio-economic inequality. Time-perception is often used as a tool for marginalisation, but the alternative temporalities of the subaltern may also provide a way out of current restrictive policies around the world. The focus of the collection will be on time as an element of radical activism: how can visions of the future and the past, embodied time, untimely time, protest time and political time be implemented both theoretically and practically in order to change the way in which time functions as a vital element of social, political and cultural revolution? As a thread that connects human life on so many levels, time is at once both subtle and dominating, reminding us that the moment of change must be seized before time itself, our creation, escapes us, or that to enact change we must escape or recreate time, or do something totally new with time. There has never been a better time to consider how both ancient and modern, philosophical and aboriginal conceptions of time and temporality might be employed in a quest to reconcile alternative histories, and to bring about radical social change.
Please email expressions of interest in the form of an abstract (up to 500 words) with ?Time and Revolution book proposal? in the subject line, as an attachment to Cecile Lawrence at (clawren1@binghamton.edu) by the 8th of January 2012, with a c.c. to Natalie Churn at messiahy@hotmail.comand Christian Garland at christiangarland@hotmail.comPlease send your completed submission as a Microsoft Word document by Sunday, the 31st of January 2012. Contributions should be written in Times New Roman and follow the Chicago referencing style or we won?t consider them. Authors of accepted papers will receive a short guide to the specific Chicago method to be used for references. If your article includes images, please let us know in advance. Papers should be no more than 3,000 words in English or approximately 20 double spaced pages, inclusive of notes and bibliography, prepared for anonymous review, must be the original work of the author, and previously unpublished. Please also include a brief biographical statement of no more than 50 words. We look forward to receiving your contributions. Co-editors Cecile Lawrence, Natalie Churn and Christian Garland. https://sites.google.com/site/timeandrevolutionbookproject/
11th Annual Communication and Culture Graduate Conference, York University/Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
Abstracts due: December 23, 2011; notification by January 23, 2012
Conference date: March 23–25, 2012
Please email submissions and questions to: intersections.occupations@gmail.com
Occupare: (Latin.) To seize, capture
Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come.
– Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage” (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33609)
I think that our political structures are corrupt and we need to really think about what a democratic society would be like. People are learning how to do it now…. This is more than a protest, it’s a camp to debate an alternative civilization.
– David Graeber, “The Man Behind Occupy Wall Street,” interviewed by Seth Fiegerman (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33897)
This is a critical moment, as “Occupy everywheres” present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning, engaging and living with each other. From the recurring occupations of the squares in Greece and Italy to the UK’s winter of discontent and the Arab Spring, to the summer of protest in Spain and the North American autumn—at general assemblies around the globe, people are running their own lives, influencing the media and discussing what is to be done without politicians. The recent occupations are an education in direct democracy and the solidarity necessary for action.
Occupy Wall Street, and the occupations around the world, are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working-through of a problem that ‘politics-as-usual’ works to suppress—the massive exploitation that is capitalism, and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, the occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now.
As it was written upon the recent expulsion of OWS from Zuccotti Park: “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.” We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore, celebrate, analyze and otherwise critically engage with the ideas emerging from occupations. Possible areas of engagement include: politics and aesthetics, movement research and performance studies, humanities and digital humanities, critical disability studies, labour studies, social theory, social movement theory, policy, political economy, communications studies, media, culture, pedagogy, technology, artistic practice and activism.
Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biographical note (100 words) to occupations.intersections@gmail.com by December 23, 2011. Proposals should list paper/panel title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details.
Workshop facilitators: Please provide a tentative timeline highlighting the duration and one or two general learning objectives of your session, along with a clear indication of space and technical requirements.
Artists: If sending creative works by email, please limit attachment size to 5 MB or less, or direct us to a URL. Include viewing instructions, comments and titles in your email if applicable. If submitting creative works by post, please mail the proposal, a non-original copy of the work, and viewing instructions to the following address (well before the submission deadline):
Intersections 2012 Conference
c/o Graduate Program in Communication and Culture
3013 TEL Building, York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Intersections / Cross Sections 2012: Occupations is presented by and for graduate student scholars, artists and activists through the organizing efforts of the Communication and Culture Graduate Students Association (GSA): http://thecomcult.wordpress.com
For more information about the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities:http://comcult.yorku.ca and http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/comcult
CFP for INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: “OCCUPATIONS” (March 23–25, 2012)
This proposed collection aims to examine patterns of activities,
psychologies, and culture(s) of contemporary mobs and crowds. It aims to
explore how and why they are initiated; how they have impacted their
respective local, national, or even global communities; and how individual
citizens, various groups and organizations, and even governments have
responded to these acts.
Offering a host of perspectives, this anthology hopes to investigate the
contemporary mob. What?s changed or changing about crowd or mob culture?
How is its definition evolving, and what elements or characteristics are
sustained from those of previous generations? Scholarly essays will be
tentatively divided into four categories: theoretical responses
to/explanations of the mob; mob/crowd culture in history; the contemporary
mob or mob culture in the United States; and, lastly, comparative studies
of the mob on the global scale. Focus should be geared towards the
contemporary. Junior faculty and graduate students are welcome and
encouraged to submit.
Contributors may approach the topic from any number of disciplines: history
and politics; socio-economics; psychology; criminal justice; mass media and
communication; race, ethnicity, and nationality; popular culture; and
theatre and performance. A potential list of topics may include the
following:
The mob as political protest
Mob imagery used in advertisements and publicity
Entertainment, art, and satire
Film and TV parodies
Violent v. non-violent protest
American / African-American studies / history
Youth culture, childhood and family studies
The law and Civil Rights
Surveillance and voyeurism
Consumer culture
The flash mob, the flying protest
Violence following sporting matches
H&M dances, Mall mobs, Grand Central performances
Digital culture and the Internet
Race relations and stereotypes
Ethnic studies
Identity and identity politics
Impersonations / masks & masking
Information Communication Technology (ICT) and social networking
The mob as ritual or performancev Language and linguistics
Memory and Remembrance
Music
Global, national, local politics
Please send a 300-500 word abstract attached (as a .doc or .docx file) to
an email with a brief bio or C.V. (containing the author’s name,
institutional affiliation, and contact information) in the email text to
kevin_wisniewski@hotmail.com.
Abstracts are due by Thursday, December 1, 2011. Authors will be notified
of their acceptance in January and will be expected to submit completed
essays of 5,000-7,000 words in May or June 2012.
Please address inquiries and send abstracts to the editor at the email
above or at the following:
K.A. Wisniewski
English Department
Widener University
One University Place
Chester, PA 19013
Call for Session Organisers
2nd Anarchist Studies Network Conference:
?Making Connections?
Loughborough University, U.K.
3-5 September 2012
We live in interesting times. The Arab Spring, Occupy X and anti-austerity
protests are only the latest and most visible examples in a long tradition
of grassroots social movements in which ordinary people create democratic
alternatives to hierarchy and inequality. Here and everywhere, people are
getting together and making connections between their own everyday
experiences and wider patterns of relationships and power, official and
unofficial. They (or we) are making connections with each other, personal
and political. New patterns evolve as people experiment with different ways
of organising, of relating, of connecting, of thinking. Scholars, artists
and activists observe, theorise and participate in various ways, helping to
make connections, both in social movements and in the movements of everyday
life. Feminists, in particular, have foregrounded intersectional approaches
to power, privilege and oppression. Race, class and gender; sexuality,
ecology and (dis)ability; age, species and faith — each of these and more
interconnect in numerous ways, both subtle and overt.
The Anarchist Studies Network (http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/) is
hosting a conference to acknowledge, celebrate and deepen these diverse
efforts to understand and transform our world, our lives. We want this
conference itself to be a space for making connections, both intellectual
and personal. It will include a blend of more or less traditional panels,
participatory discussions and experiential workshops, extended breaks and
social events. *This first call is an invitation to propose thematic
streams, workshops or panel topics by those who are willing to take a role
in organising them.* Further calls will invite papers, participation,
performance. We’re particularly keen to make connections across borders of
identities, movements, disciplines and practices. We invite contributions
from students, academics and unaffiliated researchers, activists and
artists, health practitioners and care workers, trade unionists, community
organisers and those without labels. Above all, we would like to nurture a
convivial atmosphere in which to make connections with others, explore
areas of both overlap and difference, create or simply meet, to learn and
to share.
Our intention is for this to be a scholarly conference with a difference.
Scholar means both student and teacher. By bringing together a diverse
group of participants, who share in common a desire to learn and a
commitment to acknowledging and creating alternatives to rigid hierarchies
and exploitative relationships, we hope that each of us will have something
to offer others and much to learn. The process of organising the conference
is decentralised, with the conference initiators welcoming proposals from a
diverse range of session organisers covering a wide variety of engaged and
engaging topics. We also invite session organisers to consider playful,
participatory and/or experimental panel and workshop formats. This might
range from a traditional three paper panel followed by a discussion using
alternative facilitation techniques (e.g., open space technology, fishbowl,
or sitting in a circle with a facilitator) to more interactive
workshop-style discussion or experiential sessions. Our intention is not to
be transgressive for the sake of it, but to encourage a variety of methods
in order to facilitate making connections.
If you’re interested in organising a stream or a session but are new to the
role, feel free to contact us for advice about what this is likely to
involve (you can also see how the 1st Anarchist Studies Network Conference
in September 2008 was organised by linking to the following web page, where
thematic streams and their organisers are indicated in bold print:
http://www.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/documents/Final%20Schedule.pdf).
Likewise, if you’d like to do something a bit playful or different, but are
not sure how or just need a little advice, please get in touch. Finally, if
you are keen to be involved in a session, but not wanting to take on the
responsibility of organising one, let us know and we’ll see if we can match
you up.
Topics we’d love to see explored include:
* Occupy X
* Race & Radical Politics
* The Arab Spring
* Anarchism & Feminism
* Embodiment & Practices of Freedom
* Anarchist/Queer
* Alternatives to Capitalism
* Direct Democracy in Action
* Revolutionary Theory and Practice
* Science, Technology and Ecology
* Non-Western Anarchisms
* Anarchism and Utopianism
* Class-Struggle Politics and Anarcho-Syndicalism
* Anarchist History
* Anarchism & Religion
* Post-anarchism
* Anarchy and Education
* Politics & Emotion
* Art, Literature & Social Transformation
* (Dis)ability
* Nurturing Autonomy
* Zapatismo, Via Campesina
* Borders, Walls & Fences
* Spaces of Resistance
And others we’ve not yet thought of. We welcome surprises. Please send your
proposals (no more than 500 words) by 31st January 2012 to Alexandre
Christoyannopoulos <a.christoyannopoulos@gmail.com> and Ruth Kinna <
R.E.Kinna@lboro.ac.uk>.
With warm regards,
Conference Initiators
Matthew Adams, Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Laurence Davis, Ois?n Gilmore,
Jamie Heckert, Petar Jandric, Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard, Chris Rossdale &
Matt Wilson
Instructions for preparing Paper Proposals
All paper proposals should be submitted electronically via the
ONLINE PAPER PROPOSAL FORM
If you cannot submit your proposal via the Web site, please e-mail your abstract to the Conference secretariat at eauh2012@guarant.cz
Web submission is strongly encouraged. Regardless the method of submission, all paper proposals must be received by October 1, 2011.
Session Organizers will attempt to notify all authors by January 31, 2012.
Presenting authors must register and pay the registration fee for the meeting prior to April 30, 2012 or their presentation will be dropped from the programme.
Instruction for the submission of paper proposals
• The paper proposal must be submitted in English or French.
• The paper proposal title length should not exceed 150 characters in total.
• The paper proposal length should not exceed 500 words in total.
• The paper proposal should be as informative as possible.
• Submitted paper proposals must be original. Paper proposals previously published or
presented at an international scientific meeting cannot be submitted.
• Fill in the submitting author’s name and e-mail address properly – these contact details will
serve for further correspondence with the author(s).
• The paper proposal will be accepted only submitted on-line. Airmailed or faxed abstracts
will not be accepted.
• Corrections of the submitted paper proposals can be made until October 1, 2011.
• If a paper is accepted, the submitting author of a paper proposal will automatically become
a presenting author.
• Presenting authors of accepted paper proposals must pay the registration fee by April 30,
2012, otherwise the presentation will be cancelled and substituted.
Reviewing and Paper Proposal Acceptance
The accepted paper proposals will be indicated on the conference website by February 10, 2012.
Paper proposal acceptance/rejection letters will be sent to authors no later than January 31, 2012.
The presenting author of a selected paper commits himself/herself to attend the Conference and present the paper in the session at the time decided upon by the Organising Committee.
From: Laurence Cox Laurence.Cox@nuim.ie<mailto:Laurence.Cox@nuim.ie>
Call for chapter submissions (edited book):
“The European social movement experience: rethinking ‘new social movements’, historicising the alterglobalisation movement and understanding the new wave of protest”
Laurence Cox, Cristina Flesher Fominaya
Co-chairs, European Social Movements research network
(Council for European Studies)
European social movements, and social movement theories, have rarely been taken on their own terms in the English-language literature, but rather as counterpoints to the American experience. While such comparisons have been fruitful in some ways, they have lacked a sense of history and culture and failed to take European social movement theory seriously on its own terms. This has been exacerbated by the failure of Anglophone social movement theorists to pay attention to the substantial literatures in languages such as French, German, Spanish or Italian.
This is particularly problematic because these same movements – from the European eruptions of 1968, east and west, through to the European marches of the unemployed, the roads protest movements or autonomist culture in the 1980s and 1990s – have been central to the construction of the “alterglobalisation movement”, which began with alliances between, for example, French ATTAC and Brazilian movement organisations, or between Italian social centre activists and the Zapatistas. Among other things, what is often missed is the extent to which key European movements represent a continuation of the “New Left” problematic – the experience of a mainly extra-institutional left movement culture in political contexts marked by the institutionalisation of a more moderate left.
This book sets out to take the European social movement experience seriously on its own terms, including (a) the European tradition of social movement theorising, particularly in its attempt to understand the development of movements from the 1960s onwards; (b) the extent to which European movements between 1968 and 1999 became precursor movements for the contemporary anti-globalisation movement; (c) the construction of the “movement of movements” within the European setting around a variety of themes; and (d) the new “M-15” mobilisations in Iceland, Greece, the UK, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.
Part 1. European Theory/European Movements
In part one of the book, we seek to trace significant developments in European theory that emerged in dialogue with and reflection on the social movement experiences from the 1960s onwards. Our overarching framework aims to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of European modes of theorizing about social movements. We want to recognize the important contribution of “New Social Movement” theory, often used as shorthand to express the “European” contribution, but typically caricatured rather than set in context. We also want to highlight other European modes of theorising social movements which have not been recognised within the “canonical” histories of social movement theory as received in the English-speaking world.
We understand that important developments in European social theory, and not just European social movement theory, emerge from the immersion of intellectuals in specific movement milieus, and their exposure and engagement with modes of thought that are themselves products of diverse movements, not only in Europe but around the world. So, for example, developments in French, Italian, and British feminist theory are inextricably bound up with specific movement experiences in these countries, and have marked national differences, but also share influences drawn from movements elsewhere, including the U.S. Intellectuals such as Marcuse were influenced not only by developments in West German anti-authoritarian politics of the 1960s but also by the Free Speech Movement in California, for example. Foucault, Bourdieu, Touraine and others were deeply influenced by their participation in social movements, whether 1968, anti-colonial movements or the struggles of the 1970s. At the same time, we want to reflect on the influence of theory on European social movements ,and the role played by theorists active within movements and little recognised by the academy.
Finally, we would like to reflect on whether there is still a distinctive European mode (or modes) of theorising social movements, and if so, what its contribution is to understanding the movements of today.
For chapters focussing on the European social movement experience between the 1960s and 1990s and its theoretical reflections, we are looking for responses to questions such as:
– What is the actual historical matrix of “new social movement” discussions, and how can we relate the development of theory to the development of politics within different European movements and political parties?
– How have social movements affected the development of European social theory, and how have debates within social and political theory played out within European social movements?
– How do European and American (or Anglophone) modes of theorising inform or misunderstand each other?
– What remains significant or vital in contemporary European theorising around social movements? What are the relationships between social theory linked to movements (e.g. autonomism) and theories of movements with broader implications (e.g. identities)?
Part 2. European Precursors to the Global Justice Movement
Contrary to some narratives, the alterglobalization movement did not just erupt into the world spontaneously in Seattle in 1999. In fact, the roots of the global justice movement can be found in a diverse range of movements around the world. European social movements played a major role, from the British anti-roads movement which developed into a broader anti-capitalist movement, via autonomous movements in Italy and Spain which developed contacts with Zapatistas in Mexico and then incorporated that influence into their own unique forms of practice and thought, to movement networking processes around projects like the European marches of the unemployed or debt campaigning.
In this part of the book, we want to explore specific European precursor movements that influenced and formed an integral part of the global “movement of movements”. For chapters tackling specific precursor movements, we are looking for chapters which do not simply analyse the precursor movement on its own terms but also explicitly explore the ways in which these movements influenced and were influenced by the global justice movement and how they changed during the course of these encounters. We also want to reflect on the current legacy of the alterglobalisation movement on European social movements active today.
Specifically, we would like chapters in this section to address such questions as:
– What did this movement bring to the global justice movement and how did it change in the course of the encounter?
– How can we understand the global exchanges of influences in the European context? How does this movement draw on movements outside Europe, and what does it contribute to the development of the global “movement of movements”, in terms of ideas, tactics, strategies, language etc.?
– To what extent did this “global turn” in European movements represent an attempt to break out of increasingly hostile national and European political contexts, and how successful was it in constraining political developments or shaping counter-power around processes such as the intensification of neo-liberalism, the EU construction process, or military intervention in the global South?
– Retrospectively – after the 2001 Genoa events, “9/11”, the anti-war protests of 2003 and other significant moments up to the turn to recession, what aspects of the “movement of movements” are still active either as contribution or as movement? Do current protests against austerity politics represent a continuation of this process or a new departure?
Part 3. Culture and identity in the construction of the European “movement of movements”
European theory has long drawn our attention to cultural and identity processes. In the third section of the book we want to explore the actual process of construction of the alter- globalization movement, with a specific focus on the creation of a shared collective identity that transcended national, regional and movement specific identities, and on cultural analysis of social movement construction in Europe. Attention to the role of emotions in the process of movement construction is also welcome.
For the section on the construction of the alter-globalisation movement, we are looking for chapters which discuss such questions as:
– How was a shared movement identity constructed and contested – regionally, nationally, within Europe? To what extent was this shared identity successfully constructed, and what were the actual consequences and problems encountered?
– How far can we say that this does represent a new movement identity, and how far is it simply a new alliance of already-institutionalised movements in Europe or within individual states?
– To what extent do the different tendencies within the European movement – be it political traditions such as autonomism, movement organisations such as ATTAC, cultural milieux such as those around social centres, etc., constitute them as trans-European movement identities?
-How can specific attention to cultural processes, broadly understood, help us understand the dynamics of anti-globalization movement construction in Europe?
Part 4. Understanding the new “European Spring”
It is as yet very early to say anything substantive about the new wave of protests across Europe; but clearly, coming as they do in response to austerity policies which are geared towards reasserting neo-liberal policies as a way out of economic crisis, they strike at the heart of major European power structures. Some protests may seem like a continuation of familiar themes already present in the anti-capitalist globalization movement; others appear to represent the mobilisation of citizens who have previously remained politically passive, or the development of new social movement alliances.
In a concluding section to the book we are looking for chapters which discuss topics such as:
– How far do the current wave of protests continue previous movement practices and alliances, and how far do they represent genuinely new developments?
– How can the differences between mobilisation in different countries be explained: why is Ireland passive and Portugal active, for example; or why have British protests remained isolated and Spanish ones involved previously passive sectors of the population?
– How significant are international linkages and inspirations, both between these different countries and the inspiration from the “Arab Spring?”
– What do the responses from political parties, NGOs, trade unions, media and police tell us about the role of social movements in times of crisis vis-?-vis more established political actors?
Submission details
We are looking for proposals (to laurence.cox@nuim.ie) in the following form:
Abstract (250 words)
Authors (department and institution)
Contact email
The editors will make provisional offers based on the submission of abstracts. Final offers will be subject to an assessment of the actual drafts of chapters. Decisions will be made based on academic merit and the degree to which the chapter addresses the central themes of the book and forms part of a coherent overall narrative. The editors welcome queries and expressions of interest.
Deadline for proposals: September 1st 2011
Deadline for completed draft if accepted: January 1st 2012
Envisaged date of publication: Autumn 2012
We expect to publish this book with a first-rate academic publisher.
About the editors and the European Social Movements research network
Dr. Laurence Cox is lecturer in sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, where he co-directs the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism and runs a PhD research programme of participatory action research in social movement practice. He is co-editor of the multilingual social movements journal Interface and is an editorial advisor and / or referee for numerous other journals. He has published widely on the alterglobalisation movement, social movements and culture, activist sustainability, working-class community organising, Marxist theories of social movement, research methodology and new religious movements. His work has appeared in Rethinking Marxism, Ecopolitics online, Irish Journal of Sociology, Sociological Compass, Emotion, Space and Society, Journal of Global Buddhism, Contemporary Buddhism and numerous edited collections. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Marxism and social movements and the 2011 Ireland’s new religious movements. Trained in European Studies, he has lived in Norway, France, Germany and Italy and has been active in transnational movement networks since the 1980s.
Dr. Cristina Flesher Fominaya is lecturer in sociology at the University of Aberdeen, where she directs the MSc in Sociology programme. She has an MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA summa cum laude in International Relations from the University of Minnesota. She has won numerous international scholarships and prizes including the National Science Foundation Fellowship, the German Marshall Fellowship and the Leo Lowenthal Prize for Outstanding Paper in Culture and Critical Theory awarded by the University of California, Berkeley. She was Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science in the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a visiting scholar at Georgetown University before joining the Department of Sociology in Aberdeen in 2009. She has been researching and participating in European social movements since the early 1990s. Her work has been published in Contemporary Social Science, Sociological Inquiry, Sociology Compass, International Review of Social History, South European Society and Politics, Mediterr?neo Econ?mico, and International Feminist Journal of Politics and several edited collections. She is co-founder and co-editor of Interface: a journal for and about social movements and is a member of the Editorial Board of Sociological Research Online.
Drs Flesher Fominaya and Cox are co-chairs of the European Social Movements research network at the Council for European Studies, launched in June 2011. Dedicated to the study of social movements in Europe, the network aims to develop collaborative work, create space for joint projects, and support the contribution of scholarship to processes of active citizenship. The network already includes well over 100 scholars at all levels of experience, based in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the US. Their disciplines include adult education, anthropology, communication, cultural studies, development studies, gender studies, geography, history, international relations, journalism, labour studies, law, mathematics, media studies, planning and urbanistics, political science, social policy and sociology. The range of movements being studied and research approaches listed in the members’ research directory is too wide to detail easily. For further information on how to join the network see http://www.councilforeuropeanstudies.org/Calls/SocialMovementsCall.pdf.
> The Institute for Anarchist Studies [1] essay length grant application > deadline is coming up on September 1st! Please e-mail > info@anarchiststudies.org [2] for an > application if you're interested! The Institute for Anarchist Studies > awards an annual total of $4,000 in grants to writers and translators of > essay-length works. Grant awards range from $250 to $1,000. Essay-length > work is considered to be approximately 20 to 50 pages (10,000 to 25,000 > words). Completed essays will be considered for publication in the IAS > online journal Perspectives on Anarchist Theory [3], or as part of a > forthcoming small book series in collaboration with AK Press. Grant > recipients will be expected to complete their project within six months of > receiving the award (usually August 30 or March 31 of a given year). > > Application deadlines are February 1st and September 1st of each year. > These deadlines are firm, and applications received after these deadlines > will be considered in the next cycle of grants. Awards are made in February > and July, and replies will be mailed to all applicants within six weeks > after the deadlines. > For more on the application process, see the FAQ (frequently asked > questions) [4] section on the IAS Web site. We strongly encourage all > applicants to complete the application form online. If you are unable to > apply online, please write us to request a paper copy of the application, or > download and print the application form. Requests and completed applications > should be mailed to: PO Box 15586, Washington, DC 20003 For the time being > applications can only be sent via e-mail. To request an application please > e-mail info@anarchist-studies.org [5].
Fifth Estate Online welcomes academic papers that match the aims and objectives of the journal as described on the About FEO page. Contributions must not have been previously published nor should they be in the process of being submitted for publication elsewhere. Two independent referees are chosen to review each academic paper.
Contributions should be written in clear, accessible and lively academic style. They should be an original contribution to their subject scholarship, compellingly argued and provide a coherently structured and methodologically rigorous analytical narrative.
Presentation and Style
Length of papers is normally between 6000-8000 words. Referencing system used is Harvard. Abstracts are required (maximum 150 words) with keywords underneath. All submissions should be in Word Document format.
Texts should be justified using single spacing. Large quotations should be separated and indented. All quotations must use single quotation marks (double for quotations within quotations). Endnotes and footnotes are not accepted. Bibliography should be extensive.
Bibliography Notes
The bibliography should adhere to the following style:
For Books:
Theobald, J. (2004) The Media and the Making of History, Ashgate: Aldershot.
For Edited Books:
Hardt, H. (1996) ‘British cultural studies and the return of the “critical” in American mass communications research: accommodation or radical change?’ in D. Morley and K-H Chen (eds) Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, Routledge: London, pp. 102-111.
For Journals:
Pan, Z., and G. M. Kosicki (1993) ‘Framing Analysis: An approach to news discourse’ in Political Communication, 10, 55-75.
Submissions should be sent as attachments to: editorial@fifth-estate-online.co.uk
http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/?page_id=11
Publication is subject to the approval of the editors.
Gdansk, Poland
15-16 March 2012
Organized by the Leon Kozminski University, Warsaw
What are the main features, determinants and consequences of economic opinions,
economic attitudes and economic culture in the broader current economic and
political context?
The last world financial crisis has caused a long and deep economic recession. While
it has affected various countries to various degrees and in somewhat different
manners, it is now more universally followed by governmental budgetary problems
and constrains, especially concerning social services and welfare. This new
economic situation has generated a discussion about strengthening governmental
control and the active involvement of state institutions in economic processes. Even
the most liberal (in European rather than American meaning) economists advocate
nowadays some more state interventionism and some limits to excessive free market.
However, there is surprisingly little systematic and generalized knowledge about
public opinions and attitudes in this respect as well as psychological well-being,
feeling of self-directness or helplessness and their consequences. Some countries
experience growing social protest, sometimes quite violent. While violent protests are
seldom universal, the growing and spreading dissatisfaction or disillusion may be very
dangerous for the legitimacy of economic and political system of free market
democracy as a whole.
This regional conference will focus on economic opinions and attitudes, especially
those concerning current problems related to different aspects of contradiction or
continuum between free market and state interventionism, in their relations to
changing economic and particularly living conditions on one hand and support for
socio-economic and political system as a whole on the other. We may also try to
reconstruct economic imagination or economic culture of the societies.
While dynamic and/or comparative papers are the most desired, cross-sectional
analyses and case studies will be welcomed as well.
We welcome abstracts related to the broad range of topics in this area, including:
– trust and distrust in economic institutions;
– etatist (interventionist) versus free market attitudes;
– liberalism, neo-liberalism, post-liberalism;
– objective and subjective living conditions;
– consumer sentiments and behavior;
– individual economic strategies;
– self-directness, self-confidence, helplessness;
just because everyone else does it 