Extracting the Resources of History

Keynote Speakers: Susan Buck-Morss, Christopher Pavsek, and Kristin Ross

10-12 March 2016 at the University of Florida

Last year, the Marxist Reading Group asked participants to engage with the resurgence of revolutionary "enthusiasm" following the events of 2011—from Arab Spring to Madison, Occupy, and beyond. While the present continues to be an exciting moment for radical possibility, this year the MRG would like to invite scholars to explore new ways of imagining, writing, and doing history—not despite the revolutionary potential of the present moment, but because of it. Following Kristin Ross's distinction, we want to explore ways of actively engaging with the past, not as a set of lessons to be learned, but rather as a resource for the present and our own emancipatory struggles.

Given that rethinking the intersections between Marxism and history can clarify and strengthen our political struggles in the present, how can we do partisan historiographies? In what ways do these historiographies inform our study of literature, film, graphic narratives and new media? Finally, how can we use history to help create a better future?

Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:

Adaptation/Appropriation/Transmediation
Afterlives
Anthropocene
Archives
Developmentalism
Future History
Globalization
Literature/Culture and History
(Post) Apocalypse/Dystopia
Posthumanism/History of Bodies
Periodization
Protests/Political Movements/Events/Manifestos
Remix/Recycling
Subaltern Studies
Trauma/Memory/Psychoanalysis
Utopia

While we especially encourage proposals addressing this year's theme, we will consider proposals addressing any topic related to Marxism.
Please submit a 250-word abstract with 4-5 keywords for a 20-minute presentation, along with contact information, to theufmrg@gmail.com by January 15, 2016. Please indicate any a/v requests (data projection and DVD player available). Also, please let us know if you have participated in past MRG conferences or if you are a UF-MRG alumnus. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by February 5, 2016. For questions concerning the conference, please contact us at theufmrg@gmail.com. For more information, visit our website: http://www.english.ufl.edu/mrg/.

Susan Buck-Morss is Distinguished Professor of Political Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her books include Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West and The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project.

Chrisopher Pavsek is Associate Professor of Film in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of The Utopia of Film: Cinema and its Futures in Godard, Kluge, and Tahimik.

Kristin Ross is Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University. Her books include Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune, May '68 and Its Afterlives, and Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture.