Capitalism: Concept and Idea

As a counterpoint to the retreat of the concept of communism from history to ‘idea’, this conference will mark the 150th anniversary of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by asking the question of the meanings of ‘capital’ and ‘capitalism’ today as at once (explanatory structural-historical) concepts and (political) ideas.

In particular: What is the current standing of the different philosophical interpretations of Marx’s Capital? What light do they thrown on capitalism today? How have historical developments since Marx’s day changed the concept of capitalism? Has ‘neo-liberal’ capitalism rendered the concept of crisis redundant, for example? Is capitalism governable? Or is capital itself now the main form of governmentality? What is the precise character of Capital as a text – in terms of theory and in terms of literature? What does it mean to be ‘against capitalism’ today?

Speakers

Éric Alliez (CRMEP, Kingston University/University of Paris 8)
Cinzia Arruzza (New School for Social Research, NY)
Leigh Claire La Berge (CUNY)
Tithi Bhattachary (Purdue University)
Werner Bonefeld (University of York)
Boris Buden (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
Michael Heinrich (Prokla, Berlin)
Anselm Jappe (Academy of Fine Arts, Sassari)
John Kraniasukas (Birkbeck, University of London)
Elena Louisa Lange (University of Zurich)
Maurizio Lazzarato (Paris)
Jason W. Moore (Binghamton University, NY)
Antonio Negri (Paris)
Peter Osborne (CRMEP, Kingston University)
Judith Revel (University of Paris 10)
Gayatri C. Spivak (Columbia University, NY)
Keston Sutherland (University of Sussex)

Sessions

Capital and Capitalism 1: Value-form and Politics
Capital and Capitalism 2: Capital, Science and Ecology
Capital, Feminism and Social Reproduction
Capitalism and Freedom
Subjectivation and War (Marx and Foucault)
Poetics of Capital/Capital
Capital’s Destinerrance: Event and Task
Marxian Ontology, Today