PAST AND PRESENT.
Philosophy,
Politics, and History in the Thought of Gramsci
International Conference
18-19 June 2015
King’s College London
Speakers: Fabio Frosini (Urbino),
Alex Loftus (KCL), Peter Thomas (Brunel); including
contributions and chairing from: Carl Levy (Goldsmiths),
Magnus Ryner (KCL), Anne Showstack Sassoon (Birkbeck), Leila Simona Talani
(KCL), Cosimo Zene (SOAS).
The legacy of the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1937) has been widely acknowledged as one of the most significant
intellectual contributions of the twentieth century. Even as the historical
events of his life have faded from living memory, Gramsci’s thought has
increased in influence and become diffused amongst a multitude of disciplines
in the academic firmament; from philosophy to history and geography, through
cultural theory and subaltern studies, to international relations, linguistics,
critical legal studies and beyond.
In light of the widespread and heterogeneous
deployments of his ideas, it seems apt and necessary to return to the texts
themselves: Gramsci’s pre-prison and his prison writings, both the Prison Notebooks and the Letters from Prison. The aim of this
conference is to bring together a new generation of scholars working on
Gramscian themes in order to engage closely with his writings.
Working in collaboration with experienced Gramsci
scholars, this conference is the first initiative of a group of early-career
researchers and graduate students. Through a combination of panels and
workshops, the conference will provide participants with the opportunity to
present their work and to receive constructive feedback in a friendly and
stimulating environment.
The two-day international conference also aims to contribute
to the process of building links between Anglophone and international, in
particular Italian, Gramsci scholarship. The organizers hope to create a
network through which to share research and encourage interactions between researchers
from different countries working on Gramscian thought and related topics. It is
proposed that an edited collection of essays will be published as a product of
the conference and further engagements.
Gramsci’s perspective is marked by a profound
sense of the manifold connections between the explanation of the past and the
analysis of the present. Our intention is collectively to investigate the rich
potentialities of the theme ‘Past and Present’ in his thought. Participants are
invited to explore the conceptual laboratory of Gramsci’s historical-political
narration, as well as his endeavour to theorize the unity of theory and
practice. This nexus between ‘explication’ of the past and strategic ‘analysis’
of the present is characteristic of the originality of Gramsci’s approach to
the ‘question of theory’. More broadly, the conference aspires to study the way
in which Gramsci’s historical perspective intermingles with his engaged concern
for the future of a ‘big and terrible’ world, in the sense that might today be
called ‘global history’.
Gramsci’s ability to dialectically unite
seemingly opposed elements (i.e. civil society and the state, structure and superstructure,
the spatial elements of historicism, or vice
versa the multiple temporalities going across the political space)
illuminates the capacity of his thought to stimulate critical renewals in
various domains of thought. Further investigation of this critical project
reveals the aspect of ‘reciprocal translatability’ that Gramsci identifies
between different facets of the knowledge of reality as ‘philosophy’, ‘politics’ and
‘economics’. The conference aims to explore the ongoing elaboration of this
‘homogeneous circle’ (Notebook 4, § 46), that is, the constitution of Gramsci’s
conception of the world and its relation to history, understood as a unitary
and dynamic process.
Consequently, we encourage paper proposals
that analyze Gramsci’s thought (either the prison or his pre-prison writings) from political,
philosophical, economic, and historical points of view, whilst evoking the
connections between these different dimensions. Inter-disciplinary papers that
focus on the reappraisal of Gramscian concepts in the contemporary world
(within cultural theory, post-colonial studies, International Relations,
geography, history of science, etc.) are also welcome.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: the
Marxian legacy and the philosophy of praxis; Gramsci and global history: the
‘integral historian’; the Gramscian analysis of modernity: crisis, hegemony and
passive revolution; the Party and the role of the traditional and organic
intellectuals; Gramsci and pragmatism: language, truth, ideology;
Anti-economism and Gramsci’s critical economy; Gramscian cultural writings;
Centre and periphery; From ‘subaltern social groups’ to global subalternity.
Speakers will have to
cover their trip and accommodation expenses.
Abstracts
of no more than 400 words should be sent by Friday 23rd January 2015 to: gramsciconference2015@gmail.com
Supported
by:
-
Department of European Studies, King’s College London
-
Department of Geography, King’s College London
-
International Gramsci Society
-
International Gramsci Society - Italia
-
Ghilarza
Summer School – Scuola internazionale di studi gramsciani
Organizing
committee:
Francesca Antonini (Università di Pavia, Italy)
Aaron Bernstein (King’s College London)
Lorenzo Fusaro (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
(UAM), Mexico)
Robert
Jackson (Manchester Metropolitan University)
For
further information, please contact gramsciconference2015@gmail.com.
http://gramsciconference2015.blogspot.co.uk/
"Speakers will have to cover their trip and accommodation expenses". I think it is so hard to afford such expenditures !??
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interest in the conference, Hisham. We agree, and the organising committee has been seeking sources of funding to support the participation of early career researchers. Unfortunately, we do not currently have the resources to do this, and are advising prospective participants to contact their home institutions about funding their travel costs.
DeleteO Sole Mio: American Fascismo
ReplyDeletePROLOGUE:
“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’” Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.
BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today. Whereas, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, in southern (Il Mezzogiorno) Italy.
Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray matter muscle. But there’s more. Yes, it gets worse.
To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite slab that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik--a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes these days-- mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment? Is that all you fucking got?”
If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier with a passion for revenge, that lunatic who kept a list of people who fucked with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.
Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”