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CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Critical Theory in Dark Times:
The Prospects for Liberation in the Shadow of the Radical Right
October 10-13, 2019
International Herbert Marcuse Society
Eighth Biennial Conference
University of California,
Santa Barbara, California, USA.
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A populism of the radical right is on the rise across the globe. What are the counter-strategies of the left? What role does critical theory play in the current context? Embedded in the critical theory of Herbert Marcuse is the promise that reason, with a proper critical orientation, can provide an emancipatory alternative to the deforming oppressions of a given order. But critical reason is occluded in a one-dimensional society, resulting in a society without meaningful alternatives.
Marcuse reminds us that a one-dimensional society with a “smooth, democratic unfreedom” is a society in which there is no fundamental opposition, or where opposition is absorbed and reified into the logic of the system itself. From openly nationalist/fascist/racist parties gaining powerin governments across the globe, to institutions manipulated by elites to widen inequalities of wealth and power, to ecological degradation and climate change, to debt traps as a result of uneven development, to mass incarceration and refugee detention policies, freedom becomes an increasingly abstract illusion under the guise of the “normally” functioning global economic system.
We seek papers that address the concerns, challenges, commonalities, and spaces for opposition in the current political context of one-dimensional neoliberal authoritarianism, as well as papers that engage the continued relevance of Herbert Marcuse's analyses/theoretical insights to critical theory. This includes, but is not limited to addressing questions such as:
● What is Marcuse’s influence today toward a Critical Theory from the Americas? How might we draw on his theoretical perspectives to interpret structural violence, as well as relations among race, class, and gender and the rise of right-wing populism on both American continents?
● As the crises and contradictions of neoliberalism expand, how does a Marcusean analysis sharpen the criticism or explain the rise of the radical right? What networks and/or apparatuses are sustaining authoritarianism(s)?
● Since one-dimensional societies absorb oppositional movements, what steps can we take to move towards a more multi-dimensional consciousness? In what ways are the Black radical tradition, youth, LGBTQ, labor, workers, and indigenous peoples at the forefront of fundamental resistance?
● What are the pathways for revolutionary and systemic change? What are the dialectics of resistance today?
● What role can or should forms of education, including higher education, play as and in forms of resistance?
● Can violence play a role as a means of support and resistance? For precipitating system change?
● How might we theorize an alternative to the "democratic" unfreedom of today that engages human rights?
● What are the implications for radical class or group consciousness in a time of rising right-wing populism? What role might it play? Is there potential for a populism of/on the left?
● How might Marcuse’s vision of radical socialism, a new social order committed to economic, racial and gender equality, sexual liberation, liberation of labor, preservation and restoration of nature, leisure, abundance and peace, inspire organizing today? What is the role of Marcusean aesthetic theory/praxis today?
● How do the culture industry and digital culture create new forms of propaganda and/or sites of resistance?
● What is the relationship between movements or organizing ideas such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MariellePresente, #MeToo, #EnoughisEnough, #EleNão and Refugees Welcome and the "new left”? What implications do these movements have for progressive politics?
● As basic liberal-democratic values and institutions break down or suffer crises of legitimacy, in what ways does a Marcusean critical theory reveal alternatives to the xenophobic nationalism of the radical right?
Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to ihms2019@gmail.com by May 1, 2019. Panel proposals and student abstracts are welcomed and encouraged.
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A NEW BOOK BY CHARLES REITZ
A timely addition to Henry Giroux’s Critical Interventions series, Ecology and Revolution is grounded in the Frankfurt School critical theory of Herbert Marcuse. Its task is to understand the economic architecture of wealth extraction that undergirds today’s intensifying inequalities of class, race, and gender, within a revolutionary ecological frame. Relying on newly discovered texts from the Frankfurt Marcuse Archive, this book builds theory and practice for an alternate world system. Ecology and radical political economy, as critical forms of systems analysis, show that an alternative world system is essential – both possible and feasible – despite political forces against it. Our rights to a commonwealth economy, politics, and culture reside in our commonworks as we express ourselves as artisans of the common good. It is in this context, that Charles Reitz develops a GreenCommonWealth Counter-Offensive, a strategy for revolutionary ecological liberation with core features of racial equality, women’s equality, liberation of labor, restoration of nature, leisure, abundance, and peace.
Reviews
Marcuse’s critical theory is as large as the world he was mapping. No one has navigated Marcuse’s oeuvre with greater care and precision than Charles Reitz, who is not only the most accomplished translator of Marcuse’s German works into English but also the most accessible teacher of Marcuse’s radical contributions to contemporary theory. Inspired by the persistence of the Great Refusal and by what Marcuse called "revolutionary ecological liberation," Reitz maintains the necessity of settling for nothing less than human freedom.
—Andrew T. Lamas, University of Pennsylvania
Charles Reitz is without question one of the most important interpreters of the work of Marcuse writing today, as well as one of the key contemporary philosophers of praxis. His most recent work only underscores this assessment. A brilliant and timely work!
—Peter McLaren, Chapman University
As we hurtle towards planetary destruction, Reitz provides a revolutionary alternative to global financial capitalism. Building upon the work of Marcuse and Marx, a GreenCommonWealth outlines how we can and must challenge structural oppression through a praxis oriented towards solidarity within a communal humanity.
—Sarah Surak, Salisbury University
About the Author
Charles Reitz is the author of Philosophy & Critical Pedagogy: Insurrection & Commonwealth (2016); editor of Crisis and Commonwealth: Marcuse, Marx, McLaren (2015); and author of Art, Alienation and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement with Herbert Marcuse (2000). He served for several years on the Board of Directors of the International Herbert Marcuse Society.
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The Marcuse Society welcomes your thoughts on our future direction as well as your participation in moving things forward.
If you have ideas or questions about the Marcuse Society, please do not hesitate to contact Arnold Farr <arnold.farr@uky.edu>, Sarah Surak <smsurak@salisbury.edu>, or Andy Lamas <ATLamas@sas.upenn.edu>.
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For archives of fascinating material on HERBERT MARCUSE, visit the website
curated by Prof. Harold Marcuse.
You are also invited to visit the MARCUSE SOCIETY website for past newsletters and more information.
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