This Conjuncture: The exhaustion of Merkelism

Online event 27/09/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: The exhaustion of Merkelism

with Moritz Ege, Alexander Gallas

Monday 27 September 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM BST

Online event

Angela Merkel stands down as German Chancellor this autumn after 16 years in the role, but will Merkelism – the mode of crisis management that has dominated since the mid-2000s – continue to inform German politics? Fresh from the polls, join Moritz Ege and Alexander Gallas to discuss the legacies of Merkelism and the nation’s cultural-political future.

Speakers:

Moritz Ege is Professor of Cultural Studies and Popular Cultures at the University of Zurich. Moritz is the co-editor of two books: Against the Elites! The Cultural Politics of Anti-Elitism (with Johannes Springer, forthcoming) and Urban Ethics (with Johannes Moser, 2021).

Alexander Gallas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Kassel, and one of the editors of the Global Labour Journal. He is the author of The Thatcherite Offensive: A Neo-Poulantzasian Analysis (2015). Moritz and Alexander are the co-authors of The exhaustion of Merkelism: a conjunctural analysis, published as part of This Conjuncture.

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This Conjuncture: After Brexit, Corbyn and Covid

Online Event 04/10/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: After Brexit, Corbyn and Covid

with Anthony Barnett, Ellie Mae O’Hagan, and Scott McCracken

Monday 4 October 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM BST

Online event

The Covid-19 pandemic is the most recent in a series of extraordinary events that have opened up questions about the conjuncture in which we are living in the UK and the kind of political threats and opportunities it poses. Join Anthony Barnett, Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Scott McCracken to unpick the power relations and thematics at work in our current moment, from Brexit and the ascent of nationalist populism, to the devastating experience of defeat in the 2019 general election, to the implications of the pandemic for the radical left.

Speakers:

Anthony Barnett is a writer and campaigner, and the founding Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy. Anthony is the author of a series of books on the British state, most recently The Lure of Greatness: England’s Brexit and America’s Trump (2017).

Ellie Mae O’Hagan is an editor at OpenDemocracy and a freelance journalist writing mainly for the Guardian.

Scott McCracken is Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature at Queen Mary, University of London and a member of the editorial board of New Formations. He is currently working on a monograph which rethinks the twentieth century from the perspective of political defeat. Scott’s article ‘“The old prejudices wax, the old interests play, the old neuroses govern”’: defeat and the conjuncture’ was published as a contribution to This Conjuncture.

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This Conjuncture: The environmental conjuncture

Online Event 11/10/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: The environmental conjuncture

with Ashley Dawson, Ben Highmore and Kate Soper

Monday 11 October 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM BST

Online event

The planetary scale of global heating and climate breakdown calls for forms of analysis that extend beyond national politics and culture. Join Ashley Dawson, Ben Highmore and Kate Soper to discuss the role of conjunctural analysis in environmental thinking, the prospects for a Green New Deal, and the resources we can draw on to rethink post-growth living

Speakers:

Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Centre, and at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Ashley is the author of People’s Power (2020), Extreme Cities (2017) and Extinction (2016).

Ben Highmore is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex and a member of the editorial board of New Formations. His books include Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday (2010), Culture (2016), and Cultural Feelings: Mood, Mediation, and Cultural Politics (2017). Ben’s article ‘Disjunctive constellations: on climate change, conjunctures and cultural studies’ was published as part of This Conjuncture.

Kate Soper is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at London Metropolitan University and a Visiting Professor at University of Brighton. Kate is the author of an extensive body of work on environmental philosophy, consumption, and cultural theory, most recently Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism (2020).

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This Conjuncture: Racial capitalism

Online Event 18/10/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: Racial capitalism

with Gargi Bhattacharyya and Anamik Saha

Monday 18 October 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM BST

Online event

Since its coinage by Cedric Robinson in 1983, the concept of racial capitalism has focused attention on the complex relationships between capital, class, racism, and global inequality. Join Gargi Bhattacharyya and Anamik Saha to unpick racial capitalism in the moment of Black Lives Matter.

Speakers:

Gargi Bhattacharyya is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London. She is the author of Rethinking Racial Capitalism (2018) and Crisis, Austerity and Everyday Life (2015).

Anamik Saha is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Race, Culture and Media (2021) and Race and the Cultural Industries (2017).

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This Conjuncture: Patriarchy in the digital conjuncture

Online Event 25/10/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: Patriarchy in the digital conjuncture

Monday 25 October 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM BST

Online event

Digital platforms create new opportunities to express misogyny in increasingly extreme ways, intersect with the structures of patriarchy sustained in everyday life. In the form of misogynistic ‘rationalism’, these ideas also permeate the culture of Silicon Valley. Join Sarah Banet-Weiser, Ben Little and Alison Winch to discuss networked misogyny and male victimhood in the context of the growing power and influence of digital platforms.

Speakers:

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Distinguished Professor of Communication and Director of the Annenberg Centre for Collaborative Communication. Her books include Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018).

Ben Little is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Politics at the University of East Anglia. He is the co-author of The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism (2021) and Russell Brand: Comedy, Celebrity and Politics (2016, with Jane Arthurs).

Alison Winch is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of East Anglia. Her books include The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism (2021) and Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood (2013). Alison and Ben are the authors of ‘Patriarchy in the digital conjuncture – an analysis of Google’s James Damore’, which was published as part of This Conjuncture.

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This Conjuncture: Perspectives from Mexico

Online Event 01/11/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: Perspectives from Mexico

with Gabriela Méndez Cota and Benjamín Arditi

Monday 1 November 2021
6:30PM – 8:00PM GMT

Online event

The electoral success of Mexico’s leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the MORENA coalition has given rise to both optimism and concern. While aspects of the agenda have proved transformative, Obrador is seen to have mishandled the pandemic and action on climate breakdown has been inadequate. Join Gabriela Méndez Cota and Benjamín Arditi for an assessment of recent political mobilizations in Mexico, drawing on conjunctural analysis and continental political thought.

Speakers:

Gabriela Méndez Cota is Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México. She is the author of Disrupting Maize: Food, Biotechnology and Nationalism in Contemporary Mexico (2016). Gabriela’s article ‘Policing the environmental conjuncture: structural violence in Mexico and the National Assembly of the Environmentally Affected’ was published as a contribution to This Conjuncture.

Benjamín Arditi is Professor of Political Theory at the National University of Mexico. Amongst other works, he is the author of Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference, Populism, Revolution, Agitation (2012).

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This Conjuncture: Woke Capitalism

Online Event 08/11/2021, 6:30pm

This Conjuncture: Woke Capitalism

with Rosalind Gill, Akane Kanai, and Francesca Sobande

Monday 8 November 2021
7:30PM – 9:00PM GMT

Online event

Corporate ‘wokeness’ puts positive messages deriving from radical politics to work in the interests of consumer capitalism. Join Rosalind Gill, Akane Kanai, and Francesca Sobande, who will develop an analysis of ‘woke capitalism’ beyond the reductive charge of selling out.

Speakers:

Rosalind Gill is Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at City, University of London. She is the author, co-author or editor of many books and articles, including Gender and the Media (2015) and Creative Hubs in Question: Place, Space and Work in the Creative Economy (2019, co-edited with Andy Pratt and Tarek Virani).

Akane Kanai is Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Monash University. She is the author of Gender and Relatability in Digital Culture: Managing Affect, Intimacy and Value (2018). Ros and Akane’s article ‘Woke? Affect, neoliberalism, marginalised identities and consumer culture’ was published as a contribution to This Conjuncture.

Francesca Sobande is Lecturer in Digital Media Studies at Cardiff University. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (2020) and co-editor, with Akwugo Emejulu, of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (2019).