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9th Annual Radical Democracy Conference

The New School for Social Research, New York

Friday, April 10th - Saturday, April 11th, 2020

 

Call for Papers

“Radical Ecologies”

EXTENDED DEADLINE: February 15, 2020

The 9th annual Radical Democracy conference, sponsored by the Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research, will convene theorists and practitioners around the theme of Radical Ecologies. In the year that “climate strike” was named word of the year by Collins Dictionary, we seek to explore what opportunities for democratic resistance can be found in a multiplicity of ecologies. The conference will provide a platform for dialogue on the urgent question of our future in a post-climate change world. 

Against the backdrop of increasingly visible and devastating climate disasters, resurgent environmental movements are embracing divergent visions and methods of struggle to realize change. As such, it is timely to ask, What makes an ecology radical? A multitude of intersecting traditions have sought to answer this question. An eco-feminist might approach this through the lens of social reproduction. An eco-socialist might frame radical ecology in terms of a mode of production beyond capitalism that can sustain and replenish nature. Indigenous perspectives can draw on centuries of resistance to extractive colonial capitalism. The conference will consider how a radical ecological praxis can be pursued within this plurality of histories, cosmologies and schools of thought, and, crucially, examine what we can learn from the work of activists on the frontline today. We therefore call on both scholars and activists to engage in a fruitful dialogue on the still unsettled relationship between politics and the environment.

We seek abstracts and panel proposals that grapple with this issue across a broad range of perspectives and disciplines, including, but by no means limited to:

  • environmental social movements past, present and future;
  • indigenous, subaltern, decolonial and posthuman perspectives and strategies of resistance; 
  • the urgency of converging ecological crises, and strategic possibilities and limitations of confronting it within existing political systems;
  • the theoretical and ontological underpinnings of environmentalism in the global North, and critiques thereof;
  • networks of alliance across geographical space, disciplinary boundaries, and patterns and institutions of oppression;
  • materialist analyses of winners and losers in the clean energy transition and ecological sustainability movement;
  • questions of future(s) and intergenerational ethics;
  • meditations on the relations between aesthetics, activism, and the nonhuman.

The conference will take place over two days, the structure of which will include graduate-student panels, an indigenous activist-scholar roundtable, and a keynote address.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a one-page abstract (max. 300 words) that includes institutional affiliation, academic level and contact information. Complete panel proposals with up to four papers are strongly encouraged.

Please submit your paper or panel abstracts by the newly extended deadline February 15, 2020, to radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu. Selected participants will be notified March 1st, 2020. Full conference papers are due by April 5, 2020.

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9th Annual Radical Democracy Conference

The New School for Social Research, New York

Friday, April 10th - Saturday, April 11th, 2020

 

Call for Papers

“Radical Ecologies”

The 9th annual Radical Democracy conference, sponsored by the Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research, will convene theorists and practitioners around the theme of Radical Ecologies. In the year that “climate strike” was named word of the year by Collins Dictionary, we seek to explore what opportunities for democratic resistance can be found in a multiplicity of ecologies. The conference will provide a platform for dialogue on the urgent question of our future in a post-climate change world. 

Against the backdrop of increasingly visible and devastating climate disasters, resurgent environmental movements are embracing divergent visions and methods of struggle to realize change. As such, it is timely to ask, What makes an ecology radical? A multitude of intersecting traditions have sought to answer this question. An eco-feminist might approach this through the lens of social reproduction. An eco-socialist might frame radical ecology in terms of a mode of production beyond capitalism that can sustain and replenish nature. Indigenous perspectives can draw on centuries of resistance to extractive colonial capitalism. The conference will consider how a radical ecological praxis can be pursued within this plurality of histories, cosmologies and schools of thought, and, crucially, examine what we can learn from the work of activists on the frontline today. We therefore call on both scholars and activists to engage in a fruitful dialogue on the still unsettled relationship between politics and the environment.

We seek abstracts and panel proposals that grapple with this issue across a broad range of perspectives and disciplines, including, but by no means limited to:

  • environmental social movements past, present and future;
  • indigenous, subaltern, decolonial and posthuman perspectives and strategies of resistance; 
  • the urgency of converging ecological crises, and strategic possibilities and limitations of confronting it within existing political systems;
  • the theoretical and ontological underpinnings of environmentalism in the global North, and critiques thereof;
  • networks of alliance across geographical space, disciplinary boundaries, and patterns and institutions of oppression;
  • materialist analyses of winners and losers in the clean energy transition and ecological sustainability movement;
  • questions of future(s) and intergenerational ethics;
  • meditations on the relations between aesthetics, activism, and the nonhuman.

The conference will take place over two days, the structure of which will include graduate-student panels, an indigenous activist-scholar roundtable, and a keynote address.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a one-page abstract (max. 300 words) that includes institutional affiliation, academic level and contact information. Complete panel proposals with up to four papers are strongly encouraged.

Please submit your paper or panel abstracts by February 1, 2020, to radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu. Selected participants will be notified March 1st, 2020. Full conference papers are due by April 5, 2020.

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Friday, April 26

7 - 8 30 PM, Wolff Conference Room, 11th Floor
Opening Roundtable with Miriam Ticktin, Cinzia Arruzza, Nancy Fraser, and Kirsten Swinth, What is Feminist Politics?

8 30 PM, Wine and Cheese, Wolff Conference Room, 11th Floor

Saturday, April 27

8:30 - 9 AM, Breakfast and Registration, Room 1107

Panel 1: Discipline
 9 - 10 30 AM, Room 1107
Discussant: Orsolya Lehotai, NSSR

- Nichole Smith, George Washington University, #MeToo Behind Bars: Sexual Violence Against Incarcerated Women and Anti-Rape Activism
- Leyla Savloff, University of Washington, Potentials of Women-Led Spaces and The Imprint of Interdependence
- Hannah Voegele, Humboldt University of Berlin, Dennis Ohm, New School for Social Research, Reproduction and Revolutionary Practice. How the women’s strike re-imagines social Relations

Panel 2: Care
11 - 12 30 PM, Room 1107
Discussant: Setareh Shohadaei, NSSR

- Ana Sofía Rodríguez Everaert, Colegio de México, Madwomen vs women that care
- LaTerricka “Terri” Smith, University of Chicago, How We Get Free: Interrogating Black Queer Feminism in the 21st Century
- Friederike Beier, Free University of Berlin, The Appropriation of Feminist Knowledge through the Recognition of Social Reproduction

1 - 2 PM, Lunch, Wolff Conference Room, 11th Floor

Panel 3:  Dissidence
2 - 3 30 PM, Room 1107
Discussant: TBA, NSSR

- Onursal Erol,  University of Chicago, A Traditional Claim to Public Space: Women's Publics and Transgressive Practice in Istanbul
- Ana Clara Abrantes Simões, Joyce Karine de Sá Souza, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Kurdish women: radicality, des-institution, and an-archy in the Middle East
-  Elif Genc, New School for Social Research, Necroviolence vs. Necroresistance: The “Weaponization of Life” [and Death]

Panel 4:  Conception
4 - 5 30 PM, Room 1107
Discussant: Anastasia Kalk, NSSR

- Helen Galvin Ross, University of Chicago, Women’s Sphere and the State of Exception in Liberal Thought
-  Anika Thym, University of Basel, New School For Social Research, Hegemony self-critique as a central aspect of feminist coalition politics
- Adrià Porta Caballé, New School For Social Research, Populist Feminism or Feminist Populism?

6 PM - 8 PM, Keynote Lecture, Jack Halberstam, Columbia University, After Feminism, After Politics, Wolff Conference Room

“For so long we have proposed considering the politics of this or the politics of that – the politics of transgender, the politics of sex, the politics of performance, the politics of resistance – what if politics itself, as a concept and a framework is not the solution but the problem. In other words, what if this need to legitimate everything via the political as we currently understand politics (activities associated with governance) is part of the problem in that it leads only to certain kinds of projects — the propulsive projects that engage making, doing, being, building, becoming, knowing, declaring, proposing, dealing, moving and so on. At the same time, this definition of the political disallows other projects that involve unbuilding, unmaking and destitution and declares these to be violent and worthless. Using three examples of “exit routes” from this current formulation of politics and violence, I offer a new vision of unbuilding the world.”

8 PM, Closing Reception, Wolff Conference Room, 11th Floor

*All the events take place at 6 East 16th Street, New York, 10003


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8th Annual Radical Democracy Conference

The New School For Social Research, New York City,

April 26-27, 2019,

  

Call for Papers 

What Is Feminist Politics?

The Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research is sponsoring its 8th Annual graduate student conference on the concept, history, practices and implications of radical democracy. This year, we invite abstracts and panel proposals that deal with the questions of feminist and radical democratic theory. 

The last couple of years gave rise to new democratic movements. This new stage of grassroots democratic protests in countries such as US, Brazil, Argentina, Spain or Poland has been centered around feminist issues including sexual harassment, abortion law, domestic violence, and gender inequality. The Women’s March against Trump and International Women’s Strike present only two examples of the recent and global feminist wave. Why does the current wave of political mobilization in the US, Argentina, or Brazil have a feminist face? How does it differ from earlier democratic movements, including the movements of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter? What distinguishes this new wave from other feminist struggles from the past? Finally, what issues, reactions, and obstacles do contemporary feminists face in various places around the world? Our conference aims to address this set of questions.

We welcome papers that engage with the concept of feminism and its meaning, discuss the role of feminist and gender issues within the democratic tradition, as well   as elaborate on the history of feminist politics. We particularly invite papers that propose a critical analysis of contemporary feminisms, elucidating their issues,  dangers, and political potential. Proposals should not be limited to this list, on the contrary, we encourage interdisciplinary papers and panels utilizing or critiquing the concepts of feminism and radical democracy from the point of view of post- anti- or de-colonialism, queer theory, indigenous studies, disability studies, or critical race theory.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a one-page abstract (max. 300 words) that includes institutional affiliation, academic level and contact information. Complete panel proposals with up to four papers are strongly encouraged.

Please submit your paper or panel abstracts by March 8, 2019, to radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu. Selected participants will be notified mid-March. Full conference papers are due by April 15, 2019.

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Call for Papers Extended Deadline

Seventh Annual Radical Democracy Conference

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The New School for Social Research

New York City

April 27-28, 2018

Keynote: Martin Breaugh (York University)

The Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research is sponsoring its 7th Annual graduate student conference on the concept, history, practices and implications of radical democracy.

If the preconditions for the rise of the far-right, xenophobia, white supremacy, ethno-nationalism, right-wing populism, religious fundamentalism and fascism can be found within liberal democracy and neo-liberalism, laying bare the violent foundations of the liberal democratic project, then what hope can theories of radical democracy offer toward re-founding society on democratic principles? How have the rise of social movements such as Occupy, the Arab Spring, Rojava, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, 15M, AntiFa, and the emergence of left alternatives such as Podemos, MAS and Syriza both exposed the contradictions of institutionalism, capitalism, rule of law, deliberation and other aspects of liberal democracy, and also illuminated the need for radical democratic alternatives? How can we draw inspiration from movements of resistance and networks of solidarity from those being organized inside prisons and detention centers to those occurring from Ferguson to Palestine? How can radical democratic theories help us to (re)imagine strategies of resistance and beyond, opening up new prospects of what is to be done? ...continue reading →

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CALL FOR PAPERS

The New School for Social Research's Seventh Annual Radical Democracy Conference: 

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?  

New York City, April 27-28, 2018.

Keynote speaker: Professor Martin Breaugh (York University)

Deadline for abstract submission: February 15, 2018

The Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research is sponsoring its 7th Annual graduate student conference on the concept, history, practices and implications of radical democracy.

If the preconditions for the rise of the far-right, xenophobia, white supremacy, ethno-nationalism, right-wing populism, religious fundamentalism and fascism can be found within liberal democracy and neo-liberalism, laying bare the violent foundations of the liberal democratic project, then what hope can theories of radical democracy offer toward re-founding society on democratic principles? How have the rise of social movements such as Occupy, the Arab Spring, Rojava, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, 15M, AntiFa, and the emergence of left alternatives such as Podemos, MAS and Syriza both exposed the contradictions of institutionalism, capitalism, rule of law, deliberation and other aspects of liberal democracy, and also illuminated the need for radical democratic alternatives? How can we draw inspiration from movements of resistance and networks of solidarity from those being organized inside prisons and detention centers to those occurring from Ferguson to Palestine? How can radical democratic theories help us to (re)imagine strategies of resistance and beyond, opening up new prospects of what is to be done? ...continue reading →

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Hello RD friends!

Due to the various complications of conference planning, we were not able to pull off the Sixth Annual RD Conference in 2016 as originally planned, so we decided to push it back a bit to the spring of 2017. The CFP is now out, so please consider submitting something for this year's conference. We look forward to seeing all of you in New York City in May of 2017!