2015 Conference

Below you can  find more information about the 2015 conference.

Fifth Annual Radical Democracy Conference
The New School for Social Research, New York City
April 10 and 11, 2015
Keynote: Michael Hardt
Professor of Literature and Italian Studies at Duke University

Paper and Paper Abstracts Deadline: January 25, 2015
Full Papers Deadline: March 1, 2015

[Watch Livestream of Conference Here]

The Department of Politics at the New School for Social Research is sponsoring the Fifth Annual Radical Democracy Conference – a graduate student conference with keynote speaker Michael Hardt (Professor of Literature and Italian Studies, Duke University). In light of the myriad of potentially transformative developments and challenges to the status quo around the world – emergence of Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, protests in Gezi, Ferguson, Hong Kong, etc. – now more than ever we seek to explore the meanings of radical democracy beyond its frequent confinement to the realm of political science and move toward an interdisciplinary praxis.

Building on the success of our previous conferences, this year we seek to include and specifically encourage abstracts that employ and explore de/postcolonial; anthropological; historical; aesthetic and visual; gender; and political economic as lenses for understanding radical democracy. In addition, we invite abstracts engaging with the work of theorists such as Arendt, Badiou, Balibar, Chakravarti, Castoriadis, Fanon, Hardt, Mouffe, Nancy, Negri, Rancière and Spivak, among others, as well as abstracts on any theme pertaining to the history, meaning, development, practical application or critique of radical democracy.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a short abstract (max. 400 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 January 25, 2015 to radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu. Full conference papers are due by March 1, 2015.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • De/postcolonial democratic struggles and thought
  • Positionalities of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, ethnicity
  • The body as the sphere of both the domination of the state and emancipation for the subject
  • Radical commons and democratic space
  • Palestine and the move toward statehood
  • Indigenous democratic movements
  • Ethnography and anthropology of radical democracy
  • Sub and post-national democratic practices
  • Historical and empirical studies of radical democracy
  • Activist and pre-figurative politics
  • Artivism and creative tactical media towards expansive politics
  • New media and public bodies in movement
  • Crowd sourced politics
  • Implications and influences of technology within radical movements