Prabhat Patnaik is a renowned Marxist economist and political writer, vice-chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board, and member of a four-person UN task force on the 2008 financial crisis. He taught economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi for over thirty years.
In October of 2007, mounting contention over the Central American Free Trade Agreement in Costa Rica culminated in a historic referendum, pitting the decentralized, grassroots movement of the “No” against a “SÍ” campaign supported by big businesses together with the Costa Rican and US governments. This panel will discuss the significance of CAFTA for Central America as well as the contention over the treaty’s ratification in Costa Rica. We will explore how this conflict over “free trade” contributed to the creation of new political subjectivities and forms of political participation, while raising fundamental questions about the meaning of democracy and popular sovereignty in the context of neoliberal globalization.
A collective of activist researchers from the European squatting movement are gathering in New York City. They will be at CUNY to meet with students and faculty and speak about the decades-old movements of squatting and building occupations in their respective countries. Generations of activists have participated in occupations of vacant buildings in Europe, beginning in the 1970s. With the worldwide rise of the Occupy movement, the deep reservoir of experience within the movements of political squatting have becomesuddenly significant. In two events at CUNY, these scholars and activists will share their methods for collective, participatory, interdisciplinary research and their knowledge of the history and present practices of squatting in Europe.
Saadia Toor’s The State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan tells the story of the Pakistani nation-state through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, in order to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the rise of militant Islam across the world. Costas Panayotakis’ Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy (The Future of World Capitalism), is a powerful challenge to the current economic orthodoxy. It asserts the core principle of economic democracy, that all human beings should have an equal say over the priorities of the economic system, as the ultimate solution to scarcity and ecological crisis. Join us as we celebrate both of their books!
In this paper, domestic violence is understood as everyday terrorism. The effect of terrorism rests on its ability to exert some control over everyday geographies. I focus on the ways in which emotions have been understood to play a role in this coercion, by reviewing ideas from medical, political and feminist science.
Join Jeffrey Ferguson (Black Studies and American Studies, Amherst College) and Uday Mehta (Political Science, The Graduate Center, CUNY) for a discussion about these two important figures and their shared principles and disagreements. Moderated by Sujatha Fernandes (Sociology, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY)
María, Lupe and Maura are three Latina immigrants struggling to survive in Los Angeles sweatshops. But one day, determined to win basic labor protections, they embark on a three-year odyssey that will transform their lives forever. Compelling, humorous, deeply human, Made in L.A. is a story about immigration, the power of unity, and the courage it takes to find your voice.
