11/16: Film Screening: Où est la démocratie? Where is democracy?

November 16, 2016
6:30-8 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre

Co-producers and directors Marisa Holmes and Bruno Giuliani will be present for a discussion following the screening.

In France a crisis of liberal democracy has been happening, revealing the violence of the state underneath. In February this year, under the context of a renewed state of emergency, the Socialist Party in power proposed a labor law reform that stripped workers of rights long taken for granted. In response, after a month of protests in the street, a wave of action led by the youth and the workers converged at Place de la République in Paris in an experiment in direct democracy. Où est la démocratie? (Where is democracy?) captures this moment of upheaval that aimed to “overthrow the labor bill and the world it represents”.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, Graduate Center, CUNY. It is free and open to the public.

11/9:  Words and Things: Raymond Williams, Late Capitalism, and Keywords for Radicals

November 9, 2016

6:30 – 8:30 pm

Sociology Lounge, Room 6112

The Center for Place, Culture and Politics, in Conversation with AK Thompson

In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976), pioneering cultural materialist Raymond Williams devised a method for revealing how language not only described but also helped to produce the world. By focusing on historical shifts in word usage and meaning and tracing the constellated vocabularies that gave each moment an appearance of stability, Williams revealed how our most intimate utterances could serve as guides to the contradictions at work within the social totality.

Forty years later, Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle was published with the aim of applying Williams’ method to the contests over word usage and meaning that have become so central to contemporary activist projects. In addition to its more particular focus on the radical milieu, however, Keywords for Radicals also had to contend with late capitalism’s shifting epistemology. How does one submit language to historical scrutiny, for instance, when history itself has become a conceptually indeterminate proposition?

In this public dialogue, Keywords for Radicals co-editor AK Thompson will review Williams’ method in light of the new terrain to highlight its enduring relevance while demonstrating how it might be modified to address the epistemological challenges posed by the cultural logic of late capitalism.

AK Thompson got kicked out of high school for publishing an underground newspaper called The Agitator and has been an activist, writer, and social theorist ever since. Currently teaching social theory at Fordham University, his publications include Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent (2010) and Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research (2006). Between 2005 and 2012, he served on the Editorial Committee of Upping The Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action.

11/1: In Defense of Housing: A book Launch and Political Discussion

November 1, 2016

6:30-8 pm

Room 6112

*this space seats 60 people. Guests will be allowed entry on a first come, first served basis.

Introduced by Gregory Baggett, presentations by authors Peter Marcuse and David Madden, comments by David Harvey and Hilary Botein. Moderated by Sam Stein.

Housing is one of the most pressing issues of our time. In their new book In Defense of Housing, Peter Marcuse and David Madden investigate the nature of the contemporary housing crisis and detail the need for progressive alternatives. The housing problem has deep political, social, and economic roots. It will not be solved by minor policy shifts; a more radical approach is needed. This event will use the book as a starting point for a discussion about the causes of the housing crisis and critical responses to it.

Speakers:

Gregory Baggett founded the New York Council for Housing Development Fund Companies (NYC HDFC) and is a housing consultant, specializing in limited equity cooperatives and low-income housing. He received his doctoral training in history at Columbia University and teaches at colleges in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Presently, he is completing a book entitled Heuristic Experiments in Low-Income Housing: The Housing Development Fund Company, 1966-2013. While conducting research for his book, he created the most extensive database relating HDFC cooperative and rental properties in New York City. His organization’s webpage is www.nychdfc.org[nychdfc.org].

Hilary Botein is Associate Professor at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Her research explores the factors that influence urban development, with special attention to the social politics of policies and programs underlying affordable housing and community development. She also is interested in how housing programs can meet the needs of vulnerable populations – and in how they fail. Prior to her academic career, she worked for eighteen years as an attorney and policy analyst on affordable housing and economic justice issues, primarily in New York City.

David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books, including Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and A Companion to Marx’s Capital. His website is davidharvey.org[davidharvey.org]

Samuel Stein is a PhD student in geography at the CUNY graduate center. His work has been published in Metropolitics, Jacobin Magazine, New Politics and many other journals and magazines, and his research on Chinatown was included in the book Zoned Out! Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City (Tom Angotti and Sylvia Morse, eds.).

David Madden is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. He has published academic articles in some of the leading urban studies journals, and is Editor at the journal CITY. He has also published reviews and commentary in outlets including the LSE Review of Books, Washington Post and the Guardian.

Peter Marcuse is Emeritus Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He has written extensively in English as well as German, in the US, the UK and various other European countries. His work has also appeared in newspaper and magazines such as the Nation, New York Newsday, Monthly Review, Shelterforce and many others.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, Graduate Center, CUNY, the New York Council for Housing Development Fund Companies (NYC HDFC), and Verso . It is free and open to the public.

OCT 28/29: THIRD ANNUAL PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION IN AFRICANA TRADITIONS CONFERENCE: RACE, RECONSTRUCTION, AND REPARATIONS

Friday, October 28, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Center for Place, Culture and Politics

The Graduate Center of The City University of New York

Rooms C201/C202

365 Fifth Avenue New York, New York

To watch the livestream of Friday’s segment, go to videostreaming.gc.cuny.edu and click on the link in the “Live Videos” box on the upper right hand side of the page. Click on this event.

Saturday, October 29, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM

Mayday Community Space

176 St. Nicholas Avenue Brooklyn, New York

This Third Annual Philosophy and Religion in Africana Traditions (PRAT) conference will explore the struggle for liberation of African descendant peoples as demonstrated through the instrumentalities of the philosophical and religious imaginations. Participants will discuss visions, visionaries, and the quest for personal, social, national and political transformation as demonstrated in the fight for emancipation, the Promises and Prospects of Reconstruction and the quest for Reparations. Topics under consideration include Race, Religion and Economics in 19th – 20th century discourse, Reconstruction and Economic Redistribution then and now, Reparations and National Identity, Black Lives Matter and the prospects of 21st Century Political and Cultural Revolutions.

PROGRAM

Friday, OCTOBER 28, 2016

9:00am ‐‐ 6:00pm

The Graduate Center of The City University of New York

Rooms C201/C202 365 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10016

MORNING SESSION 9:20am – 12:20am

9:20 – 9:50am

Greetings and Opening Statement: J. Everet Green – Mercy College Greetings: Mary Taylor – CUNY: The Graduate Center

9:50am – 11:00am

Reparations: The Annihilation of The African American Community

Speaker: Matthew Hutcherson, Ph.D. – Paine College

Chair: Sonia Vas Borges, Ph.D. Student – CUNY: The Graduate Center

11:05am – 12:15am

W.E.B. Du Bois, Reconstruction, and the Remaking of the Modern American State

Speaker: Elvira Basevich, Ph.D. Student – CUNY: The Graduate Center

Chair: Mathylde Frontus, Ph.D. – Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University

LUNCH 12:15pm – 1:20pm

AFTERNOON SESSION 1:25pm – 6:00pm

1:20pm – 1: 30pm

Greetings and Introduction: J. Everet Green – Mercy College

1:40pm – 2:40pm

Radical thought and Anti-slavery discourse

Speaker: Anwar Uhuru Ph.D. Student – Saint Johns University Chair: Julie Siestreen

2:45pm – 4:00pm

Hubert Harrison and the Founding of the Militant ‘New Negro Movement A Slide Presentation

Speaker: Jeffrey B. Perry, Ph.D. – Independent Scholar

Chair: Jameliah Shorter-Bourhanou, Ph.D. – Georgia College and State University

4:05pm – 4:45pm

The Missing Commonality of White Race Scholars’ Anti-racism Speaker: Blanche Radford Curry Ph.D. – Fayetteville State University Chair: Zay D. Green, M.A.

4:50pm – 5:50pm

The Meaning of Black Suffering in the Age of Obama Student Panel

Moderator: Brittany O’Neal, Ph.D. – Lehman College, CUNY

Saturday, OCTOBER 29

Mayday Community Space 176 St. Nicholas Street Brooklyn, NY 11237

**Please note that day 2 (Saturday) will NOT be held at the CUNY Graduate Center!

MORNING SESSION 9:30am – 12:10pm

9:35am – 9:45am

Welcome: J. Everet Green – Mercy College

9:50am – 10:55am

Universalism and White Supremacy

Speaker: Jameliah Shorter-Bourhanou, Ph.D. – Georgia College and State University Chair: Anwar Uhuru – Saint Johns University

11:00am – 12:10pm

Towards a Transformative Black Liberation Philosophy: Theological and Meta- Theological Considerations in William R. Jones’ Humanocentric Theism

Speaker: Brittany O’Neal, Ph.D. – Lehman College, CUNY

Chair: Sonia Vaz Borges Ph.D. Student – CUNY: The Graduate Center

LUNCH 12:15pm – 1:20pm

AFTERNOON SESSION 1:30pm – 5:30pm

1:30pm – 2:40pm

The Meaning of Black Suffering in the Age of Obama Student Panel

Moderator: Brittany O’Neal, Ph.D. – Lehman College, CUNY

3:00pm – 4:00pm

Black Liberational Aspirations and the Moral and Pragmatic Aspects of Military Technology

Speaker: Damion Scott, M.A. – CUNY \City College Chair: J. Everet Green, Ph.D. – Mercy College

4:10pm – 5:15pm

Race Reconstruction and Reparations Panel Discussion

Speakers: J. Everet Green

Zay D. Green Sonia Vas Borges Brittany O’Neal Damion Scott Anwar Uhuru

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public.

conference-program-prat-3

October 27, 2016

5:30 – 7:00 pm

Science Center, Room 4102

Speakers:

Tom Angotti (Hunter College, Urban Policy and Planning), Sylvia Morse (urban planner), Deen Sharp (doctoral candidate, EES) & Claire Panetta (doctoral candidate, Anthropology),

Moderated by Samuel Stein (graduate student, EES)

Books:

Zoned Out! Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City (Urban Research, 2016)

Gentrification and displacement of low-income communities of color are major issues in New York City and the city’s zoning policies are a major cause. Race matters but the city ignores it when shaping land use and housing policies. The city promises “affordable housing” that is not truly affordable. Zoned Out! shows how this has played in Williamsburg, Harlem and Chinatown, neighborhoods facing massive displacement of people of color. It looks at ways the city can address inequalities, promote authentic community-based planning and develop housing in the public domain.

Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Urban Research, 2016.)

Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings focuses on the urban spatial dynamics of the mass protest movements that convulsed the Arab region since December 2010. The volume shifts attention away from public squares — and in particular Tahrir Square in Cairo — to consider the broader urban context in which the uprisings unfolded. The essays are topically and geographically diverse, exploring a range of sociospatial phenomena in countries that are at the heart of the Arab uprisings as well as those countries that appeared peripheral to the upheaval. This breadth of perspective highlights the centrality of space and spatial concerns to the ongoing political transformations in the region. In this way, the book provides a distinctive — and critical — analysis of one of the most significant political events of our time.

This event is sponsored by the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program and the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, Graduate Center, CUNY. It is free and open to the public.

US Friends of the Movement of People Affected by Dams in Brazil: A story of solidarity and resistance with the people of Mariana

Monday, October 3

6-8pm

Moved to Science Center-4th floor!

Please join the US friends of MAB in this discussion about the struggle in Mariana.  This event will not be livestreamed, unfortunately.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public.

Book event: Hard Sell: Work and Resistance in Retail Chains (ILR/Cornell University Press, 2016) by Peter Ikeler

September 28^th, 2016 6-9 pm, Sociology Lounge (room 6112)

Speakers:

• Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
• Gerald Sider, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
• Peter Ikeler, Assistant Professor of Sociology, SUNY College at Old Westbury (book author)

About the book:

Along with fast-food workers, retail workers are capturing the attention of the public and the media with the Fight for $15. Like fast-food workers, retail workers are underpaid, and fewer than 5 percent of them belong to unions. In Hard Sell, Peter Ikeler traces the low-wage, largely nonunion character of U.S. retail through the history and ultimate failure of twentieth-century retail unionism. He asks pivotal questions about twenty-first-century capitalism: Does the nature of retail work make collective action unlikely? Can working conditions improve in the absence of a union? Is worker consciousness changing in ways that might encourage or further inhibit organizing? Ikeler conducted interviews at New York City locations of two iconic department stores—Macy’s and Target. Much of the book’s narrative unfolds from the perspectives of these workers in America’s most unequal city.

When he speaks to workers, Ikeler finds that the Macy’s organization displays an adversarial relationship between workers and managers and that Target is infused with a “teamwork” message that enfolds both parties. Macy’s workers identify more with their jobs and are more opposed to management, yet Target workers show greater solidarity. Both groups, however, are largely unhappy with the pay and precariousness of their jobs. Combined with workplace-generated feelings of unity and resistance, these grievances provide promising inroads to organizing that could help take the struggle against inequality beyond symbolic action to real economic power.

Author bio:

Born near Lowell Massachusetts, Ikeler grew up with the remains of former industry and class struggles all around him, which helped shape his worldview on issues of class and workers’ rights.  He is now a Brooklyn-based activist and Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY College at Old Westbury. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, his M.A. in European Culture and Economy at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany and his B.A. in Philosophy from New York University. His ongoing research examines the constraints and potential of what might be termed the postindustrial working class in advanced capitalist societies.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public.

Ethnography Inside Out: Activism and Research among Urban Social Movements in the United States by Ahmed Kanna

September 26th, 2016

14:30-16:30

Room 6107 (space is limited to 20)

CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016

In this informal roundtable, Ahmed Kanna will explore his latest research among Bay Area radical socialists organizing around issues of urban politics, workers’ rights and empowerment, antiracism, and LGBTQ solidarity. More specifically, he will discuss how youth activists are getting radicalized to the left in the US, how this relates to US wars/foreign policy, and how becoming active in Marxist political organizing connects them to internationalism/international political issues. Of particular concern is the question of how to reconcile being both an organizer with an activist group and a scholar studying the group’s work ethnographically.

Author bio: 

Ahmed Kanna is an associate professor at the University of the Pacific and the author of Dubai, The City as Corporation.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public.

We Must Divest From Fossil Fuels

Thursday, September 22

6:30-8:30 pm

Skylight Room

If we listen to climate scientists like James Hansen, we know that it is imperative that we stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. Yet, as the recent struggles around the Dakota Access Pipeline reveal, big oil companies will stop at nothing in their quest to squeeze every last drop of fossil fuels out of the ground. And they are supported in this destructive quest by big banks and organizations like the World Bank. In response to this extreme extraction, the movement to divest from fossil fuels is pushing institutions – including universities – to kick the fossil fuel habit. What progress have divestment movements in NY-area schools made, and how can CUNY Divest draw on their experiences? What links can we forge between academic institutions and city- and state-level efforts, such as the movement to divest pension funds? This exciting roundtable offers a chance to compare notes and strategize for a future without fossil fuels.

Speakers:

Senator Liz Krueger, New York State Senate

City Council Member Helen B. Rosenthal, New York City Council

President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN, New York State Nurses Association

Mikayla Petchell, Columbia Divest for Climate Justice

Ana Paola White, CUNY Divest

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public.

MARX AND CAPITAL: THE CONCEPT, THE BOOK, THE HISTORY
A SERIES OF 6 MONDAY EVENING LECTURES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY BY DAVID HARVEY

6:30-8:30 PM

September 12, 19, 26

November 21, 28

December 5

365 5^th Avenue, NY, NY 10016

****Due to overwhelming interest, some locations and dates of these events have been changed. Please note carefully the new locations and dates below****

SEPTEMBER 12:  CAPITAL AS VALUE IN MOTION

SEPTEMBER 19^TH: VALUE AND ANTI-VALUE (rooms C201/C202/C203-capacity 120)

SEPTEMBER 26^TH: VALUE AND ITS MONETARY EXPRESSION (rooms C201/C202/C203/C204-capacity of 160)

NOVEMBER 21^ST: THE SPACE AND TIME OF VALUE (rooms C201/C202/C203/C204 capacity 160)

NOVEMBER 28: USE VALUES: THE PRODUCTION OF WANTS, NEEDS AND DESIRES (rooms C201/C202/C203/C204-capacity 160)

DECEMBER 5: BAD INFINITY AND THE MADNESS OF ECONOMIC REASON (rooms C201/C202/C203-capacity 120)

All lectures in this series will be held from 6:30-8:30 PM  at 365 5^th Avenue, NY, NY 10016.

*Please note carefully the locations for each date and the capacity of the room, as entry is on a first come basis.

**Videos of these lectures will appear on David Harvey’s website and the CPCP website in the coming months.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It is free and open to the public. Photo ID is required to enter the building.