05/02: Karl Marx turns 200! Sven-Eric Liedman and Michael Denning
05/02/2018
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
The Graduate Center, CUNY
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics and Verso Books invite you to:
Karl Marx turns 200! Sven-Eric Liedman and Michael Denning
Wednesday, May 2nd
6-8PM
CUNY Graduate Center
Sociology lounge (Room 6112)
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Join Sven-Eric Liedman, author of the new biography A World to Win, and Michael Denning in conversation on Karl Marx’s life and legacy, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth on May 5th.
Conversation and Q&A followed by book signing and wine reception.
“A World to Win: The Life and Works of Karl Marx,” follows Marx through childhood and student days, a difficult and sometimes tragic family life, his far-sighted journalism, and his enduring friendship and intellectual partnership with Friedrich Engels. Building on the work of previous biographers, Liedman employs a commanding knowledge of the nineteenth century to create a definitive portrait of Marx and his vast contribution to the way the world understands itself. He shines a light on Marx’s influences, explains his political and intellectual interventions, and builds on the legacy of his thought. Liedman shows how Marx’s masterpiece, Capital, illuminates the essential logic of a system that drives dizzying wealth, grinding poverty, and awesome technological innovation to this day.
Sven-Eric Liedman, Professor Emeritus of the History of Ideas at the University of Gothenburg, has been reading and writing about Karl Marx for over fifty years. His textbook on political ideologies, From Plato to the War Against Terrorism, has been through fourteen editions.
Michael Denning is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American Studies at Yale University, and the co-director of Yale’s Initiative on Labor and Culture. He is the author of Culture in the Age of Three Worlds; The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century; Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America; Cover Stories: Narrative and Ideology in the British Spy Thriller; and Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution. He coordinates the Working Group on Globalization and Culture, whose collective work includes “Going into Debt,” published online in Social Text’s Periscope, and “Spaces and Times of Occupation,” published in Transforming Anthropology. In 2014, he received the Bode-Pearson lifetime achievement award from the American Studies Association.
Facebook event here.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
It is co-sponsored by The Center for Place, Culture and Politics and Verso Books.
04/27: “Las Patronas’ Kitchen”: Film screening and discussion
04/27/2018
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics invites you to:
“Las Patronas’ Kitchen”:
Women defending migrants’ rights in Mexico:
Film screening and discussion with director Javier Garcia, and Norma Romero, speaker of the group “Las Patronas.”
Friday, April 27th
7-9PM
The Segal Theater,
CUNY Graduate Center,
365 5th Ave, NY, NY 10016
“Las Patronas’ Kitchen” tells the story of a group of farmer women who 23 years ago realized that people where “free riding” on the top of the train that crosses their community, La Patrona, Veracruz, Mexico. They did not know who they were or even why they where traveling like that.
One day the daughters of Ms. Leo, head of the family, went to buy milk and bread. On their way back home the train was passing by and one of the guys on the train shouted: “Mother, feed me, I am hungry.” They gave them all what they had just bought, and returned home fearing that their mother was going to get mad. Instead Ms. Leo told them: “When people are hungry, you have to give.” Since then, many women of La Patrona cook for Central American migrants traveling on top of the train.
Step by step, this kitchen has become a political space as well. The Patronas have learned how to talk about Mexico’s problems, poverty in the countryside, human rights, indifference towards migrants, and about their own rights as women.
Taking the main ideas exposed by the film as a starting point, a discussion will take place between the audience, the director Javier Garcia, and Norma Romero, speaker of the group “Las Patronas.”
THIS EVENT IS SPONSORED BY THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE, AND POLITICS.
THE EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
4/25: Book Event: The Revolt of the Provinces with author Kristóf Szombati
04/25/2018
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Room C198, CUNY Graduate Center
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics invites you:
Book Event: The Revolt of the Provinces with author Kristóf Szombati,
in discussion with Andrew Arato and Mary N. Taylor, moderated by Ida Susser
Wednesday April 25th,
Room C198
CUNY Graduate Center,
365 5th Ave, NY, NY 10016
© Photo by Polina Georgescu
The Revolt of the Provinces (forthcoming May 2018 Berghahn) is the first in-depth ethnographic monograph on the New Right in Central and Eastern Europe, The Revolt of the Provinces explores the making of right-wing hegemony in Hungary over the last decade. It explains the spread of racist sensibilities in depressed rural areas, shows how activists, intellectuals and politicians took advantage of popular racism to empower right-wing agendas and examines the new ruling party’s success in stabilizing an ‘illiberal regime’. To illuminate these important dynamics, the author proposes an innovative multi-scalar and relational framework, focusing on interaction between social antagonisms emerging on the local level and struggles waged within the political public sphere.
Kristóf Szombati is Istvan Deak Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He has a background in both politics and academia. He co-founded the green LMP party and was an elected member of its Steering Committee until 2010 when he left party politics to pursue a PhD at Central European University (CEU). He completed the latter in 2016 and received CEU’s Best Dissertation award for his work. Besides writing the book, he has also published articles on radical right-wing politics in Hungary and on the intersection of politics, ethnicity and ‘race’.
Andrew Arato (PhD 1975, University of Chicago) is the Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory at the New School for Social Research in New York. He has taught at L’École des hautes études and Sciences Po in Paris, as well as at the Central European University in Budapest. He had a Fulbright teaching grant to Montevideo in 1991, and was Distinguished Fulbright Professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt/M,Germany. Professor Arato has served as a consultant for the Hungarian Parliament on constitutional issues (1996-1997), and as U.S. State Department Democracy Lecturer and Consultant (on Constitutional issues) on Nepal (2007). He was re-appointed by the State Department in the same capacity for Zimbabwe (November of 2010), where he had discussions with civil society activists and political leaders in charge of the constitution-making process. He was invited Professor at the College de France (Spring 2012). Professor Arato’s scholarly research is widely recognized, and conferences and sessions have been organized around his work at University of Glasgow Law School (Spring 2009) and Koc University, Istanbul (December 2009), as well as at the Faculty of Law, Witwaterstrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa (August 2010). Arato was appointed Honorary Professor and Bram Fischer Visiting Scholar at the School of Law, University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg (June 2010-June 2011). Among his publications are Adventures of the Constituent Power (Cambridge University Press, 2017); Post Sovereign Constitution Making: Learning and Legitimacy(Oxford University Press, 2016); Critical Theory and Democracy (A Festschrift for Arato) (Routledge, 2013); Constitution Making Under Occupation: The Politics of Imposed Revolution Iraq (Columbia, 2009); Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Habermas on Law, Democracy, and Legitimacy: Critical Exchanges, co-editor with Michael Rosenfield (University of California, 1998); From Neo-Marxism to Democratic Theory: Essays on the Critical Theory of Soviet-Type Societies (Routledge, 1994); Civil Society and Political Theory, co-author with Jean L. Cohen (MIT, 1992).
Mary N. Taylor is Assistant Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research focuses on sites, techniques and politics of civic cultivation, social movement, and cultural management; the relationship of ethics and aesthetics to nationalism and cultural differentiation, and people’s movements in interwar, socialist and postsocialist Hungary, East Europe, and the Balkans. She is a member of the editorial collective of LeftEast, co-organizer of an annual roving summer school on ‘neoliberalizing postsocialism’, and co-founder of the Brooklyn Laundry Social Club. Her writing has been published in an array of fora, including Focaal–European Journal of Anthropology, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Journal of Hungarian Studies, The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, Bajo el Volcan, and LeftEast. She edited Critical Perspectives on the Persistence of ‘Culture Talk’ in the Making of Europe (2009 Focaal–European Journal of Anthropology 55); and co-edited (with Charlotte Huddleston, Abby Cunnane, and Sakiko Sugawa Co-Revolutionary Praxis; Accompaniment as a Strategy for Working Together (2015: Auckland NZ: ST PAUL St. Gallery Publishing). She is currently completing her book Movement of the People: Folk Dance, Populism and Citizenship in Hungary.
This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics.
Insurgent Solidarities: CPCP Annual Conference (April 13–14th)
04/13/2018 - 04/14/2018
12:00 pm - 9:00 pm
CUNY Graduate Center
The “Insurgent Solidarities” conference at the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics (CPCP), CUNY takes place on Friday April 13th and Saturday April 14th, 2018.
Insurgent Solidarities: CPCP Annual Conference (April 13–14th)
04/13/2018 - 04/14/2018
12:00 pm - 9:00 pm
CUNY Graduate Center
The “Insurgent Solidarities” conference at the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics (CPCP), CUNY takes place on Friday April 13th and Saturday April 14th, 2018.
04/10: Brazil, Colombia, Haiti: Resistance and Solidarity in Times of Repression
04/10/2018
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
CUNY GRADUATE CENTER, Room 5409
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics invites you to:
Brazil, Colombia, Haiti: Resistance and Solidarity in Times of Repression
Tuesday, April 10th
6:30-8:30 PM
Room 5409, CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Ave, NY, NY 10016
THIS EVENT IS CO-SPONSORED BY THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE AND POLITICS; THE DOCTORAL STUDENTS COUNCIL (DSC); CSG; THE MOVEMENT FOR PEACE IN COLOMBIA (MPC); AND DEFEND DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
03/28: Antifa and The Battle for the Real Film Screening
03/28/2018
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Room C198, CUNY Graduate Center
Antifa and The Battle for the Real Film Screening
365 5th Ave, NY, NY 10016
More about the films:
ANTIFA by Global Uprisings
Since the election of Donald Trump, acts of racist violence have proliferated across the United States. Racists and misogynists feel emboldened to express and act on their views. White nationalist groups and resurgent traditional white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have used Trumps victory to gain new recruits. All that stands in their way are the groups of anarchists and anti-fascists who have taken it upon themselves to prevent them from becoming a powerful political force in the United States. This film tells the story of what “Antifa” is and why people are using these tactics to confront racism and fascism in the US today.
Who are the anti-fascists? What motivates them to risk their lives to fight the far right? What is the history of militant anti-fascism and why is it relevant again today? How is anti-fascism connected to a larger political vision that can stop the rise of fascism and offer us visions of a future worth fighting for? Through interviews with anti-fascist organizers, historians, and political theorists in the US and Germany, we explore the broader meaning of this political moment while taking the viewer to the scene of street battles from Washington to Berkeley and Charlottesville.
THE BATTLE FOR THE REAL by Paper Tiger Television
The landscape of new media has become a battleground over ideas. Claims of information being true or fake have shaped the nature of reality itself. This episode explores how both activists and fascists have used media tools, and calls for an ethical use of platforms.
03/23: Breaking Down Walls and Prison Plantations
03/23/2018
6:00 pm - 9:45 pm
Holyrood Episcopal Church NYC Sanctuary Churc
Breaking Down Walls and Prison Plantations: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Migrants, and Movements for Liberation—A political forum hosted by the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home and Common Notions.
02/15: Financial Markets and Land Speculation
02/15/2018
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre
Please join the Center for Place, Culture and Politics for Financial Markets and Land Speculation, the public facing event of the 2nd International Seminar “Pension Funds, Financial Markets and Land Speculation”:
Financial Markets and Land Speculation
Thursday, February 15
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Segal Theater, Ground Floor, CUNY Graduate Center
The Seminar is part of an international campaign focusing on the role of the pension fund TIAA and includes social movements and scholars from Brazil, Canada, Germany and the United States looking at financial markets, land and food systems.
Financialization is leading to new forms of land grabbing, with heavy involvement by pension funds and other financial corporations that began targeting farmland around the world after the emergence of the financial crisis in 2007-2008.
Rural communities in the Global North and in the Global South, as well as workers in the Global North whose pensions are invested in land grabbing, are both impacted and can work together to stop this trend.
The event follows the 1st International Seminar on Land Grabbing, hosted and sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics in November of 2015, with the launching of the report “Foreign pension funds and land grabbing in Brazil”, available in Portuguese, English and French:
SPEAKERS:
Maria Luisa Mendonça (Moderator) – Visiting Scholar, Center for Place, Culture and Politics, CUNY Graduate Center
Fabio Pitta – Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos (Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil)
Isolete Wichinieski – Comissão Pastoral da Terra (Pastoral Land Commission, Brazil)
Devlin Kuyek – GRAIN (Canada)
David Harvey – Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography and Director of Research, Center for Place, Culture and Politics, CUNY Graduate Center
To view the LIVESTREAM of this event: 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.
Co-Sponsored by:
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics – CUNY Graduate Center
ActionAid USA
Comissão Pastoral da Terra (Pastoral Land Commission, Brazil)
FIAN International
Friends of the Earth, U.S.
GRAIN
Grassroots International (US)
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
National Family Farm Coalition (US)
Presbyterian Hunger Program – PC(USA)
Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos (Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil)
WhyHunger (US)
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
02/09 (& 02/28, 03/14, 03/30): CPCP FILM SERIES: “The Militant Image” and the struggles against colonialism
02/09/2018 - 03/30/2018
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre
CPCP FILM SERIES
“The Militant Image” and the struggles against colonialism
2/9; 2/28; 3/14; and 3/30 6:30-8:30pm SEGAL THEATER
“The militant image comprises any form of image or sound – from essay film to fiction feature, from observational documentary to found-footage ciné-pamphlet, from newsreel to agitational reworking of colonial film production – produced in through film-making practices dedicated to the liberation struggles and revolutions of the late twentieth century”. Departing from the liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial power in Guinea Bissau, this film series explores how the liberation struggles are portrayed through cinematic images. How has recovery of liberation texts, memories and images and their use by filmmakers contributed to the understanding of these revolutionary and liberatory movements.
2/9 6:30p – 8.30p – Segal Theater:
The Two Faces of the War (Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes, 2007, 100 minutes)
This documentary shot in Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, and Portugal includes a series of interviews with and testimonies of people who lived through the period of the anticolonial war and liberation struggle in Guinea Bissau. This film sets the tone for a debate around the themes of reconciliation and historical memory in the post-conflict period of the Portuguese “colonial war” and independence struggle.
2/28 6:30p – 8.30p – Segal Theater:
Mined Soil (Filipa César, 2014, 34 minutes) and The Return of Cabral (Sana N’Hada, Flora Gomes and Josefina Crato, 1976, 31 minutes)
Mined Soil revisits the work of the Guinean Agronomist Amílcar Cabral, from studying the erosion of soil in the Portuguese Alentejo region in the 1950’s through his engagement as one of the leaders of the African liberation movements. This line of inquiry intertwines with documentation of a gold mining site, operated today by a Canadian company located in the same Portuguese area once studied by Cabral.
During the independence struggle, Amílcar Cabral, co-founder of the African party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was killed in 1973. The Return of Cabral documents the relocation of Cabral’s remains, which had been buried in Guinea Conakry, to Guinea Bissau to Guinea Bissau 3 years after independence was proclaimed by the PAIGC.
3/14 6:30p – 8.30p – Segal Theater:
Spell Reel (Filipa César, 2016, 100 minutes)
This film is a collaborative reflection on West African political history, and the role of moving images in the creation and legacy of that history. Filmmakers Sana Na N’Hada, Flora Gomes, José Bolama Cobumba, and Josefina Crato, who studied filmmaking in Cuba at the directive of Amílcar Cabral, documented Guinea-Bissau’s independence struggle and the subsequent years of socialist rule. In 1979, Chris Marker spent several months with them, and would later integrate carnival footage shot by N’Hada into Sans Soleil. Following the 1980 military coup, many of the revolutionary films were lost; those that remained were little known and at risk of disappearing.
To bring these films, and often just fragments of them, back into the public eye, César has worked closely with Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art in its initiative to preserve the history of revolutionary cinema in Guinea-Bissau through research, digitization, and dissemination of the holdings at the National Film Institute of Guinea-Bissau (INCA – Instituto Nacional de Cinema e Audiovisual).
3/30 6:30p – 8.30p – Segal Theater:
The Two Faces of the War (Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes, 2007, 100 minutes)
This documentary shot in Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, and Portugal includes a series of interviews with and testimonies of people who lived through the period of the anti-colonial war and liberation struggle in Guinea Bissau. This film sets the tone for a debate around the themes of reconciliation and historical memory in the post-conflict period of the Portuguese “colonial war” and independence struggle.
THIS SERIES IS SPONSORED BY THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE AND POLITICS. IT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
