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Updated Schedule
The most recent schedule of events for the 2009 ICS (as of June 8, 2009)
MLG Summer Institute on Culture and Society, Portland State University
(Portland, Oregon) June 17-20, 2009
Wednesday, 17 June
9:00 –10:30 Panel: Histories in the Era of Actually Existing Communism
Grover Furr, Montclair State University: Did the USSR Invade Poland in
September, 1939? An Investigation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Courtney Maloney, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design: Commies and Comics:
Curious Adventures in a Capitalist Culture Industry
Carol Stabile, University of Oregon: Dictators of the Airwaves: The Infrastructure
of the Blacklist
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Analyzing Finance Capital and Financialization
Annie McClanahan, UC Berkeley: “Investing in the Future: Finance Capital’s
Philosophy of History”
Jasper Bernes, UC Berkeley: Spectacle and the Credit System in Late Capitalism
Tim Kreiner, UC Davis: The Work of Derivatives in the Age of Spectacular
Financialization (1973-2008)
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Capital (?) TBD Gail Farschou. University of Alberta.
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Multiple Crises and the Current Conjuncture
Brynnar Swenson, Butler University: The Corporate Form, Communicative Labor,
and Crisis
Michelle Yates, UC Davis: Capitalism is the Culprit: Addressing the Historically
Specific Nature of Ecological Crisis Within Capitalism
Maya Gonzales, UC Santa Cruz: On the Housing Question, Once Again
5:00-6:30 Panel: Contemporary Politics
Gabriel Shapiro, University of Minnesota: Right Wing American Criticism of
Marcuse
Andrew Pendakis, McMasters University: Inertial Plasticities: An Introduction to
Centrist Reason
Sina Rahmani, UCLA: Riots, Rope and Rage: On the so-called “Black Block”
Modhumita Roy, Tufts University: Immaculate Conception: The Politics and
Ethics of Outsourcing Reproductive Labor
Thursday, 18 June
9:00 – 10:30 Presentation
Randy Martin, NYU: Campus Activism in the Context of Rescue and Recovery
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: New Labor and Production
David Maynard, Independent Scholar: Starbucks, Labor, and the New Proletariat”
Sarah Broullette, MIT: Creative Labor in Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger
Jesse Goldstein, CUNY: The nature of value is ‘wasted potential’: some
implications for the political economy of work and workfare in the U.S.
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Capital, Volume 3. Chapters 24-27.
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Art, Aesthetics and Marxism
Rich Daniels, Oregon State University: Things vs. Commodity-Form in Artworks:
Heidegger’s Response to Adorno’s Critique
Bret Benjamin, SUNY Albany: A Case to Be Made: Barnako and the Problem of
Art Under Capitalist Imperialism
Henry Schwartz, Georgetown University: Aesthetic Theory and Resistance in
Contemporary Indian Performance
Robert Wess, Oregon State University: "ʼHumanism of Natureʼ and ʻNaturalism of
Man': Notes toward a Marxist Ecocriticism."
5:00-6:30 Panel: International Perspectives
Brian Whitener, University of Michigan: Material Turn: Concepts for Thinking
Latin America in Crisis
Gerry Sussman, Portland State University: Systemic Propaganda and U.S.
Foreign Policy
Duncan Yoon, UCLA: Historicizing Sino-Africa: Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Cultural
Revolution”
Aisha Karim, St. Xavier University: Franz Fanon and the Making of a
Postnational Public Sphere
Friday, 19 June
9:00 – 10:30 Economist Roundtable on the Crisis
Robin Hahnel, Portland State University
Martin Hart-Landberg, Lewis & Clark College
Thomas Mertes, Center for Social Theory and Comparative History, UCLA
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Reading Marx
Justin Paulson, Carleton University, Reading Marx During Crisis
Jonathan Dettman, UC Davis: Reflections on Consumption and the Culture
Industry in the Light of the Grundrisse
Bev Best, Concordia University: Marx, Methods, and the Aesthetics of Political
Economy
John Clegg, New School for Social Research, Rethinking the Concept of
Ideology in the Marxist Tradition
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Wertkritik. Neil Larsen
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Approaches to the Critique of Neoliberalism
Kanishka, Chowdhury, St. Thomas Univeristy: Reassessing Primitive
Accumulation in the Age of Dispossession
Leerom Medovoi, Portland State University: Sustainability and Eco-
Neoliberalism
Marcia Klotz, Portland State University: Original Sin and Indebted Subjects
5:00 – 6:30 Panel If Capitalism is Failing, What should the State Look Like? Film
and Media Representations and Debates in the Documentary/Nonfiction Work of
Post 2001-Argentina and the 1936-37 Anarchist Collectivization of Film Industry
in Spain
Patricia Keaton, Ramapo College. Factories without Bosses: Analyzing how
Documentaries about Zanon/Fasinpat Rerpesent the Limitations and Possibilities
of Revolutionary Change
Antonio Prado, Knox College: The C.N.T.’s Collectivization of the Film Industry
(Spain 1936-37): Mediation, Representation and Social Revolution
Saturday, 20 June
9:00 – 10:30 Panel: Marxist Literary Studies
Nicholas Brown, University of Illinois, Chicago: Waiting: Marxism, Materialism,
and Literary Studies
Neil Larsen, UC Davis: Literature, Immanent Critique, and the Problem of
Standpoint”
Mathias Nilges, St. Francis Xavier University: 'Little Bundles of Condensed
Catastrophe': Marxism and Literary Form in the Twenty-First Century"
Emilio Sauri, University of Illinois, Chicago: The End of Literature and/or Marxist
Literary Criticism (response)
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Disciplinary Questions
Sourayan Mookerjea, University of Alberta: History, or, the Immanent Critique of
Political Economy
Fernando Lacerda Junior, Campinas S/P Brazil: “Psychology Meets Social
Change: A Marxist Balance”
12:15 – 1:30 MLG Business Meeting and Lunch
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: The Regulation School, Mathias Nilges
3:15 – 4:45 PANEL: Marxist Literary and Cultural Studies
Tristan Sipley, University of Oregon: Mapping the Metabolic Rift: Toward a
Marxist-Ecocritical Theory
Jaafar Aksisas, Columbia College: Cultural Studies: The Way Forward
Ed Wiltse, Nazareth College: Indian Killer across the Razor Wire: Student
Readings, Inmate Readings (not Friday)
6:00 pm MLG-ICS BBQ
(Portland, Oregon) June 17-20, 2009
Wednesday, 17 June
9:00 –10:30 Panel: Histories in the Era of Actually Existing Communism
Grover Furr, Montclair State University: Did the USSR Invade Poland in
September, 1939? An Investigation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Courtney Maloney, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design: Commies and Comics:
Curious Adventures in a Capitalist Culture Industry
Carol Stabile, University of Oregon: Dictators of the Airwaves: The Infrastructure
of the Blacklist
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Analyzing Finance Capital and Financialization
Annie McClanahan, UC Berkeley: “Investing in the Future: Finance Capital’s
Philosophy of History”
Jasper Bernes, UC Berkeley: Spectacle and the Credit System in Late Capitalism
Tim Kreiner, UC Davis: The Work of Derivatives in the Age of Spectacular
Financialization (1973-2008)
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Capital (?) TBD Gail Farschou. University of Alberta.
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Multiple Crises and the Current Conjuncture
Brynnar Swenson, Butler University: The Corporate Form, Communicative Labor,
and Crisis
Michelle Yates, UC Davis: Capitalism is the Culprit: Addressing the Historically
Specific Nature of Ecological Crisis Within Capitalism
Maya Gonzales, UC Santa Cruz: On the Housing Question, Once Again
5:00-6:30 Panel: Contemporary Politics
Gabriel Shapiro, University of Minnesota: Right Wing American Criticism of
Marcuse
Andrew Pendakis, McMasters University: Inertial Plasticities: An Introduction to
Centrist Reason
Sina Rahmani, UCLA: Riots, Rope and Rage: On the so-called “Black Block”
Modhumita Roy, Tufts University: Immaculate Conception: The Politics and
Ethics of Outsourcing Reproductive Labor
Thursday, 18 June
9:00 – 10:30 Presentation
Randy Martin, NYU: Campus Activism in the Context of Rescue and Recovery
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: New Labor and Production
David Maynard, Independent Scholar: Starbucks, Labor, and the New Proletariat”
Sarah Broullette, MIT: Creative Labor in Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger
Jesse Goldstein, CUNY: The nature of value is ‘wasted potential’: some
implications for the political economy of work and workfare in the U.S.
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Capital, Volume 3. Chapters 24-27.
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Art, Aesthetics and Marxism
Rich Daniels, Oregon State University: Things vs. Commodity-Form in Artworks:
Heidegger’s Response to Adorno’s Critique
Bret Benjamin, SUNY Albany: A Case to Be Made: Barnako and the Problem of
Art Under Capitalist Imperialism
Henry Schwartz, Georgetown University: Aesthetic Theory and Resistance in
Contemporary Indian Performance
Robert Wess, Oregon State University: "ʼHumanism of Natureʼ and ʻNaturalism of
Man': Notes toward a Marxist Ecocriticism."
5:00-6:30 Panel: International Perspectives
Brian Whitener, University of Michigan: Material Turn: Concepts for Thinking
Latin America in Crisis
Gerry Sussman, Portland State University: Systemic Propaganda and U.S.
Foreign Policy
Duncan Yoon, UCLA: Historicizing Sino-Africa: Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Cultural
Revolution”
Aisha Karim, St. Xavier University: Franz Fanon and the Making of a
Postnational Public Sphere
Friday, 19 June
9:00 – 10:30 Economist Roundtable on the Crisis
Robin Hahnel, Portland State University
Martin Hart-Landberg, Lewis & Clark College
Thomas Mertes, Center for Social Theory and Comparative History, UCLA
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Reading Marx
Justin Paulson, Carleton University, Reading Marx During Crisis
Jonathan Dettman, UC Davis: Reflections on Consumption and the Culture
Industry in the Light of the Grundrisse
Bev Best, Concordia University: Marx, Methods, and the Aesthetics of Political
Economy
John Clegg, New School for Social Research, Rethinking the Concept of
Ideology in the Marxist Tradition
12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: Wertkritik. Neil Larsen
3:15 – 4:45 Panel: Approaches to the Critique of Neoliberalism
Kanishka, Chowdhury, St. Thomas Univeristy: Reassessing Primitive
Accumulation in the Age of Dispossession
Leerom Medovoi, Portland State University: Sustainability and Eco-
Neoliberalism
Marcia Klotz, Portland State University: Original Sin and Indebted Subjects
5:00 – 6:30 Panel If Capitalism is Failing, What should the State Look Like? Film
and Media Representations and Debates in the Documentary/Nonfiction Work of
Post 2001-Argentina and the 1936-37 Anarchist Collectivization of Film Industry
in Spain
Patricia Keaton, Ramapo College. Factories without Bosses: Analyzing how
Documentaries about Zanon/Fasinpat Rerpesent the Limitations and Possibilities
of Revolutionary Change
Antonio Prado, Knox College: The C.N.T.’s Collectivization of the Film Industry
(Spain 1936-37): Mediation, Representation and Social Revolution
Saturday, 20 June
9:00 – 10:30 Panel: Marxist Literary Studies
Nicholas Brown, University of Illinois, Chicago: Waiting: Marxism, Materialism,
and Literary Studies
Neil Larsen, UC Davis: Literature, Immanent Critique, and the Problem of
Standpoint”
Mathias Nilges, St. Francis Xavier University: 'Little Bundles of Condensed
Catastrophe': Marxism and Literary Form in the Twenty-First Century"
Emilio Sauri, University of Illinois, Chicago: The End of Literature and/or Marxist
Literary Criticism (response)
10:45 – 12:15 Panel: Disciplinary Questions
Sourayan Mookerjea, University of Alberta: History, or, the Immanent Critique of
Political Economy
Fernando Lacerda Junior, Campinas S/P Brazil: “Psychology Meets Social
Change: A Marxist Balance”
12:15 – 1:30 MLG Business Meeting and Lunch
1:30 – 3:00 Reading Group: The Regulation School, Mathias Nilges
3:15 – 4:45 PANEL: Marxist Literary and Cultural Studies
Tristan Sipley, University of Oregon: Mapping the Metabolic Rift: Toward a
Marxist-Ecocritical Theory
Jaafar Aksisas, Columbia College: Cultural Studies: The Way Forward
Ed Wiltse, Nazareth College: Indian Killer across the Razor Wire: Student
Readings, Inmate Readings (not Friday)
6:00 pm MLG-ICS BBQ