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This weekend I went to the Historical Materialism conference in NY held at NYU that is basically an academic conference with presentations by graduate students and professors. Unlike the Left Forum that meets in early June, you won’t find any 9/11 Truther or Assadist panel discussions. That’s the upside. The downside is that you are likely to hear someone read a jargon-filled paper on their brand-new interpretation of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony for 15 to 20 minutes until your eyelids feel like they have been tied to anvils.
I went to hear Lars Lih and Eric Blanc defend Stalin and Kamenev as closer to Lenin on theorizing the Bolshevik revolution than Trotsky but was far more interested in hearing what Todd Chretien had to say in response. Todd was very good but far too civil. I would have thrown a pie in Lih’s face myself.
I only wish I had been able to hear George Ciccariello-Maher speak at a “Roundtable on Training Political Cadre: Historical Lessons and Currents [sic] Methods”. His insights on turning over garbage bins as a currents methods to stop fascism must have really wowed all the sociology students.
Instead of running down every panel discussion I attended, I want to touch on a couple of high points in this post and a follow-up tomorrow. The first today will recap Tony Wood’s presentation on Putin’s Russia that was included in a panel titled “Critical Geopolitics Today” and the one tomorrow will be about how CUNY adjuncts are pressing for their demands in the Professional Staff Congress (PSC).
I am not sure about Wood’s background but right now he is working on a PhD in Latin American History at NYU, which might explain how he ended up speaking at the conference. Wood is best known as a Russia specialist and has been around for a while. Since he would likely be close to 50 after getting a PhD in Latin American History and qualified at that point for getting a position as an adjunct like the people I will be talking about tomorrow, I am not sure why he is bothering. But good luck to him anyhow since he is fucking brilliant.
full: https://louisproyect.org/2017/04/24/tony-wood-on-russia/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
