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Call for Papers Theme: Borders and Boundaries Type: 5th Annual Marx Now! Conference Institution: Danish Society for Marxist Studies Copenhagen Business School Location: Copenhagen (Denmark) Date: 9.–10.10.2020 Deadline: 15.6.2020 __________________________________________________ On behalf of the Danish Society for Marxist Studies, I forward the Call for Abstracts for our fifth annual Marx Now! conference, which will take place at Copenhagen Business School in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 9-10 2020. The theme for this year’s conference is Borders and Boundaries. In previous years, there has been a slant toward philosophy, intellectual history, and political theory, but we invite scholars from all disciplines to participate. A note on COVID-19: We are of course monitoring the ongoing global health crisis closely. The Danish response has been one of the earliest and most severe in Northern Europe, but at the moment there is nothing that suggests it will not be possible to safely hold a conference in Copenhagen by October. However, should it become necessary we will of course take appropriate steps. Please be advised, though, that the Danish government has previously been quick to utilise travel bans as a part of its crisis response and that there might therefore be travel restrictions in place. You can read more at the website of the Danish ministry of foreign affairs here: https://um.dk/en/travel-and-residence/coronavirus-covid-19/ Borders and Boundaries Capital knows no bounds, yet thrives in a world of borders and boundaries; between classes, between individuals, between nation states, between politics, economy and household, between production and reproduction. These divisions define the terrain of capital, as well as the struggles against it. The nation state, which has been the main frame of reference and struggle for left-wing politics since the First World War, remains exposed to the economic and political pressures of global capital as well as the threat of nationalist recuperation. Right-wing parties have proven uniquely capable of leveraging this national(-ist) framework to reframe the widespread anger with the economic and political system following the 2008 financial crisis, in order to capture power. Meanwhile, novel and increasingly deadly border regimes have been developed in the US, EU and beyond, and new ones are currently proliferating across the globe in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Capital not only traverses and transcends national borders and boundaries but is also driven to transgress the natural limits of life on the planet, while nation state competition hinders any meaningful response to the impending ecological collapse. We are currently entering a new epoch, where capital erodes not only its own foundations but also the preconditions of human survival as such. The Danish Society for Marxists Studies wants to interrogate and address the significance of these borders and boundaries to contemporary capitalism and anticapitalist struggles. We therefore invite contributions on this and related topics for the fifth annual Marx Now conference. Topics might include (but are absolutely not limited to): - The relationship between capitalism and the international state system, including war and the construction of border regimes in historical or contemporary perspective. - The relationship of nationalism(s) and fascism(s) to capitalism and the nation state system, as well as the recent rise of right-wing nationalism and populism. - The origins and significance of the structural division of social life under capitalism into separate spheres, i.e., domestic, economic and political spheres, as well as productive and reproductive labour, their particular dynamics, struggles and interrelations. The limits to capital accumulation and the subsumption of different spheres of social and natural life. - The causes of and responses to the unfolding climate crises within global capitalism and the international system. - The relationship between limited value production and unlimited asset valorisation in the financial sector. Open Call Our ambition with the annual Marx Now! conferences is also to create a common platform for critical and emancipatory research in Denmark. For this reason, as in previous years, we are also happy to welcome papers that do not directly touch upon this year’s theme but contribute to these research traditions in some other way or form. Please submit your abstract of 200-300 words to [email protected] no later than June 15, 2020. Abstracts and presentations may be in Danish or English. Presentations are c. 20 minutes; you are not required to pre-circulate a paper, though you are welcome to do so. Participation in the conference is free, but registration is required (here): http://marxistiskestudier.nemtilmeld.dk/ About the organisers The Danish Society for Marxist Studies (Danish: Selskab for Marxistiske Studier) is an independent academic society in Denmark. The purpose of the society is to further interest and research in Karl Marx, Marxism and Marxist studies at Danish universities and other institutions of higher learning. For this purpose, SMS organises the annual conference Marx Now! where scholars, students, and others can present ongoing research, and where we are committed to crossing the narrow disciplinary borders that have always been a part of modern academia, but which Marxism has never fitted inside. We thus understand ‘Marxism’ in the broadest possible sense as the critical tradition emanating from Marx in its entire historical and theoretical breadth and depth, and SMS is not committed to any one particular theoretical or political position. Contact: Magnus Møller Ziegler Department of Philosophy and the History of Ideas School of Culture and Society Aarhus University Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7, 1465-1467 DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark Phone: +45 8716 2759 Mobile: +45 4094 4031 Email: [email protected] __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: https://interphil.polylog.org InterPhil List Archive: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ __________________________________________________
