News | “Claps of Thunder”

The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung at the sixteenth annual Historical Materialism Conference, London

Like every year, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung will be sponsoring a number of panels at the upcoming Historical Materialism 16th Annual Conference, taking place in Central London from 7–10 November under the title "Claps of Thunder: Disaster Communism, Extinction, and How To Survive Tomorrow". Several RLS-affiliated scholars will be speaking about their recent publications on historical topics, and we will also be joining Verso Books for several panels on the legacy of Rosa Luxemburg. Looking forward to seeing many old and new faces there!

The full conference programme, with over 200 events and 400 speakers, can be downloaded here. Events sponsored by the RLS or featuring RLS-affiliated speakers are listed below.

Thursday, 7 November

Marxism and Art
12:30–14:15, B101

Sophie Coudray: "Theatre as Praxis. Jana Sanskriti and the Redistribution of Theatre’s Means of Production"
Paul Ingram: "‘Dada ist politisch’: Afterlives of Dada"
Davor Konjikusic: "Red Light – Yugoslav Partisan Photography and Social Movement 1941–1945"
Marcelo Ridenti: "Latin American Communists and Mass Culture during the Cold War"
Chair: Giorgos Souvlis

Dialectics Today
14:30–16:15, B201

Keti Chukhrov: "Marxist Dialectics in the Times of Computational Mind"
Michael Brie: "Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and Metaphysics of Domination"
Vesa Oittinen: "Dialectics In Spinoza – And What it Means for Marxist Philosophy"  
Marco Vanzulli: "Marx was Never Feuerbachian. Criticism of the ‘two Marx’s’ Theory"
Chair: Paul Reynolds

Friday, 8 November

Fascism and Antifascism Today
9:15–11:00, DLT

Ingar Solty: "The 18th Brumaire of Donald J. Trump? The Rise of the Far Right in the United States in light of Marx’s Bonapartism Theory"
Tom Travers: "Porno-Accumulation: Fascism, Absolute Capital, and Surplus Populations in Don DeLillo’s ‘Running Dog’"
Ishay Landa: "The Fascist Concept of the Enemy"
Javier Moreno Zacarés "The Transition to Agrarian Capitalism in Spain: From Liberal Stagnation to Fascist Breakthrough"
Chair: Angela Dimitrakaki

Saturday, 9 November

BOOK LAUNCH: "Marx on Campus: A Short History of the Marburg School"
9:15–11:00, MAL B02

Frank Deppe
Ingar Solty
Chair & Discussant: Loren Balhorn

New Insights On the Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg
14:00–15:45, B102

Peter Leslie Hudis
Eleanor Penny
Jacqueline Rose
Klaus Gietinger
Chair & Discussant: Loren Balhorn


Critique of Politics and Anti-Politics
14:00–15:45, G51a

Frederic Lordon: "Critique of the Anti-Politics (About a Certain Mood in Political Philosophy – from Rancière to Agamben)"
Alex Demirovic: "Materialities and Politics"
Dan Swain: "Post-Capitalist Politics and the Dying Away of Authority"
Chair: Svenja Bromberg

New Developments in Rosa Luxemburg Research and Biography
16.00–17.45, B103

Jörn Schütrumpf: "Rosa Luxemburg’s Concept of Revolution: Against Well- Worn Misunderstandings"
Julia Killet: "Rosa Luxemburg’s Depiction in Biographical and Literary Prose"
Ottokar Luban: "The Significance of German Police Reports for the Preservation of Rosa Luxemburg’s Speeches – 3 Examples"
Chair: Loren Balhorn

Sunday, 10 November

Writing Communist Histories
14:45–16:30, MAL G22

Anna Krylova: "Writing Communist History and the Problem of Historical Agency (or Writing Communist History and the Social Actor Problem)"
Claudia Verhoeven "Reading Manson Against the Grain: On the Use of Terrible Cases for Communist History"
Andrew Zimmerman: "‘To this crime we plead guilty’: Queer Futures and Communist Histories"
Loren Balhorn: "Germany's Last Communist: The Life and Work of Theodor Bergmann (1916–2017)"
Chair: Ashok Kumar