Just a brief response to Jim's initial question on the Rethinking Marxism
conference. I was one of the co-organizers of the conference, and the one
mainly responsible for the conference program, of some 190 panels.
There is no question in my mind that the conference attracts mainly
academics doing all types of critical analysis, from radical political
economy to semiotic cultural studies, and often combining them both. There
are very few "activists" who come. Whether that is good or bad is not
obvious to me. It seems to me that there is no one best way to organize on
the Left these days and we all need to do what we can, in whatever ways we
can. (BTW, I know that academics are also activists and activists are also
academics - I not concerned with this finer point).
In a similar way, the conference was both open and ecumenical, while also
rather partisan (which I suppose you can pejoratively call exclusionary, as
some have). We found space for any and everyone who wanted to present a
paper, panel, performance, art, etc., to do so. But, yes, the plenaries
were decided on by the organizers, and really why shouldn't it be this way?
Afterall, the conference was organized and sponsored by Rethinking Marxism
and therefore might well reflect the ideas, positions, and biases of its
editors. RM is a journal open to a wide array of ideas concerned with
Marxism and related fields, and we have published with a wide diversity.
Yet, we are not, and never have pretended to be, as ecumenical as say URPE
and the RRPE. We have been a journal with a partisan, yet always shifting
set of postionings, as new ideas push and pull Marxism in various
directions. But one thing has remained a priority, and that is the RM's
interest in developing and fostering non-essentialist forms of discourse as
related to Marxism (whether you want to call that postmodernism or not).
So, as I have heard some criticize the conference for being exclusionary (I
prefer partisan), I remain a little puzzled. The conference was extrememly
open with regard to conference program, but what exactly did people expect
coming to a conference sponsored by Rethinking Marxism??? Afterall, that
is what we are about, and we don't disguise our intentions as others on the
Left have recently felt the need to do.
Instead, I would like to hear discussion or criticism about the quality of
the papers (and of course many have already commented on this), or was
there a poor turnout (which of course was the opposite case), what was the
sense of interest and excitement (extremely vigorous), did people make new
connections across disciplines and internationally (many), or even did
Balibar have anything to say, even though he (unfortunately) spoke too
long, and so on.
I am sorry the conference was not exactly what some people had hoped for,
or wanted, or even at times seem to demand. We all do what we can and make
the types of intereventions we are able to and that we feel will have some
impact, however limited that might be. I wish that we on the Left would
demand less of each other about how things should be, or feel the need to
entrap each other in faux pas's, and show a little more graciousness and
understanding, because we are all working very hard in these inauspicious
times and no one I know has yet found the unique way to change this world
for the better.
Steve C.
p.s. For a full description of our conference program, post-conference
reactions from the international press, and a lot about RM, check out our
new web site: http://www.nd.edu/~remarx/
***********************************************
Stephen Cullenberg office: (909) 787-5037, ext. 1573
Department of Economics fax: (909) 787-5685
University of California [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Riverside, CA 92521
http://www.ucr.edu/CHSS/depts/econ/sc.htm
