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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive:
Summer Conference 2005
Friday, September 23rd
- 8:00 to 9:30 pm
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Agency and Action,
or, Neurology Theorizes Anarchism
Michael Steinberg
Thinking
about human agency may seem like a waste
of time when so much is collapsing around
us. Capitalism, though, is unique; it's
grounded in the structure of our own experience
and sense of self. So long as we see ourselves
entering the social world from outside,
we can do nothing but remake the very world
we set ourselves against. If we start instead
from neurology and theoretical biology,
we can see that human agency is an aspect
of a single process that throws up the self
and the world simultaneously. This is the
terrain on which Marx's vision of the emergence
of an unalienated world and the anarchist
insistence that ends and means can't be
separated can meet. This presentation will
explore the implications of such an approach.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Michael
is the author of The Fiction of a Thinkable
World: Body, Meaning, and the Culture of
Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 2005).
He lives in Rochester, New York, with his
wife, Loret, a photographer and professor
of documentary photography, and two highly
educational cats. He is a regular contributor
to Monthly Review's webzine.
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Anarchism and Animal
Liberation
Justin Cree, Theresa Petray, Jenna
Torres, and Bob Torres
This panel
proposes to examine the critical, practical,
and theoretical junctures between anarchist
theory/action and contemporary animal liberation
movements. Focused on exploitation via the
mechanisms of unbridled capitalist expansion,
we aim to discuss the oppression of humans
and nonhumans alike, highlighting the common
root of both kinds of oppression, particularly
in animal agriculture. The panelists see
their role as facilitators in a conversation
that aims to uncover and reinvigorate the
linkages between animal rights, anarchist
theories, and liberatory practice. In sum,
we plan to use our brief presentations as
the start of what we hope to be an informed
conversation on the ways in which anarchism
can influence the struggle for animal liberation.
All the
panelists are members of the Vegan Action
Group in Canton, New York. Theresa is currently
completing a thesis on the violence of the
capitalist system in the developing world.
Bob is a faculty member in the Department
of Sociology at St. Lawrence University,
and has taught courses on anarchist theory,
globalization, food, international development,
and social theory. Jenna is a faculty member
in the Department of Modern Languages at
St. Lawrence University, and has taught
Spanish, Spanish literature and language,
and imperialism in Latin America. Bob and
Jenna are coauthors of Vegan Freak: Being
Vegan in a Non-Vegan World (Tofu Hound Press,
2005).
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Speculative Technoscience
in an Advanced Capitalist Era: The Meaning
of Transhumanism's Vision for Post-Humanity
Ben Grosscup
An emerging
movement of techno-enthusiasts foresee the
progress of humanity through the technological
(e.g., bioengineering, nanotechnology, artificial
intelligence) self-mastery of the body.
This movement, called "transhumanism," I
argue, represents one important direction
in which global capitalism is developing.
As the view that emerging technologies can
make people "better than human" becomes
more pervasive, the transhumanist movement
will grow in appeal. With worsening ecological
conditions globally, which threaten the
very existence of human life as we know
it, technological visions of a "totally
engineered" and even "biologically unconstrained"
world, like that of transhumanism, may be
seen as capitalism's only way to avoid self-destruction
from the ecological chaos its competitive
economic forms cause. Drawing from new ethnographic
data, social ecology, and the anthropology
of science and technology, I will offer
a critical analysis of this movement and
its place in broader networks of industry,
science, and culture. My argument is a nonessentialist,
radical, and reconstructive alternative
to both the exuberance of transhumanism
and the nature essentialism of its most
prominent contemporary critics.
Ben is
an alumnus of the Institute for Social Ecology,
a former community organizer and intern
with the ISE Biotechnology Project, and
a "supporting member" of the Free
Society Collective. He is now finishing
his BA in the anthropology of science and
technology at Hampshire College, and just
organized the Social Ecology Intensive Colloquium
at the ISE.
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continue on to Saturday
the 24th / Sunday
the 25th
or, back to main
menu for Summer Conference 2005
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