Occupations Conference
Toronto, Canada, April 27-29, 2012

CFP for Occupations
York & Ryerson Universities
Toronto, April 27-29, 2012—proposals due on February 1.

Some updates for Intersections / Cross Sections 2012: Occupations. See below for CFP.

1) We are extremely happy to announce Brian Holmes (Continental Drift) and Sarah Sharma (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) as our keynotes. Stay posted for additional speakers.

2) Edu-Factory’s “Our University! A Conference on Struggles Within and Beyond the Neoliberal University ” will be held in Toronto the same weekend. For more information on the Edu-Factory conference, see http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/the-university-is-ours/

3) There’s an Occupy Toronto Activist Assembly, January 20, 2012–January 22, 2012, at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) @ St. George and Bloor Street, Toronto, ON. For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/events/270078499716966/

INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: OCCUPATIONS
11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture
York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
April 27-29, 2012
http://thecomcult.wordpress.com
Keynotes: Brian Holmes, Continental Drift and Sarah Sharma, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come." — Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage”

The unfolding events at Occupy Wall Street and elsewhere present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning from, living with and engaging each other. Occupations are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working through of a problem that politics-as-usual works to suppress—the massive exploitation that is capitalism and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now. We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore and otherwise critically engage occupations.

CFP For the global emancipation of labour: new movements and struggles around work, workers and precarity
Interface

Once, the labour movement was seen as the international social movement for the left (and it was the spectre haunting capitalism). Over the last century, however, labour movements have been transformed. In most of the world membership rates have dwindled, and many act in defence of, or simply provide services to, their members in the spirit of interest or lobbying groups. Labour was once a broad social movement including cooperatives, socialist parties, women’s and youth wings, press and publications, cultural production and sporting clubs. Often it was at the core of movements for democracy or national independence, even of social revolution. Despite the rhetoric of ‘socialism’, ‘class and mass trade unionism’ or, alternatively, technocratic ‘organising strategies’, most union movements internationally operate strictly within the parameters of capitalism and the ideology of ‘social partnership’ (i.e. with and under capital and state).

Rebel Studies Library Opens in Belarus

Rebel Studies Library is the first alternative non-commercial volunteer-based antiauthoritan diy library in the belarussian cultural zone (founded 05.12.2011). We provide free and open, non-commercial public space for reading books (in english, russian, ukrainian, belarussian, german, polish languages), watching movies and discussions. You don't pay money for using books and watching movies. Right now, we have about 400 books of relevant to the contemporary world literature (Fiction, Cinema, Theatre, Religion, Philosophy, Psychology).

Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons: A Community Gathering

A crisis in capitalism is stalking the world. Greed, ecological plunder, famine and displacement off the land increasingly mark the battle lines between the rich and everyone else. Enforced homelessness, social service cuts, and environmental disasters have become regular occurrences. But today we also see people in every corner of the world rising up against these injustices. We are inspired by this “indignant” moment, but we want to understand what lies beyond our collective “no!” to a future foreclosed by dispossession, debt and ecocide.

Fighting for safe food and housing, decent health, clean air and undeveloped spaces in nature have long given common cause to communities around the world. The “commons” refers to relationships based on shared resources, collective management, networks of mutual aid, respect and dignity. But these commons have either been captured by the market or are increasingly at risk of it. Taking back the commons means reclaiming community control over the parts of our lives that have been colonized by governments, markets, and corporations.

Can we recognize, reclaim and create alternative social realities that the elite tell us cannot possibly exist? A gathering is being organized to help us answer this question. The gathering will cover the themes of systemic crisis, economics, land, food, water, health, education, media, ecology, decolonization, migration and the history of the commons.

Join Us!