Backdoor Broadcasting Company

Event Date: 26 May 2011
Birkbeck Cinema 43
Gordon Sq
London WC1

Birkbeck Arts Week

23 – 28 May 2011

This year’s Arts Week includes events from across the five academic departments within Birkbeck’s School of Arts with lectures, workshops, conferences and film screenings in different locations. While the majority of our activities will be in the School at 43 Gordon Square, there will also be events in Waterstones, the National Portrait Gallery, Drill Hall, Wigmore Hall and our Stratford campus.

Discussion of Film: ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (George A. Romero, 1978)

The above is part 1 of the film ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (George A. Romero, 1978).  All other parts (2-10) are also available on youtube.

The film will be introduced by Dr Amber Jacobs (Psychosocial Studies) and followed with a panel and audience discussion with Mark Fisher (Cultural Studies and Music Culture, Goldsmiths) Gordon Hon (Artist and Lecturer in Visual Culture, Winchester School of Art), Paul Myerscough (Senior Editor at the London Review of Books) Dr Catherine Grant (Senior Lecturer in Film from Sussex University). This event is part of the ‘Intrusions: Vampires, Strangers and Monstrous Others’ series convened by the Urban Studies group of the Raphael Samuel History Centre.

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Event date: 17 January 2011 (14:00-15:30)
Room 151 Birkbeck Main Building

Capitalist Realism: Is there No Alternative?

Mark Fisher in conversation with Amber Jacobs.

Last year Mark Fisher published Capitalist Realism: Is There no Alternative? (Zero Books 2009) in which he addressed the condition of ideological malaise produced by neo-liberal capitalism -or as he puts it- the “widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.” The economic crisis has only reinforced and accelerated the rhetoric of capitalist realism that demands that we all must face the hard facts of economic ‘reality’ in our acceptance of the dismantling of the public sector. Fisher argues that now, more than ever, alternatives must be articulated and fought for and the current resistance being lead by students makes this all the more urgent. As Zizek puts it “Fisher’s book is simply the best diagnosis of our predicament that we have.” This research seminar will be organised around a discussion of Capitalist Realism and the questions of theories and practices of resistance, cunning and subversion -which also inform Amber Jacobs’ current research.

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Introduction by Amber Jacobs:

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Mark Fisher:

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discussion:

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