Event Date: 21 March 2015
Day 2 (London)
Room B01 Clore Building
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX
The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and the School of Humanities at Canterbury Christ Church University present:
Postpolitics and Neoliberalism
Politics is dead, dying, or changing into something new. The word ‘ideology’ has become a term of abuse, associated especially with the ‘utopian’ old left. Commitment and belief have become ‘tribalism’ and ‘dogma’. Technocracy, pragmatism, and single-issue campaigns are the order of the day. As the public tune out and turn away, politicians perform increasingly desperate acts of self-abasement. Anti-Westminster mavericks are on the rise. Everywhere there are calls to shrink the state.Yet a politics that exists outside the theatre of the state has yet to be imagined.
As the 2015 election fast approaches, this conference will explore the ideological, cultural, linguistic and historical dimensions of the contemporary postpolitical moment, and its relationship to neoliberalism. With participants drawn from academic, writing, and campaigning backgrounds, the conference will bring together a range of approaches in order to grasp the enduring subtext of the all-consuming and all-erasing daily news churn.
Programme:
Day 2 (London)
Eliane Glaser (CCCU and Birkbeck) – Welcome
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Session One: Hegemony, consent and resistance
Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck) – Radical philosophy reads the age of resistance
Jeremy Gilbert (East London) – Hegemony and Consent in a post-political age
Panel Questions:
Chair: Iain MacKenzie (Kent)
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Session Two: Post-political politics
Nina Power (Roehampton) – The Post-Political = The Most Political
Ben Little (Middlesex) – The meaning of Russell Brand
Panel Questions:
Chair: Andre Barrinha (CCCU)
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Session Three: British politics at the crossroads
Eliane Glaser (CCCU and Birkbeck) – Ideology, authority and populism
John Crace (Guardian) – Why Politicians lie
Panel Questions:
Chair: Marissia Fragkou (CCCU)
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Keynote Lecture: Chantal Mouffe (Westminster) – The future of democracy in a post-political age
Audience Questions:
Chair: Nina Power (Roehampton)
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Concluding panel discussion: Esther Leslie, Chantal Mouffe, Zoe Wiliams, Nina Power, Costas Douzinas
Chair: Eliane Glaser
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Drinks – all welcome
Afterword: Zoe Wiliams: