CFP: CRMEP Graduate Conference | Title: Reading Capital 60 Years On

The publication of Reading Capital [Lire le capital] marked an event in the full philosophical sense of the term: at the same time a rupture and irreversible beginning. A collaborative, seminary effort between multiple authors - convened by Louis Althusser - the text proposed a radical new reading of Das Kapital, one that was intentionally partial and unorthodox, and all the more productive for being so. Its almost immediate success within both domestic and international circles inaugurated a new tradition of philosophical thought under the banner of structural Marxism, thematising notions such as symptomatic reading, militant science, structural causality and theoretical anti-humanism. The precocious seminary contributors invariably went on to become hugely influential forces themselves, from Pierre Macherey, Jacques Ranciere, and Roger Esablet, to the beloved, one-time Professor at the CRMEP, Etienne Balibar.

On the occasion of its 60-year anniversary, this conference seeks to revisit the intellectual legacy of Reading Capital, investigating its contemporary relevance, as well as the polemics that have emerged since its publication. We thereby invite papers that critically reflect on this legacy, drawing attention to the limits of the work as well as its unexplored potentials. We would also like to welcome papers that engage with Capital itself, and the various other readings that have become canonised in the intervening decades. Papers will therefore be categorised into the following streams:

1. Reading Capital

This panel invites papers that directly engage with Marx’s Capital project as a critical text, focusing on unresolved problems of interpretation, translations, intellectual histories, lacunae and tensions, and so on.

2. Reading Reading Capital

Readings of Reading Capital itself, attending to thematics raised by one or more of its component texts, the continuity/discontinuity of the project as a whole, the resulting trajectories of its individual authors, or the circumstances of its production and reception histories.

3. Reading readings of Capital

Finally, readings of one or more of the various interpretative traditions to which Capital - and Marx’s wider corpus - have given rise, evaluated in critical relation to structural Marxism. These could include, but are not limited to: Postcolonial and feminist readings, German Critical Theory, the Neue-Marx Lekture, Value-Form Theory, Operaismo and Autonomia Operaia, the ‘State debates’, Legal Form Theory, Political Marxism, Social Reproduction Theory.

We are currently accepting abstracts for papers that are no longer than 15 minutes in length(1950-2250 words). Presenters must be either currently pursuing a PhD or enrolled in an equivalent intensive research program. If you are interested in presenting, please email an abstract (max 300 words) and a brief personal bio to [email protected] by March 15th. We look forward to reading your submissions!

Disclaimer: this event is organised by the PhD students at the now independent institution, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.