2015 Conference

Praxis and Critique: Liberation, Pedagogy, and the University

2015

Sixth Biennial Conference

INTERNATIONAL HERBERT MARCUSE SOCIETY

November 12-15, 2015

SALISBURY UNIVERSITY

Salisbury, Maryland, USA

Thursday, November 12, 2015


11:00am-4:00pm: Student Workshop: “Express Your Phantasies—Creating Key Issues of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man.” Peter-Erwin Jansen
2:00pm-3:30pm: Critical Theory Methodology Workshop: “What is the Meaning of Critique Today?” Moderators: Alexander Stoner and Adam Bronson. Panelists: Lauren Langman (Loyola University Chicago), Andrew Liu, and Cristina Cammarano
3:30pm-5:00pm: Workshop on Radical Teaching: Accounting for Inequality. Charles Reitz (Kansas City Kansas Community College) and Andrew T. Lamas (University of Pennsylvania) 7:00pm-8:30pm: OPENING KEYNOTE: “New Sensibilities, New Universities: Higher Education, Utopian Energies, and the Prospects for Liberation” Steven Dandaneau (Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, Kansas State University)

Friday, November 13, 2015


9:00am-9:30am: Opening Plenary: Welcome and Introductory Remarks. Dean Maarten Pereboom, Sarah Surak (Salisbury University), and Peter Marcuse (Columbia University)
9:30am-10:30am: Opening Plenary: “When Liberation Movements become One-Dimensional: On Critical Theory and Intersectionality.” Arnold Farr (University of Kentucky) with Amahlia Perry-Farr and Louisa Perry-Farr

Session 1: 10:45am-12:00pm

1:00pm-2:45pm: “Confronting the Neoliberal University: ‘Striking to Win’ at York University.” The roundtable will explore the relation between critical pedagogy and the recent month-long TA/graduate student strike at York University, in Toronto, CANADA. Panelists: Dean Caivano, Rodney Doody, Terry Maley, and Chris Vanden Berg.

Session 2: 3:00pm-4:30pm

4:45PM-6:00PM: Student Session. Presenters: Cameron Rines, Anthony Reeves, Noel Dunfrene, Ben VanBloem, and Madison Weinberg
7:00PM-9:00PM: Art Exhibition and Reception.This conference is an interdisciplinary, multimedia engagement with the many dimensions of Herbert Marcuse’s work. The Salisbury University Downtown Gallery presents work by painter Antje Wichtrey, “Versprechen, dass es anders sein kann” ("Promises That It Can Be Different", Afro-futurist David Brame, Brazilian artist Henrique Xavier, Allie Briggs, and the students participating in the “Express Your Phantasies—Creating Key Issues of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man” workshop. Curator: Elizabeth Kauffman (Salisbury University Gallery Director).

Saturday, November 14th


8:00AM-9:00AM: Conference Participants Meeting.

Session 3: 9:15am-10:45am

Session 4: 11:00am-12:30pm

Session 5: 1:45pm-3:00pm

Session 5A: Critical Pedagogy, Critical Consciousness: Teaching Liberation in a One-Dimensional Society

Clayton Graham, Peter Joun, David Kennedy, Michael Seal

Session 5B: Adorno, Heidegger, Chomsky, Freud: A Critical Interlocution

Stephen Bourque, Michael O’Loughlin, Lauren Langman

Session 5C: Sites of Struggle: The Great Refusal in Advanced Industrial Society

Joseph Trullinger, Jordan Cassidy, Robespierre de Oliveira


3:30PM-5:00PM: Coffee, Cookies, and Closing Session: Liberation Today.


CALL FOR PAPERS

International Herbert Marcuse Society

2015 Conference


In recent years, the problems and contradictions intrinsic to capitalist society have resulted in a number of manifest, seemingly permanent, crises. Many researchers, academics, and activists have seized on the urgency of recent coalescing crises—from environmental degradation to economic inequality, political instability to social unraveling, and beyond—in an attempt to ameliorate and analyze the consequences of these dilapidated social relations. The work of Herbert Marcuse aims to radically re-envision social relations via critical theory as a way to formulate a praxis of liberation. However, if we live in a society, as Marcuse puts it, “without negation,” how shall this critical rationality be cultivated? The International Herbert Marcuse Society seeks papers for the 2015 biennial conference, “Praxis and Critique: Liberation, Pedagogy, and the University,” that address the broad pedagogical concerns of cultivating emancipatory rationality. Faculty, independent scholars, activists, artists, and others are invited to submit papers. Papers may want to address, but are certainly not limited to, the following problematics: ● What role can and should critical pedagogy play in today’s institutions of higher education? Given Marcuse’s emphasis on praxis, critical pedagogy cannot be limited to classroom space in universities - how can a critical rationality translate into programs of activism, agitation, and organization?● How is the work of Marcuse, the Frankfurt School, and/or critical theory generally relevant to the current context of political, social, economic, and cultural struggles?● What is the meaning of praxis and critique today? Do Marcuse’s contemporary interlocutors help us refine, understand, recast, or critique visions of a critical rationality?● What can we learn from activists and scholars from a wide range of critical theories, dealing with liberation in areas such as critical race theory, intersectionality, LGBTQIA studies, disability studies, and postcolonial theory?● How does Marcuse’s critical theory provide a lens through which to assess the current condition of advanced industrial society? Student participation is also encouraged. The conference organizers are particularly interested in encouraging undergraduate and graduate student participation. To this end, we encourage faculty to teach related or special topics classes in fall 2015 and to bring students of all levels to the conference. Undergraduate students are invited to present papers in special concurrent sessions. Undergraduate and graduate students will also have the opportunity to submit conference papers for publication to special conference editions. Abstracts due May 20, 2015

Conference Organizers: Sarah Surak (Salisbury University) and Robert Kirsch (Salisbury University)