Antonio Gramsci: A Legacy for the Future?

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“Educate yourselves because we'll need all your intelligence. 
Stir yourselves because we'll need all your enthusiasm. 
Organize yourselves because we'll need all your strength."
- Antonio Gramsci, L’Ordine Nuovo, 1 May 1919

The Department of Humanities at SFU hosts a conference from Friday, October 19 until Sunday, October 21 in downtown Vancouver on the legacy and continuing relevance of Gramsci’s work for our times.

The eighty-year anniversary of Antonio Gramsci’s death in 1937 under the fascist regime has sparked renewed debates about Gramsci’s contribution to Marxist theory, his political and cultural critique, and the legacy of his thought—from his articulation of the role of “hegemony” in the formation of consensus within social and political structures to the work of the “organic intellectual” and the necessary conjunction of “theory and praxis.”

What does it mean to engage with Gramsci’s intellectual legacy today? We live in a time of profound social and political challenges in the world: from the threat to democracy, the rise of “new” populisms and the resurgence of the many fascisms on the political scene, to spreading geopolitical conflicts, mass migrations across continents, increasing social dispossession, and the environmental challenges of the Anthropocene.

What does Gramsci’s thought offer to address the conditions of our age? How did Gramsci respond to the changing historical conditions of his time? What new insights are gained by the developments of Gramscian Studies? What directions does Gramsci’s work open up for our future?

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Friday Oct. 19, 6:15 p.m.
Peter Ives (U of Winnipeg): Gramsci, Language Politics and Hegemony.

Saturday Oct. 20, 11: 00 a.m.
Guiseppe Vacca (Gramsci Institute in Rome, Italy): The Crisis of the State in Europe between the Two Wars: From New Order to the Prison Notebooks.

Saturday Oct. 20, 5:00 p.m.
Michael Denning (Yale U): Everyone a Legislator: Reflections on the Legacy of Gramsci’s Conception of Politics.

RESPONDENTS:
Jerry Zaslove and Jeff Derksen

INVITED SPEAKERS:
William Carroll (UViC), Dana Claxton (UBC), Frank Cunningham (U of Toronto and SFU), Andrew Feenberg (SFU), Rick Gruneau (SFU), Thomas Kemple (UBC), Jaleh Mansoor (UBC), Bob J. Neubauer (SFU), a panel with Jeff Derksen (SFU), Steve Collis (SFU), Clint Burnham (SFU), and Dorothy Lusk (KSW), and a students’ panel with Yuli Chan and Behnam Fayaz (SFU).

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Alessandra Capperdoni, Ian Angus, Samir Gandesha

Places to go nearby approx. 15 minutes away