ClassCrits VI has issued a Call for Papers and Participation for a conference on
Stuck in Forward?
Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political to be held at Southwestern Law School on November 15-16, 2013:
The
theme of this year’s workshop–the sixth meeting of ClassCrits–is debt,
austerity and the possibilities of the political. The economic crisis of 2008
was a referendum on the failures of deregulation and neoliberal ideology all
over the world. Far from being a sophisticated mechanism to absorb and diffuse
systemic economic risk, the crisis exposed a fragile global financial system
characterized by dysfunctional imbalances of increasingly precarious and
largely unregulated risk societies. In the United States, the social contract
of class mobility and the “American Dream” financed with “easy” credit was
exposed as an empty promise. In the European context, the sovereign debt crisis
resulted in the imposition of draconian austerity measures in several
nation-states, like Greece, undermining social safety nets and wage structures,
rupturing traditional alliances, and driving down individual standards of
living. At the same time, the Occupy Movement—and similar movements across the
globe—refocused attention on socio-economic inequality for the first time in
decades. The old ways of seeing things proved inadequate for framing the changing
realities of the new post-recession world. But whatever the initial shock to
the social order, political and financial elites everywhere have since doubled
down on the failed neoliberal project with a mania for balancing budgets in the
name of discredited austerity policies which have only accelerated
neoliberalism’s upward transfer and concentration of wealth and intensified the
class stratification in contemporary global societies. Stuck in the grip of austerity groupthink and
faced with nation states captured by elite interests─a trend only made worse in
the United States by Citizens United─any movement forward will
require creatively leveraging national political and legal systems as
instruments for progressive economic change and deleveraging social class
divides.What
are the possibilities and alternatives for a genuinely progressive economic
project in an age of resurgent neoliberal policies and politics, worldwide
shifts in population and demographics, and hegemonic economics? How can we
address the challenges of our age including, but not limited to: globalization;
shifting power relationships between the developed world and formerly “third
world” countries; massive intergenerational and upward transfers of wealth;
abject poverty; staggering debt; wage stagnation; a declining middle class; an
increasingly dysfunctional food system; and environmental and climate risks
that will require concerted national and international efforts. Stuck
in Forward? Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political will
address these questions by bringing together scholars, economists, activists,
policymakers, and others to critically examine and take stock of who wins, who
loses, how the law facilitates the hierarchical and spatial distribution of
winners and losers, and how we may use law and politics to develop both real
and utopian interstitial spaces of classlessness within the new post-recession
global order.We invite panel proposals and
paper presentations that speak to this
year’s theme as well as to general ClassCrits themes. … In addition, we extend a special
invitation to junior scholars (i.e., graduate students or any non-tenured
faculty member) to submit proposals for works
in progress. A senior scholar as well as other scholars will comment upon
each work in progress in a small, supportive working session.
Please submit your proposal by email to classcrits@gmail.com by March 20, 2013.
