Hi all,
We're pleased to announce that Bruce Braun will be presenting the 2013
Antipode RGS-IBG Lecture
on Wednesday 28th August between 16:50 and 18:30 in the Ondaatje
Theatre. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception between
18:45-20:00 in the Map Room, and our colleagues at Wiley will be filming
the lecture and will make it available as a part of our
Lecture Series videos.
Bruce's lecture is entitled 'Vital Materialism and Neoliberal Natures': "This talk traces a relation between two distinct
literatures that have largely ignored each other. First, a dynamic
literature on ‘vital materialism’ that counts complex systems theory
among its influences and proposes a non-dualistic and non-deterministic
understanding of nature; and, second, a vast literature on ‘neoliberal
natures’ that explores the commodification, monetization and
financialization of nature within new modes of market governance. What
relation might be drawn between the concepts developed in the first and
the transformations examined in the second? While some have suggested
that there is an intuitive ideological fit between concepts of
non-deterministic nature and neoliberalism, or even that vital
materialisms are complicit with neoliberal capitalism, this talk extends
efforts to tell the story of their relation in a much different way.
Such efforts not only seek to distinguish between the original critical
impulses of complex systems theory and the form in which they are
‘captured’ or ‘redeployed’ by neoliberalism, they also offer an
opportunity to raise pressing questions about historiography and
critique in the face of claims that the latter has run out of steam.
Drawing upon Marx’s discussion of ‘pre-capitalist economic formations’
and Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘universal history’, I argue for the
continued relevance of a mode of historical analysis that is
‘retrospective, ironic and critical’."
All welcome!
To mark the lecture we're making a superb collection of
Antipode
essays open access until the end of the year. Bruce's work on
eco-politics, political ecology, biosecurity, new materialisms, and the
city will be well known to many readers of the journal, and the virtual issue includes some great examples as well as the work of
interlocutors and fellow travellers. We move from materialist social
theory, through theses on the production of nature, to neoliberal
natures, environmental justice, climate change and capitalist
conservation, before finishing with looks at fish, influenza and
‘waste’…
http://antipodefoundation.org/2013/08/21/virtual-issue-ecologies-in-against-and-beyond-capitalism/I hope many of you will be able to attend the lecture.
Best wishes,
Andy
