There must be some way out of here!
Political Mindfulness and the crisis of the Left
PUBLIC DISCUSSION AND BOOK LAUNCH
Where: Space 4 113-115 Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 3HH
When: January 22nd 6.30-8.30pm
Refreshments provided. Tickets £5.00 plus 20% discount on the book
To book : bit.ly/eyeglass22jan
We are living through disturbedand disturbing times in which the political landscape is changing under our feet and the maps drawn by most public commentators no longermake sense of whatis happening on the ground.
Against this backdrop we are urged tocultivate ‘resilience’ and ‘mindfulness’ as a wayof seizing andsurviving the present moment.Mindfulness in particular has been popularised as a way of promoting well-being by enabling people suffering from anxiety or depression to become more aware of internal mental states and their relation to external circumstances. But what if this conceptis applied not just to the adaptivestrategies of an individual psyche but to the state of health of the body politic? Might it then help us focus more precisely on how the stresses and strains of our everyday lives are connected to the socialstructures of inequality we inhabit. That,in turn might enable us to devise a strategy to connect with popular feelings of insecurity and injustice which Boris Johnson and the Alt- Right has so successfully exploited and linked to nativist and xenophobic narratives under the banner of ‘Get Brexit done’. We also urgently need to move beyond the current round of mutual recrimination, disavowal and special pleading which perhaps inevitably, is being generated by the debate on who is to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party..
To examine the current state of our political culture and the challenge - and opportunities- this presents for the broad democratic Left, eyeglass books have brought together a panel of leading political and cultural commentators whose work digs beneath the clichés of conjunctural analysis and seeks to examine some of the deeper underlying causes of the multiple crises we face. They will be in conversation with Phil Cohen, whose book Waypoints ; towards an ecology of political mindfulness is recently published by eyeglass.
THE PANEL
Andrew Calcutt Bassist. Journalist. Revolutionary Communist. Novelist. Classicist Futurist. In 50 years of public life Andrew Calcutt has pursued a number of careers. He continues to teach at the University of East London while experimenting with ‘creative journalism’ – his preferred mode of address to what he perceives as today’s top priority, ‘the crisis of imagination’.
Phil Cohen is an urban ethnographer by trade and has written many books based on his work with youth and communities in East London since the 1970’s, including On the Wrong Side of the Track: East London and the Post Olympics. He is currently research director of the Livingmaps Network ,working on developing a Young Citizens Atlas of London.
T. J. Clark has written books about art and politics, and taught art history for 40 years, mostly in the U. S. He returned to the U. K. ten years ago, and has looked on at the islands' ongoing tragi-comedy with puzzlement. His latest book, Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come, has a final section entitled 'For A Left with No Future'.
Dick Pountain born Chesterfield, Derbyshire, educated at grammar school, Imperial College (chemistry and biochemistry) and LSE (research assistant). Involved in Left politics and the counterculture since the 1960s. Computer journalist (Byte Magazine, PC Pro) and director of Dennis Publishing until last year. A regular contributor to Political Quarterly and co-author (with Dave Robins) of Cool Rules: anatomy of an attitude .
Ruth Lister is a Labour peer and Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University and a former director of the Child Poverty Action Group. She chairs the Compass management board and is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness. She has written widely on poverty, inequality and feminist issues.
Lynne Segal is socialist feminist<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_feminism> academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international Her most recent book is Radical Happiness : Moments of Collective Joy(2017)
Valerie Walkerdine has researched and published many books in the field of critical psychology , on issues of gender, childhood, and popular culture. She recently conducted a major study into the social and psychological impact of de-industralisation on ex-mining communities in South Wales
further information
www.eyeglassbooks.com
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