This conference seeks papers that address and create possibilities for continued revolutionary praxis and critique. In capitalism's movement toward securing a homogenized "way of life," the many contemporary political attacks on the left can defuse or ignite a radical politics for the future. Is the work of the present then merely to think about the future?

What strategies now offer viable alternatives for a radical present? Can performativity address, articulate, and enact class struggle? Can activism be effective in a global-economic context? Can resistance operate across differences of race, gender, and ethnicity? How can we combat a reified neo-liberal economic system for which "There is no alternative"?

Cesare Casarino interrelates philosophy, cinema, literature and queer theory to reveal the contestatory practices and heterotopic desires characterizing the processes of history. His forthcoming book is titled Modernity at Sea: Melville, Marx, Conrad in Crisis. Also, he has co-edited Marxism Beyond Marxism, and co-translated Giorgio Agamben's Means without End: Notes on Politics. Presently, he is researching how AIDS "has radically transformed the very forms of representation available to contemporary culture." Casarino is an Associate Professor with the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.

Randy Martin deploys disciplines such as political theory, theater, and urban planning to examine the workings of the public sphere. Martin's latest book, On Your Marx: Relinking Socialism and the Left, attempts to navigate the common ground between the various marxisms. His previous books include Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics;, Performance as Political Act: The Embodied Self; and Socialist Ensembles: Theater and State in Cuba and Nicaragua. Martin is associate dean of faculty and interdisciplinary programs and professor of art and public policy at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He is also the coeditor of the journal Social Text.

Prospective papers may address (but are not limited to) the following:

• Literary form and political change
• Activism and organization against global economy
• Literature and the epistemology of space
• Professionalization and the corporate university
• Revolutionary art: impact on public policy
• Queer activism: sexuality and citizenship
• Popular culture and the politics of containment
• Urban studies: ghettos and gated communities
• Diaspora studies: modernization and displacement
• Aesthetics of a general economy
• AIDS: the spectacle and the body
• Political economy of aesthetics
• Nationalisms and constructions of identity
• Representations of uneven geographical development
• Racialized ethnicities: denials and universalizations
• Marxism contra marxisms
• Globalization and the division of space
• Production values: theories of economy
• Global proletarianization of female labor
• Insurgent spatial practices: sites for alternative production

Non-traditional or performative panels will also be considered.

One page abstracts, questions, and comments should be submitted to the Marxist Reading Group at extinction@clas.ufl.edu. For info on previous conferences visit www.english.ufl.edu/mrg

Abstracts due: January 25