Conference 2004
Catastrophe Now: The Wreckage of Utopia
Keynote Speakers: Susan Buck-Morss and Christian Parenti
March 25-27 at University of Florida

Sponsored by: The Department of English, ACCENT, BOCC, CLASSC,
and The Marxist Reading Group

Thursday, March 25
Thursday panels will take place in 219 Dauer Hall

8:30-10:00
There are Things That We Don't Know That We Don't Know

Nick Gorell (Utah State U.), Rereading the Late Capitalist World: The Role of Higher Education in Strengthening American Democracy and Preparing for Revolution
Steve Spence (Clayton State College & U.), Prophets of a Wired World: MLK vs. the ‘California Ideology’
Laurie Taylor and Brendan Riley (U. of Florida), The Open Source Model and Real World Collaborative Pedagogy
Moderator: Julia Albarracin

10:15-11:45
The Call of the Sirens

Guillermina Seri (U. of Florida), A Parasitic Tool of a Parasitic Class?: The Police in Karl Marx and the Left
Todd Reynolds (U. of Florida), Heterosexual Securities: Gender, Terror, and Labor in the Formulation of ‘Police’
Brian Meredith (U. of Florida), On 'Something that Walks Somewhere': the Policing of the Concept
Moderator:  Frederick Young

12:00-1:00
Lunch break

1:00-2:30
When At Work, You're Not At Home

Rizalino Noble Malabed (U. of Florida), Beyond State and Revolution: Privileging Multiplicity and Contentiousness
Derek Merrill (U. of Florida), The Case of Argentina: Recuperated Factories and the Multitude
Lisa Ladwig (U. of Central Florida), Singularities in Solidarity within and against Empire: A Case Study of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union
Moderator:  Nicole LaRose

2:30-4:00
When You Play, We All Win

Eric Meisberger (Slippery Rock University), A World to Win and Chains to Lose: A Brief Overview of Marxian Cultural Theory
Dylan Wolfe (U. of Georgia), Marx’s Scientific Intent: Scientific Norms and Rhetorical Constraints in the writing of Das Kapital
Scott Nygren (U. of Florida), Lyotard and Marx
Moderator:  Mindy Cardozo

4:14-5:45
‘By the Guts of the Last Bureaucrat . . .’

Stephanie Smith (U. of Florida), The State of the Union: The Lindberghs and the Politics of Marriage
Anton Janulis (U. of Florida), Ideology and Culpability: Some Thoughts on the State and Mass Murder
David Hines (U. of Florida), Carlos Reconsidered: A Venezuelan’s Odyssey from Marx to Muhammed
Susan Hegeman (U. of Florida), Anti-Culture, Anti-Globalization
Moderator: Joel Adams

8:00  215 Dauer Hall
Ross Birrell's Envoy, Presentation and Discussion
 

Friday, March 26
Friday panels will take place in the 219 Dauer Hall

9:00-10:30
Leben Heisst Leben

Aleksandar Sarovic, Humanism for Dummies: This System will Replace Capitalism and Finally Create a Good Society: www.sarovic.com
Anna Peterson (U. of Florida), The Left and the Reign of God
Clara E. Sotelo (U. of Florida), Power and Meaning in Latin America: A Feminist Perspective
Moderator: Andrew Jenkins

10:45-12:15
Day of Wreckoning

Jeremy Proulx (U. of Western Ontario), Non-Synchronous Remnants and the Emergence of the New
Matt Stoddard (U. of Minnesota), The Death of Cinema and the Time of Liberation
Aron Pease (U. of Florida), Notation Systems on the General Intellect
Moderator: Roger Beebe

12:30-2:00 219 Dauer Hall
A Global Public Sphere?: Lunch / Q&A with Susan Buck-Morss

2:00-3:30
Better Hells and Gardens

Maureen Turim (U. of Florida), Commercialized Desire/Utopian Desires
Andrew Reynolds (U. of Florida), 'Obscenity Must Be Mated with Banality': Consumer Society, Transparency, and Perversity in Lolita
Charlie Potter (U. of Oklahoma), Capitalism, Utopia, and the Master Narrative: A Feminist Approach to Communal Unity
Moderator: Aaron Shaheen

3:45-5:15
Extreme Makeover

Samuel Snyder (U. of Florida), 'The Time is Near!' A Call for Ambiguous Collective Action
John Fletcher (U. of Minnesota), 'The World Is the Worst It has Ever Been': Evangelical Identity, Capitalist Culture, and the Tactics of Tastelessness in Hell House
Christopher Mack (SUNY Oswego), Inside/Out: Deleuze, Foucault, and Resistance in Prison Life and Literature
Moderator: Melissa Mellon

8:00  Keene Faculty Center
Keynote Address by Christian Parenti

Reception to follow in the Keene Faculty Center
 

Saturday, March 27
Saturday panels will take place in 215 Dauer Hall

9:00-10:30
Resisting Utopias: A Roundtable Discussion on Pedagogies of Dissent

Mary Braun (U. of Florida – Pensacola), Catherine Chaput (Georgia Southern U.), G. Brett Davis (Georgia Southern U.), Nick Dinehart (Georgia Southern U.), Taara McClendon (Georgia Southern U.)
                    
 
 
10:00-12:00 Civic Media Center (1021 W. University Ave.)
State and Incarceration: A Roundtable Discussion

Christian Parenti and members of Florida Institutional Legal Services, The National Lawyers Guild, and Critical Resistance

10:45-12:15
Code Orange

Craig Peariso (SUNY – Stony Brook), The Signifying Panther, or, Playing the Dozens with Ronald Reagan
Sarah Kanouse, (U. of Illionos, Urbana-Champaign) Ungrounded Opposition: Cultural Resistance as Virus
Mariana Geniz, (U. of Entre Rios) Impacto de las Politicas Neo-Liberales en la Educacion en Argentina
Moderator: Kate Casey-Sawicki

12:30-1:45
Lunch break

1:45-3:15
Take the Blue Pill and Chill

Alan Sikes (Florida State U.), Communism: Coming to a Screen Near You!!
Dennis Broe, (Long Island U.) Ghost World, The Negative Dialectic and the Glimpsing of Utopia
Bradley Butterfield (U. of Wisconsin, La Crosse), The Matrix Reevaluated: The Frankfurt School and the Future of Sci-Fi
Moderator:  Roger Whitson

3:30-5:00
Utopia: Never and Now

Dennis Badeen, Historical Understanding and Reconciliation in Palestine/Israel
Phil Wegner (U. of Florida), Beyond the Cold War: Repetition and Revisions in the Terminator Films
Renuka Bisht (U. of Florida), War and Peace: A Documentary and the Fate of an  Election
Moderator: Candi Churchill

8:00  Keene Faculty Center
Globalization and Imagination: Keynote Address by Susan Buck-Morss

Reception to follow at 1212 NW 4th Avenue.

(more conference information)

The Marxist Reading Group would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance: John P. Leavey, Peggy Kohn, English Graduate Organization, Sophie Croisy, the people from ACCENT, BOCC, and CLASSC, Tara Overzat, Doug Ratay from GSC, Andrew Jenkins, Amy Ongiri, Andrew Reynolds, Aaron Shaheen, Kate Casey-Sawicki, Barry Sawicki, and Julie Fain from International Socialist Review. We would like to extend our gratitude to Candi Churchill and Natasa Kovacevic for hosting Saturday's reception.