Connolly Soviet Day School

dublin | anti-capitalism | event notice Wednesday October 26, 2011 18:37 by James Connolly Soviet

James Connolly Soviet will be holding its second day school at Connolly Books, Temple Bar, Dublin on Saturday 12th November 2011. The school will begin at 10.30am and end at 5pm, and consist of five sessions, four comprising of a talk followed by an open discussion on the topic, and a final open session.

The programme for the day is as follows:

10.30-12.00

The Reality of the Virtual Republic

Gilles Deleuze wrote: "Becoming isn't part of history; history amounts only to the set of preconditions, however recent, that one leaves behind in order to "become", that is, to create something new."  In this session we discuss the category of the Virtual as that which liberates mankind from the instinctual determinism of evolution.  With reference to the work of Marx, Freud, Deleuze and Zizek, we consider the real effects of the virtual 32 County Workers Republic in 21st Century Ireland.

12-1pm

Economic Democracy - A Dual Power Soviet Model

At the last day school we examined Representational Democracy and the processes which makes it anything but democratic, and representative of only the elites.  We will develop this analysis further and examine the alternative, Economic Direct Democracy and the creation of Worker Collectives or Soviets.  We will examine how this does not simply provide us with an ultimate goal, but as a way to organise ourselves today and challenge the status quo.

1-2pm Lunch

Radical Epistemology: Critical Realism and Cartographies of Knowledge

Louis Althusser developed a theory of Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses in an attempt to explain the hegemonic structure of knowledge while at the same time allowing for a non-relativistic science.  Critical realism is a philosophy of science that deepens these insights using the concept of a structured and striated reality.  The second theory to be covered, in this session, will be that of global cartographies of power and eurocentrism, and will focus on the manner in whcih European specific knowledge and experience is taken to be universally applicable to subaltern regions - above all in the context of international development.

3-4pm

Ireland and Libya: Two Sides of the Rentier State

A Rentier State is defined as a state which structures its economy on the export of a single, unrpcoessed commodity - be that livestock, oil, capital, etc.  We look at the structural identity between the Irish coup d'etat of 1922, financed by a grazier class, with foregin military backing - and the Libyan coup d'etat of 2011, financed by a business class, which had been deprived of private ownership of oil revenues, and actualised by a massive bombing campaign by NATO.

4-5pm

Foirceann na Scoile

An open session where we discuss and integrate the topics and themes raised during the day.

James Connolly Soviet would like to thank the Communist Party of Ireland for facilitating this day school.  For more information please call 087 2125068