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Chicago International Rosa Luxemburg Conference, April 27-29

Rosa Luxemburg and Her Ideas:
Engaging the Left and Changing the World

April 27-29, 2018 (Free)
April 27, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM
April 28, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM
April 29, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

At UE HALL, 37 S Ashland Ave, Chicago
Conference Language: English

Organized by:

  • International Rosa Luxemburg Society (Chairs: Prof. Dr. Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, India; Prof. Dr. William A. Pelz†, USA; Prof. Dr. Pablo Slavin, Argentina)
  • Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Office NewYork City (Co-Director Dr. Albert Scharenberg)

 

Programme

Day 1: Friday, April 27th

9:00 AM- 9:30 AM

Welcome

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM

Memorial for William A. Pelz by Axel Fair-Schulz
Memorial for Narihiko ITO by Ottokar Luban

10:05 AM – 12:00 PM

Panel  1 – Reports on International Research

Prof. Dr. Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Univ. Calcutta, India
“Evaluation of Rosa Luxemburg : an examination of changing perspectives of international scholarship

Dr.  MA,  Jiahong, University Peking, PR of China; Post-doc researcher at IISH, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Review and Prospect of Chinese Study in Rosa Luxemburg”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Axel Fair-Schulz, State University of New York, Potsdam, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and the November Revolution: Recent Trends in Historiography”

Dr. Uwe Sonnenberg, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
“Coming (Co-)Organized Events by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung on the Centenary of the German Revolution 1918/19”

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM — Lunch

1:00 PM – 2:10 PM

Panel  2 – Race, Class, and Movement Building

Prof. Dr. Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, IL, USA 
“Racism and the Logic of Capital: A Marxist-Humanist Assessment of the Relevance of Luxemburg’s Thought for Today’s Struggles Against Racism” 

PhD cand. Valentine Eben, Univ. of Minnesota, USA
“A View from Indymedia Africa: What would Luxembourg Say About Today’s Software Revolution?

1:00 PM – 2:10 PM

P a r a l l e l   Panel 2 – The Private Rosa Luxemburg

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Helen Scott, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA
“’Like a flash from eternity’: Rosa Luxemburg on Literature

Dr. Rory Castle Jones, Swansea Univ., Wales, UK
“’All the hidden, bitter tears’”: family, identity and the shaping of revolutionary Red Rosa”

Break of 5 Minutes

2:15 PM – 4:00 PM

Panel 3 – Rosa Luxemburg and Colonialism

Prof. Dr. Eleni Varikas, Univ. Paris 8/ Saint-Denis, CNRS, France; 2018: Visiting Prof. at Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and Colonialism“ 

Dr. Alyssa Adamson, Stony Brook University, NY, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and Decolonial Political Theory” 

Assoc. Prof. Sandra Rein, University of Alberta, Canada
“Rosa Luxemburg on colonialism:  Why it still Matters”

4:00 PM – 4:15 PM — Coffee/Tea Break 

4:15 PM – 6:00 PM

Panel 4 – Luxemburg and Other Female Socialist Thinkers

Dr. Andreas Stuhlmann, University of Alberta, Canada
“The Ghost of Rosa Luxemburg”: Hannah Arendt on Undogmatic Judgment, Spontaneity, and Revolution”

Franklin Dmitryev, Chicago, USA
“Revolutionary Intercommunication between the Ages: The “Dialogue” between Rosa Luxemburg and Raya Dunayevskaya

Dr. Dana Mills, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
“Going Ahead in 1893: when Eleanor met Rosa”

6:00 PM – 6:15 PM — Coffee/Tea Break

6:15 PM – 8:00 PM

Keynote 1

Prof. Dr. Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ, USA,
“The Contemporary Significance of Rosa Luxemburg’s Socialist Feminism”

——————————————————

Day 2: Saturday, April 28th

9:00 AM – 10:45 AM

Panel 5 – Discussions on Luxemburg’s

The Accumulation of Capital (1)

Inderjeet Singh, Research Scholar, Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala, India
The Accumulation of Capital in the Era of Imperialism

Prof. Dr. Andrew Kliman, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY, USA
Luxemburg’s Theory of Capital Accumulation: Still Influential, but Still Wrong 

Bradley Mayer, San Leandro, California, USA
Primitive Accumulation Inside and Out

10:45 AM – 11:00 AM — Coffee/Tea Break

11:00 AM – 12:10 PM

Panel 6 – Discussions on Luxemburg’s

The Accumulation of Capital (2)

LIN Haochao, Wuhan University, PR of China
The Inevitable Rise of Opposing Individual Freedom in Modernization: Based on the Theory of the Accumulation of Capital

Assist. Prof. Dr. Ankica Čakardič, Univ. Zagreb, Croatia
“Rosa Luxemburg and ‘woman question’- From theory of accumulation to social reproduction theory”

12:10 PM – 1:10 PM — Lunch

1:10PM-2.00PM

Keynote 2 

Dr. Helen Boak, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
“Women in the German revolution, 1918/19”

2:00 PM – 2:15 PM — Coffee/Tea Break

2:15 PM – 4:00 PM

Panel 7 – Marxist Thinking

PhD Cand.  Julia Killet, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, office Munich, Germany
Rosa Luxemburg‘s advice to the socialist movement (Considerations by the Luxemburg Biographer Paul Froelich)”

PhD Cand.  ZHANG Meng, Wuhan University, PR of China
Reflection on the Relationship between Rosa Luxemburg’s Thought and Marx’s Theory”

Prof. Dr. Paul Zarembka, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA
“Luxemburg, a Stable ‘Materialized’ Composition of Capital in the U.S. and Its Implications”

2:15 PM – 4:00 PM

P a r a l l e l   Panel 7 – Rosa Luxemburg’s Activities in the Socialist Movement

Dr. Arunas Vysniauskas, Vilnius, Lithuania
 “Rosa Luxemburg and the Polish ‘mosaic’ in Lithuania

Prof. Dr. Reiner Tosttorff, Univ. Mainz, Germany
 „Between Bockenheim, Hanau and Frankfurt: Rosa Luxemburg’s Rhein-Main connections

Ottokar Luban, Berlin, Germany
The Spartacus Group in the German Novemberrevolution 1918/19

4:00 PM – 4:15 PM — Coffee/Tea Break

4:15 PM  -6:00 PM

Panel 8 – Party and Leadership

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chris Cutrone, School of the Art Institute, University of Chicago, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and the Party” 

Prof. Dr. Lorraine Cohen, LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of leadership: An Alternative Approach”

Edward Remus, Ronald Williams Library, Northern Illinois University, Chicago
“American Bernstein, American Luxemburg: Views of the SPD’s revisionist dispute and great schism from the Socialist Party of America, 1900-1918” 

Henry Holland, Hamburg, Germany
“Beyond Nationalisms: Spontaneity and Working-Class Organization in Scotland, 2012-2017 through the lens of Luxemburg’s dialectic”

6:00 PM – 6:15 PM — Coffee/Tea Break

6:15 PM  -8:00 PM

International Plenary
Chances for Socialist Solutions of Current World Problems?

With Michael Loewy, Brazil, Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, India, Ingo Schmidt, Canada, Julia Killet, Germany
Chair: Peter Hudis

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Day 3: Sunday, April 29th

9:00 AM – 10:45 AM

Panel 9 – Luxemburg and Lukács and Gramsci: interpretations and Evaluations

PhD Cand. Kaveh Boveiri,  Univ. Montreal, Canada
“Lukács’s Reading of Rosa Luxemburg’s Conception of Totality: A Reappraisal”

Dr. Sevgi Doğan, University of Pisa, Italy
ANALYSIS OF INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT AS POLITICAL ACTION THROUGH GRAMSCI AND LUXEMBURG”

Prof. Dr. Daniel Egan, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and the Mass Strike: A Corrective to Gramsci’s Critique”

10:45 AM – 11:00 AM — Coffee/Tea Break

11:00 AM – 12:45 PM

Panel 10 – Socialist Internationalism versus Imperialism

Prof. Dr. Michael Loewy, Univ. Paris 8/ Saint-Denis, CNRS, France, Paris, France; 2018: Visiting Prof. at  Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg  and  Internationalism“

Dr. Attila Antal, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary
“Anti-war Theory and Activism in Permanent State of Exception”

Dr. Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, Canada
“Hilferding, Luxemburg & Lenin on Imperialism: Variations Amongst the Classic”

12:45 PM – 1:00 PM 

Final Words