Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Historical Materialism Comes to Canada

This is massively exciting: Historical Materialism is one of the best journals for Marxist work, but they've never really expanded outside of Britain. Now they are holding their first ever North American conference, and it's just down the road in Toronto.

Here's the announcement:
Historical Materialism - First North American Conference
April 24-26, 2008, York University, Toronto

It is with great excitement that we announce plans for the first ever North American conference sponsored by Historical Materialism: A Journal of Critical Marxist Research. While HM's annual conference in London has become a major rallying point for hundreds of people working within the traditions of historical materialism, thus far the journal has not had a comparable presence on this side of the Atlantic.

That is about to change with this major conference at York University in Toronto, April 24-26, 2008, sponsored by the Department of Political Science and Founders College.

We are now busy organizing panels and themes and attending to all the logistical details involved in hosting a large, dynamic conference of critical scholars and activists. Over the next few weeks, a conference website will be set up and announcements will go out concerning details with respect to agenda, accommodation and travel. To give you a taste of what we have in store, here is a list of just some of the more than 100 people who have accepted our invitation to present papers at the conference:

Rosemary Hennessey, Bertell Ollman, Johanna Brenner, Aijaz Ahmad, Peter Linebaugh, Joel Kovel, Deborah Cook, Giovanni Arrighi, Leo Panitch, Crystal Bartolovich, Moishe Postone, Barbara Epstein, Ato Sekyi-Otu, Bryan Palmer, Anna Agathangelou, Henry Veltmeyer, Isabella Bakker, Peter McLaren, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Greg Albo, Patrick Murray, Nancy Holmstrom, Bill Carroll, Rick Wolff, Radhika Desai, Stephen Gill, Alfredo Saad-Filho, John Saul, Christopher Phelps . . .

For further information, feel free to email hmtoronto@yahoo.com. Or watch for HM mailings in the coming weeks. We hope to see you in Toronto in April.
I'm especially excited about Moishe Postone and Patrick Murray, who are, without a doubt, two of the best people to read on Marx's critique of political economy--and Patrick's a real sweetheart to boot.