11 – 13 September 2019
Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, this conference looks both backwards and forwards to explore the legacies of 1989. Francis Fukuyama famously claimed that this moment marked the “End of History”: an end to ideological struggle which would open the way for the inexorable spread of liberal democracy across the globe. How do we understand 1989 and its legacies today?
Arguably, the current conjuncture remains marked by the revolutions of ‘89 and their consequences: the global spread of neoliberal capitalism; the numerous devastating wars that have followed the end of the Cold War; growing inequality within states and across the globe; the mass movement of people; the rise of various brands of right-wing populism and fascism across the globe; and much more besides. The cultural and political impasse that once wore the name of postmodernism is today commonly read as a confluence of catastrophes: environmental, political, social, and economic. This apocalyptic malaise is all too often accompanied by a sense that “there is no alternative”. The idea that the future is there to be made, that it could be better than the present, is likewise lacking. Simultaneously, this political impasse is being seized upon by a resurgent far-right.
This interdisciplinary conference invites papers which reflect on the multiple impacts and legacies of ’89: cultural, political, historical and philosophical. Where are where we are now; where we are heading; and where we should be heading? How are philosophers, historians, analysts, activists and artists responding to these challenges? How ought they to respond?
- Politics after “The End of History”
- Philosophy after “The End of History”?
- Political and historical agency
- Political subjectivity
- Past, Present and Future: the question of historical temporalities• History after “The End of History”
- The revolutions of 1989 and their legacies
- Global perspectives on 1989
- The rise of the far-right after the end of the Cold War
- What has philosophy to say to fascism and how should it say it?
- Culture after “The End of History”
- Aesthetics after “The End of History”
- Does Populism threaten democracy? Does it threaten capitalism?• The politics of austerity
- Ethics after Stalin
- The aestheticisation of politics
- Radical and reactionary cultural interventions
Wednesday 11th September
Session 1: 11.30am – 1.00pm
Panel 1 | Room: M2 | Chair: Ian Clark Parcon
Christos Boukalas | Northumbria University Law School, UK, No Future. Security, Economy, and Hegemonic Implosion
Min Ji Choi | Harvard University, USA, We’re Just Recreating The Past: Hauntology and Postmemory of the Dirty War
Panel 2 | Room: G4 | Chair: Lucy Benjamin
Michele Diana da Luz | Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil, The Path of the Right-Wing Discourse in Brazilian Politics – From the Military dictatorship to Bolsonaro
Eliane Glaser | Bath Spa University, UK, Post-Ideology and Populism
Session 2: 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Panel 1 | Room: M2 | Chair: Michele Luz
Peter Ehret | University of Granada, Spain, 1989: End of national history?
Ionut Isac | Romanian Academy Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 30 Years Since The “End Of History”: Romania Between The Mythology of Modernisation and the Modernisation of Mythology
Panel 2 | Room: G4 | Chair: Paul Reynolds
Spiros Makris | University of Macedonia, Greece, ‘The End of History’ as a Radical Political Ontotheology”: The case of Walter Benjamin’s messianic eschatology
Matteo Toffolutti | University College Cork, Ireland, The End of Destiny and a History That Goes On
Keynote | 4.00pm – 5.30pm | M2 Boardroom
Esther Leslie | Birkbeck College, University of London, UK Dust of History, Sands of Time, Fog of War
Thursday 12th September
Session 3: 9.30am – 11.00am
Panel 1 | Room: M2 | Chair: Michele Luz
Codruta Cuceu | Romanian Academy Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Disruptions of the Public Sphere in Early Postcommunist Romania
Horatiu Crisan | Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Reparations After the Fall of Romanian Communism. A Normative Critique
Panel 2 | Room: G4 | Chair: Ross Sparkes
Tom Bunyard | University of Brighton, UK
Demagogy and Social Pathology: Wendy Brown and Robert Pippin on the Pathologies of Neoliberal Subjectivity
Nikos Folinas | University of Crete, Greece
Aspects of Marxist Philosophy After the “End of History” and Commodity Fetishism
Session 4: 11.30pm – 1.00pm
Panel 1 | Room: M2 | Chair: Tom Bunyard
Lucy Benjamin | Royal Holloway, UK, Thinking through Analogy: The Resonance of the Third Reich
Luke Edmeads | University of Brighton, UK, Precarity and Materialism: Rethinking Political Subjectivity
Panel 2 | Room: G4 | Chair: Nikos Folinas
Abdallah Houadef | University of Msila, Algeria, Soraya Charif | University of Setif 2, Algeria, Is Democracy In Decline?
Jessica Alejandra González Camacho | Pontifical Xavierian University, Colombia, Latin America After the Cold War: A Discourse Analysis of The Right-Wing Perspective in Colombia
Session 5: 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Panel 1 | Room: M2 | Chair: Ian Sinclair
Annika Kulovesi | University of Helsinki, Finland, Identity Politics During the Information Age – The Modern Lures of Tribalism and How to Overcome Them
Irina Simonova | Ural State Pedagogical University, Russia, Between Institutions and D.I.Y.: Political Strategies of Russian Youth “After the End of History”
Panel 2 | Room: G4 | Chair: Bob Brecher
Jeremy Spencer | Camberwell College, University of Arts London, UK, Living Historically After The End Of History
Pieter Vanhove | University of Lancaster, UK, Competing Universalities in Les Magiciens de la Terre and China/Avant-Garde (1989)
4.00pm | Roundtable | Room M2 Boardroom
Friday 14th September
Session 6: 10.30am – 12.00
Panel 1 | Room: G4 | Chair: Ian Sinclair
Stephen O’Kane | Independent Scholar, UK, Continuities and Nationalism
Paul Reynolds | Independent Scholar, UK, History as Truth-Telling, History as Rhetoric, History as Storytelling: 1989 and All That
Panel 2 | Room: 204 | Chair: Tom Bunyard
Rebecca Davnall | University of Liverpool, UK, What Is A Future? Prediction, Imagination, and Thinking About What To Do Next
Ross Sparkes | Independent Scholar, UK, Theory and Politics After ‘The End of History’ at the Start of the End of the World
Session 7: 1.00pm – 2.30pm
Panel 1 | Room: G4 | Chair: Bob Brecher
Ian Clark Parcon | Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines, Understanding Dutertismo: A Syncretic Reading of Populism and Democratic Politics in the Philippines
Jorge Varela | Tallinn University, Estonia, Reframing the political after the End of History
Closing Remarks 2.30pm | Room: G4
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