New Weapons Discussion group: A Really Open Course on Crisis
When? Fortnightly discussions starting Thursday January 19th at 19:30
Where? The Space Project, 27 Magate Green, Leeds
'It's not a question of worrying or hoping for the best, but of finding new weapons.'
From bankrupt PIGS, revolting Greeks and an 1 trillion hole in Italy abroad, to riots, banker bailouts and strikes at home, wherever you look these days there's banter about 'crisis'. But what crisis? Where, and for whom? Facilitated by Leeds Radical Library, this first discussion series, The Really Open Course on Crisis, aims to provide a lively forum for debate about some of the key issues of our time: what is capitalism and does it seem to break again and again? Taking short, weekly texts as a starting point, we want to explore the history of capitalist crisis to find out what 'our crisis' has in common with previous crises, and what might be unique about it. While economists and bankers whom we've never met or elected seem able to make more and more decisions about the way we run our lives, The Really Open Course on Crisis will aim to unravel from the very beginning the modern day myths about 'finance', 'capital' and 'democracy.'
New Weapons first fortnightly discussion group will be kicking off Thursday January 19th with 'The Really Open Course on Crisis. We want to create a discussion series where we learn together, where the content is made from what we bring ourselves, from the sparks of inspiration that we take from eachother. We want to learn about 'crisis', as this seems like an important issue for our times and below we have seperated the notion of crisis into five different themes. We've found some texts that we think are interesting, and might be able to act as ideational springboards for discussion. It doesn't matter if you just read one of them, or all of them, and if you can't come to all the meetings we would still love you to come along to the ones you can. If you have any recommendations or questions please get in contact at leeds.radical.library@gmail.com
CHECK THE WEBSITE FOR LINKS TO READING LIST http://spaceproject.org.uk/library/qnew-weaponsq.html
January 19th: History of Crisis - Mapping the Crisis to the present day
What caused the current crisis of capitalism we're living through? Where did it come from? What makes it a financial crisis? Here we seek to define our terms and understand the roots of the burgeoning debt, gaping inequality and mass unemployment that characterises the UK today.
Feb 2nd: Crisis Theory - Capitalism as Crisis
Why does capitalism seem so accident prone? Here we'll look at the way capitalism functions as a method for generating wealth and try to diagnose what about capitalism, if anything, sends whole economies spiralling into recession.
Feb 16th: Crisis and the Everyday - Precarity, austerity and debt
Building up debt? Unstable employment? We will be looking at how capital reconfigures our daily routines and what this means for our everyday interactions, work patterns and material conditions.
March 1st: Feminist Perspective on Crisis - Capital and the crisis of reproduction
By taking a feminist perspective we will analyse what we mean by reproductive and affective labour? What role does unwaged labour have in the reproduction of capital? What is meant by the crisis of reproduction and what does this mean for anticapitalist resistance?
March 15th: 5. Resistance, movements and struggle
How do we resist? How do we gain class power? What strategies and methods of struggle are appropriate in our current political context?
Please get in contact if you have any questions, suggestions or comments at leeds.radical.library@gmail.com