Sumit Sarkar on 'Writing a Marxian Social History of Modern India'

Xenos - Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London invites you to a talk by Sumit Sarkar - 'Writing a Marxian Social History of Modern India: Problems and Prospects' - with responses by Alex Callinicos (King's College), Sanjay Seth (Goldsmiths) and Rashmi Varma (University of Warwick)

July 7, 6-8pm
Room RHB 308
Goldsmiths, University of London

Sumit Sarkar is one of the foremost historians of modern India. His books include Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-8 (1973), Modern India (1989), Writing Social History (1998) and, most recently, Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism, History (2002). He was a founding member of the Subaltern Studies Group, as well as one of its most important critics.

For further information please write to xenos@gold.ac.uk or a.toscano@gold.ac.uk

This talk is co-sponsored by the journal Historical Materialism

Edited to add: Speaking of Marxism, many members of the LSHG will be attending MARXISM 2010, starting in one week's time...
https://www.marxismfestival.org.uk/2010/bookonline.html
Central London 1-5 July

Highlights include:
· SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, JOHN HOLLOWAY & ALEX CALLINICOS: The Idea of Communism
· JOHN KELLY brother of Michael Kelly who was killed on Derry’s Bloody Sunday in 1972 speaks on the Saville Inquiry
· PANOS GARGANAS: Crisis & Resistance in Greece
· GM TAMAS: Fascism Instead of Socialism—Again?
· HESTER EISENSTEIN, NINA POWER & JUDITH ORR: The New Sexism
· PETER HALLWARD: Disaster Politics in Haiti—Pacifying the People
· GRAHAM TURNER: The Crisis—Over or just Beginning
· GUGLIELMO CARCHEDI: Behind & Beyond the Crisis
· ALBERTO TOSCANO: Fanaticism—On the Uses of an Idea
· STEVEN ROSE: The Future of the Brain
· TARIQ ALI: The Perils of Islamophobia
· ISTVAN MESZAROS: The Crisis of Parliamentarianism
· SAMI RAMADANI: British Foreign Policy in the Middle East
· BEN FINE: Has Finance Transformed Capitalism
· GARY YOUNGE: Backlash—Obama and the American Right
· JOHN ROSE & ANDY ZEBROWSKI: A Tribute to Marek Edelman
· SHEILA ROWBOTHAM: Dreamers of a New Day—the Women who Built the 20th Century
· COSTAS LAPAVITSAS: Is the Euro Finished?
· CHINA MIEVILLE: Guilty Pleasures and Politics—How to Like Art
· COLIN BARKER: Marx’s Method in Capital
· PETER THOMAS: Reading Gramsci Political—a Guide to the Prison Notebooks
· ANDREW KLIMAN, ALFREDO SAAD-FILHO & JOSEPH CHOONARA: Marxist Theory & Capitalist Crisis
· KEVIN DOOGAN: The Transformation of Work
· GILBERT ACHCAR: The Arabs and the Holocaust
· TONY BENN: Democracy—the Real Revolution
· ESTHER LESLIE: Realism vs the Avant-garde
· DANNY DORLING: Injustice—Why Social Inequality Persists
· OWEN HATHERLEY: Is New Technology Destroying Creativity

Join thousands of others at Europe’s biggest festival of radical ideas—featuring over 200 meetings, debates, film screenings, and musical performances.

For further information go to:
http://www.marxismfestival.org.uk

For updates go to:
http://www.facebook.com/marxism
http://twitter.com/Marxism2k10

Colin Ward and Dan Chatterton remembered

1. Memorial and Celebration of Colin Ward's life and work
Saturday, 10 July 2010, 2.00pm-5.00pm
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1
All welcome

Ken Worpole: Colin Ward and the anarchism of everyday life
"Colin Ward in conversation with Roger Deakin", introduced by Mike Dibb
Harriet Ward: On meeting Colin Ward
Stuart White: Colin Ward: making anarchism respectable, but not too respectable
Peter Marshall: Colin Ward in the history of Anarchism
Tony Fyson: Colin Ward at work
Dennis Hardy: On the margins

2. Dan Chatterton - London's One Man Revolution
Wednesday 25th August, 7pm
The Freethought History Research Group remember Dan Chatterton: Communist atheist pamphleteer, bill poster, slum dweller, early birth control advocate, fierce public ranter, and one of the most fascinating and undeservedly obscure characters of the London radical scene in the second half of the 19th century.

Gala Night - 'Light Shining in Buckinghamshire'

Arcola Theatre (in 27 Arcola St, London, E8 2DJ London) and Strawberry Vale Productions invite you to a play about the English Revolution:
‘light shining in buckinghamshire’ - written by Caryl Churchill
gala night
Tony Benn |Billy Bragg |Kate Mosse |Geoffrey Robertson
Includes the show at the Arcola Theatre followed by a reception of
food, drink, opinions and music.
All proceeds go directly towards securing the production.
Arcola Theatre, 21 July 2010, 7pm for 7.30pm - for tickets contact the Arcola Theatre.

1649. After years of bloody conflict, an exhausted England is in the hands of radical extremists. Desperate to make sense of the horror surrounding them, a group of ordinary men and women cling to the belief that they will be shown a glimpse of an unspeakable, transcendent glory.

Tony Benn is a former Cabinet Minister and current President of the Stop
the War Coalition.
Billy Bragg is a rock musician and political activist.
Kate Mosse is an author and broadcaster who co-founded the Orange
Prize for Fiction.
Geoffrey Robertson QC is a human rights lawyer, academic, author
and broadcaster.

Remembering the Llanelli Rail Strike of 1911

A rare piece of labour history on the BBC, commemorating the British state's bloody repression of the 1911 Rail Strike in Llanelli.

Residents of Llanelli are planning to commemorate the death of two railway workers in the town almost 100 years ago.

Hundreds of railway men downed tools in the summer of 1911, as part of a national strike across Britain. The strike led to rioting and when soldiers were sent in to break-up the riot and shot dead two innocent men.

Nicola Smith went to meet Tim Evans who's campaigning for a memorial for John John and Leonard Worsell to mark the centenary of their deaths.

The resistable rise of Niall Ferguson

As the Guardian report, 'Niall Ferguson, the British historian most closely associated with a rightwing, Eurocentric vision of western ascendancy, is to work with the Conservatives to overhaul history in schools.' I have written a brief response in reaction here, but it seems to me that socialist historians should oppose what the Con-Dems are trying to do to the curriculum in schools - just as we oppose the other current cuts and attacks on education