Debate: The Future of Capitalism

A Public Debate Hosted by KCL Capital Reading Group and KCL Business Society
Supported by the Centre for European Studies, King's College London

THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM:
THE ROOTS OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE

ALEX CALLINICOS, Professor of European Studies, King's College London, and author of The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
MARTIN WOLF, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times, and author of Fixing Global Finance

6.30 P.M. MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER
GREAT HALL, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, STRAND, LONDON WC2R 2LS (PLUS OVERFLOW IN EDMOND J. SAFRA LECTURE THEATRE)

for more information contact KCLreadingCapital@gmail.com

Edited to add: Watch the debate here

Celebrating Gerrard Winstanley

A CELEBRATION OF THE WORK AND IDEAS OF GERRARD WINSTANLEY
400th Anniversary since the birth of the Digger Leader
7pm, Thursday 19th November 2009,
Speakers: Thomas Corns, University of Bangor, co-author of a
biography of John Milton, and Ann Hughes, University of Keele,
author of “The Causes of the English Civil War” (1998)
Venue: Russell Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square,
London WC1 (Tube: Holborn).
Organised by the Socialist History Society in association with the South Place Ethical Society (SPECS).

Gerrard Winstanley, who was born in 1609, was one of the foremost activists of the
English Revolution. His uncompromising reinterpretation of the Christian message
in response to the political and economic crises of the mid-17th Century took religious thought in an egalitarian and Communistic direction and through his many
writings we can still hear a unique voice expressing ideas that were well ahead of
his times. The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley, due out in December,
comes in two volumes at a combined 1,000 pages. This is the first comprehensive
edition of the Digger leader’s writings and aims to establish Winstanley’s
distinctive contribution to political and ethical ideas. Tom Corns and Ann Hughes, two of the editors of this new volume, will address Winstanley’s ideas and their relevance for today. The event is entirely free and refreshments will be provided courtesy of SPECS.
For further information see here

Lecture: Making the Human Gesture

The Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture 2009
Making the Human Gesture: History, Sexuality and Social Justice
Bishopsgate Institute, 27 November 2009, 6,30pm
Free, no advance booking required
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The 1970s saw the rise of new social movements engaged with issues of sexuality. Historians inspired by these movements began writing histories of sexual life. This talk traces the development of these histories since the 1970s and considers what they show us about changing attitudes to human rights and social justice in western society. Speaker Jeffrey Weeks will discuss the importance of sexual history to contemporary thought and ask what a history rooted in the sexual radicalism of the late 20th century can teach us about life in the 21st.
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Jeffrey Weeks is a leading historian and sociologist of sexuality. His 1977 book Coming Out was hugely influential, and he has since published many other landmark works, including Sexuality and Its Discontents, Making Sexual History and The World We Have Won: the Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life. Jeffrey Weeks is now Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University.

Reproduced from Socialist History News

Seminar: A Social Approach to Politics

The Working Lives Research Institute and the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA) present:
A Social Approach to Politics: Aspects of Communism in India and Britain
Seminar by Dr Ritwika Biswas
(University of Calcutta’s History Department)

THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER, 3-6 pm
MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY,
CLERKENWELL GREEN, EC1R 0DU

The Working Lives Research Institute is hosting the visit of Dr Ritwika Biswas of the University of Calcutta’s History Department while she is on a visit to original archive research supported by a Charles Wallace Fellowship for her work on the interaction between the British and Indian Communist Parties, 1920-60. Professor Mary Davis of WLRI is acting as Dr Biswas’s academic host.

BASA’s interest lies in the inter-action between the two Parties, which will form a major theme of discussion after Dr Biswas’s talk.
Please make every effort to attend and forward onto anyone you know will be interested.
There will be a short 20 minute tour of this fascinating Library, with its unique Labour Movement collections, at 3pm, before the seminar commences.
The Working Lives Research Institute: www.workinglives.org
BASA, www.blackandasianstudies.org
Marx Memorial Library, www.marx-memorial-library.org

Access by public transport:
Underground: Farringdon on Circle, Hammersmith & Metropolitan lines
British Rail: Thameslink, Farringdon
Buses: 55, 63, 243, 259

Fliers available on request to sean.creighton(at)btinternet.com

Reproduced from Socialist History News.

Sixth Historical Materialism Annual Conference

Sixth Historical Materialism Annual Conference
‘Another World is Necessary:Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives’
27–29 November 2008
at the School of Oriental and African Studies and Birkbeck College, London, WC1
In association with Socialist Register and the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Committee.

CFP: LSHG Conference: The Vote - What Went Wrong?

Conference and Call for Papers:
The Vote — What went wrong?
Saturday 27th February 2010 at 9.30am
Institute of Historical Research

The recent scandal over Parliamentary expenses has
raised major questions about Parliamentary
democracy and its relationship to the labour movement
and the left.
Historically the left has fought for democracy and the
vote from the Chartists to the Suffragettes to those
who campaigned around the disenfranchisement of
black voters in the US and Catholics in the North of
Ireland in the 1960s.
Papers are invited from historians working on struggles
for democracy and the vote but the conference will
also look at wider historical contexts.
There has been since at least the 1960s in the UK a
link between social democracy and corruption, but the
same has also applied elsewhere, for example in Italy.
Has the attempt to democratise Parliamentary
institutions led simply to a replication of the old corrupt
practices of the past?
Finally the conference will examine alternative
strategies for democracy on the left, not least the
Soviets and workers councils that have appeared at
moments in the last 140 years or so from the Paris
Commune onwards.
Proposals of no more than 500 words should be
emailed to keith1917@btinternet.com by 1 December.

From the LSHG Newsletter Editor

From LSHG Newsletter, Autumn 2009

This academic year marks the 15th anniversary of the
London Socialist Historians Group, and the seminar series
at the Institute of Historical Research and a number of
events in Spring 2010 will mark the occasion.
The economic crisis has dominated much commentary in
the bourgeois media in the last year but historical input to
the debate, particularly from the left, has been somewhat
lacking. Niall Ferguson from the right has written pieces in
the Financial Times, and International Socialism and
Historical Materialism amongst others have held important
meetings of left and Marxist economists which have had
some historical perspective.
But discussion on how, for example, workers fought back,
or sometimes did not, in the 1930s recession has
been largely absent. Here I must admit that my piece on
the London busworkers actions of 1932/3 for the Morning
Star remains outstanding(!) Much discussion has been
focused on the history of factory occupations, from UCS to
Visteon and Vesta, and quite rightly. But that still hasn't
amounted to that much debate.
Needless to say , contributions to the newsletter around
these and related points would be very welcome indeed.
Keith Flett

Letters, articles, criticisms and contributions to
debate are most welcome. The deadline for the next
issue of the LSHG Newsletter is 1 December 2009.