Appadurai Audio

Here is the recording from the recent Arjun Appadurai opening speech from HKW coference Beyond Multiculturalism

Beyond?! and where? Multiculturality blog has a nice review of the event

VIDEO MODELS OF SOCIAL CHANGE 1977

a classical phase on VIDEO, black and white and everybody smoking! – http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/ssrc/ssrc1977.html

Bloch

Godelier

Goody

EP Thompson

Leach

Session 1: Historical and Anthropological approaches

Dr Sally Humphreys (Univ. College, London) ‘Models of social change with particular references to Greek history’
Prof. Ernest Gellner (L.S.E., London) : Introductory comments
Raphael Samuel (Oxford) : Further comments

Session 2: Anthropological and Marxist Models

Prof. Maurice Godelier (Paris) Ideology
Dr. Maurice Bloch (L.S.E.) Introductory comments

Session 3: Models of change in economy, social structure and ideology.

Comments on preceding papers by
Prof. Arnaldo Momiliagno (Warburg)
Prof. Keith Hopkins (Brunel)
E.P. Thompson

Session 4: Models of social change

Comments on preceding papers by:
Prof. Edmund Leach (Cambridge)
Prof. Jack Goody (Cambridge)
Prof. Tom Bottomore (Sussex)

This is what social science presumably looked like before the postmodern turn. The field of questions are still very interesting and largely unresoved:

- what is the difference, if any, of ideological and scientific knowledge, and what are the problems of relying on abstract Truth? (Godelier and Bottomore debate)

-What is the hierachy of causes for the for the function and evolution of socieity (as Godelier and Gellner debated, class, economy, coercion or ideology), is there a prime mover (such as elite values, whether Obamaism or ideas of the Demos, or the means of production and the means of violence) or just different analytical entry points into understand a layered generative social totality?

- how are the limits to the variations of social life set (Bottomore), Leach’s topographical ideas of system and how does the new emerge has interesting links to both Badiou and Bhaskar… what causes the cracks for a reevaulation of the system? Blochs response was that there are available concepts to the antagonistic group in societies that do not serve to reproduce the dominant order, i.e. are non-ideological. Leach responded that new is an unpredictable burst out of existing social order, but the new cannot be integrated back into it (also Kuhn).

- E.P Thompson debates Godelier on Ideology ” As Marxist Anthropologst i have to understand thew way relationships are organized, the way people think of themselves, the way they act on themsevles because of the way they think of themselves, THAT IS THE DIALCEIC OF SOCIAL LIFE, but the way they think of themsleves is part of social structure too… the role of representation in the dialectic of change”

- Godelier on Marxism “An Ancient Greek does not produce to produce material goods, he is producing to reproduce himself as a citizen.. there is no such thing as maximizing material goods… Even Capitalists deal in profits, in money, and what is money? Power… MATERIAL INTERST AS SUCH DOES NOT EXISTS…..”people dont live to produce, but they produce to live” as Marx said .. people not only produce goods, they produce to produce status, to reproduce the society (( sounds like Graeber, 2006 Turning Modes of Production inside out, or why Capitalism is a transformation of slavery) –

Most of these issues are explicitly addressed in Session 4: Models of social change… the most rivetting, exhilarating session of them all, where formal presentation is dropped for an all out ruuuuuuuumble. Atleast for  polite academic society, except Godelier, he’s unabashedly bashing

VIDEO to stream or Download!!! (Alan Macfarlane’s webpage is very good, contains Cambridge Anthropology video lectures (recommend the course The Symbolic and the Real: Culture, Ritual, Time, Food, Animals, The House, The Body, Cognition and Culture). and other Goodyies, including interviews with the ancestors,- retiring and renowed academics

Harun Farocki: Image in Violence

http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/kue/en4375269.htm

julia wrote: ‘around 40min. farocki makes the point about the use of re enactement strategies nowadays
by pointing at that it is often defended and used as the only mimesis possible to get access to realism.. which can/shall be criticise..some interestings connections are made between participation and
immersion.’

Spivak Other Asias, Butler Frames of War, Audio of Lectures, Berlin Feb 2009

Gayatri Spivak – Other Asias February 14 2009 Berlin WIKO

Judith Butler – Frames of War – February 2009 FU Berlin

The rest of the audios from On the Idea of Communism

Finally lernt how to upload streaming audio. Here is the rest of the conference:

SATURDAY 14 March

00:00 Alessandro Russo “Did the Cultural Revolution End Communism?”

40:55 Alberto Toscano “Communist Power / Communist Knowledge”

01:16:50 Antonio Negri “Communisme: reflexions sur le concept et la pratique”

01:54:00 Discussion

On the Idea of Communism (Saturday)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON SESSION

07:00 Terry Eagleton “Communism: Lear or Gonzalo?”

35:08 Jacques Ranciere “Communists without Communism?”

01:10:00 Alain Badiou ”Communism: a generic name”

02:12 Discussion

On the Idea of Communism (Saturday 2)

SUNDAY

03:44 Slavoj Zizek “To begin from the beginning over and over again”

55:40 Gianni Vattimo “Weak Communism?” 01:34:50

Judith Balso “Communism: a hypothesis for philosophy, an impossible name for politics?”

Concluding Debate

On the Idea of Communism (Sunday)

Friday.

Peter Hallward – Communism of the Intellect, Communism of the Will

 

Bruno Bosteels – The Leftist Hypothesis: Communism in an Age of Terror

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Michael Hardt On the Production of the Common (4parts)

On the Idea of Communism

Part 1 00:12-00:27 The book Commonwealth is announced

Alain Badiou: Introductory remarks

On the Idea of Communism

Costas Douzinas: Welcome

On the Idea of Communism

In progress