On September 4-6, 2014, the University of Sussex will host the Critical Legal Conference: Power, Capital, Chaos. The conference theme refers to “a context of ongoing global economic crisis, the neo-liberal destruction of social democracy and the ever-widening entrenchment of inequalities of wealth, power and technology within and between a global North and global South. A contemporary political situation marked by austerity and privatisation, by security and responsibility, by racist political reaction, class-war and gender-domination.”
Proposals should consist of a short abstract (max. 250 words).
Deadline for Stream Proposals: 31 March, 2014
Deadline for Paper Proposals: 30 June, 2014
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Yet, this is also a situation marked by manifold acts of protest, struggle, occupation, riot and revolution. All of which demand the reimaging of social, political, juridical and material life. These are modes of resistance that call-out disparate and conflicting visions of the public good, human dignity and justice. Equally these involve legal and political claims to knowledge which exist within and contend with a late-modern context of endless critique, scepticism and disagreement. As such, the contemporary theorisation of power and capital involves critical thought confrontation with a certain chaos of reason and unreason.
Conference participants are asked to consider how we might attempt to understand, explain and respond to a chaotic contemporary political situation? You are invited to do so on the lovely campus of the University of Sussex set in the chalky South Downs of South-East England. In this respect, one context of the CLC 2014 is the city of Brighton and Hove, which carries on a long tradition of pleasure and distraction. In another, the context is the University of Sussex which holds onto both a radical intellectual tradition and a tradition of radical student protest.
We ask you to make your own interpretation of the theme Power, Capital, Chaos, and invite scholars from a range of disciplines to propose papers and streams. Traditionally the Critical Legal Conference is a friendly and interdisciplinary conference bringing together scholars from a wide body of disciplines.
