CFP Post/autonomia Amsterdam May 19-22
Amsterdam, 19-22 May 2011
http://postautonomia.wordpress.com/
University of Amsterdam/SMART Project Space
Keynotes from: Franco ?Bifo? Berardi, Vittorio
Morfino, Matteo Pasquinelli, and Stevphen Shukaitis
Immaterial labour; multitude; the communism of
capital; commons; precarity; biopolitics:
autonomist thought has undoubtedly provided
contemporary critical theory with some of its
major concepts and/or allowed for an important
reconsidering of these. Most importantly,
autonomist thought has been at the forefront of
thinking the crucial shifts in contemporary
capitalism and its effects in both the social
and cultural sphere. Autonomism?s impact on
current critical theory in both European and
American academia can therefore hardly be
underestimated. Moreover, today we witness a
resurgence of autonomist models of activism and
thought in social movements in for example
Italy, Greece, the UK and California.
In particular, autonomist thought has expressed
a keen interest in the extension of the notion
of ?labour? well beyond the workplace, and in
particular the mobilization of subjective
(emotional and creative) and collective energies
by contemporary capitalism (the ?social factory?
and its subsequent ?social worker?); the
simultaneous disappearance of full-time
employment and the marginalization of large
social groups (youth, women, immigrants); the
advent of new social antagonisms as a result of
the changes within capitalist society. Moreover,
?autonomia? has not only been an important
theoretical project, it has also been an equally
crucial social movement in the 1960?s-1970?s:
many of the tactics used by the autonomia-
movement in the social (such as the mobilization
of ?marginal? groups unemployed, young,
migrants) and cultural domain (such as the
creation of alternative ?free? media) are
appropriated and reinvented by today?s social and cultural movements.
?What can ?post/autonomia? mean today??
therefore is one of the pivotal questions in
contemporary critical theory and
activism. Rather than packaging it as ?Italian
Theory?, we would like to explore the
international dissemination of autonomous
thought and activism today and their possible
futures; in particular we would like to explore
critical engagements and uses of autonomist
ideas that shape what we might call
post/autonomia. It is precisely the dynamics,
tensions and ruptures between autonomia and its
possible futures (or ?posts?) that we would
like to investigate. What are the effects of
autonomia, as a thought and a movement, in a
variety of domains: from critical theory to
cinema, from activism to academic practice?
On the one hand we see the constant effort of
Italian autonomist thinkers (Negri, Virno,
Lazzarato, Berardi etc) to reinvent/rethink
autonomist concepts, in dialogue with European
or American critical theory; at the same time,
crucially, we see how these efforts have fired
off a new wave of ideas and forms of activism
claiming or inspired by autonomist heritage,
which resounds internationally. Furthermore,
post/autonomia might name the as yet uncharted
or obscured legacy of autonomism: its
intersections with feminism, its rethinking of
(state) sovereignty, the locality and temporality of resistance, etc. etc.
Crucial questions raised by the notion of post/autonomia are:
how did it autonomist thought move from what was
in fact a specific local context to the global
activist and academic sphere? What are the
possible connections between (post)autonomia and
other contemporary conceptualizations of
?communism?? What is the role of
(post)autonomist thinking in current efforts to
reassemble and reconstitute the militant left?
What are possible connections/convergences
between (post)autonomism and post-situationism,
anarchism or the green movement? How can
post/autonomia be situated in the aftermath or
even afterlife of the ?no global? moment? How
post/autonomia taking shape in diverse cultural
and artistic interventions? What is the
significance of autonomist thought in
non-western/global contexts (e.g. the debates
concerning precarious labour in China)? How does
the current the interest in autonomism and its
relevance relate to political discourses
concerning the ?heritage? of 68/77 and their
alleged ?liquidation? (by Berlusconi/Sarkozy);
to what extent does it encourage or block these
debates? What elements of autonomism remain
unaddressed today (e.g. the feminist heritage)?
What particular nexus between theory/militant
practice takes shape in post/autonomia (e.g. in
media activism and precarity-movements)? What
new perspectives/connections can be created:
e.g. post/autonomia and queer, the metropolis, bioeconomy, etc. etc.
The conference will provide a platform for
addressing these and other important questions.
Papers may address the following topics (but are by no means bound to these):
Post/autonomia and
- contemporary activism
- conceptualizations of bio-politics
- the neoliberal state
- precarity
- media activism
- academic activism and new student movements (L?Onda ch vience etc)
- post-situationism
- queer autonomy
- feminism
- the work of individual theorists (e.g.
Negri, Virno, Berardi, Lazzerato, Marazzi etc)
- semiocapitalism
- artistic and cultural activism
- political/cultural memories of autonomia
- the metropolis and the social factory today
- the new communism
- (the lessons of) Genova
- strategies of resistance
- populism
- the law, the state of exception and legitimacy
We welcome both academic and practice-oriented
contributions in English. Papers should not
exceed 20 minutes. Please send abstracts (350
words) before March 15 to
(postautonomia /at/ gmail.com). For further
information, please contact (postautonomia /at/ gmail.com).
This conference is the first of a series within
the project Precarity and Post-autonomia: the
Global Heritage funded by NWO (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research).
Organizing committee:
Vincenzo Binetti, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Joost de Bloois, University of Amsterdam
Silvia Contarini, Université de Nanterre
Monica Jansen, Utrecht University
Federico Luisetti, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Frans-Willem Korsten, Leiden University/Erasmus University Rotterdam
Gianluca Turricchia, University of Amsterdam
