[Commlist] Online Workshop Disappointed Hopes: Reclaiming the Promise of Resistance

*Disappointed Hopes: *

*Reclaiming the Promise of Resistance***

Online International Workshop

7–9 December 2020

University of Edinburgh

How can we respond to the pervasive sense of disappointment and left 
melancholia lingering in the wake of the failed projects of 
revolutionary societal transformation? Among theorists and activists 
alike, twentieth-century narratives of inevitable progress and universal 
human emancipation have been replaced by a sober reckoning with past 
disappointments, failures and defeats. At the same time, narratives of 
loss can have a stifling effect on our sense of political possibility, 
quenching any residual hopes for a better world. Moving beyond 
lamentation of failure, this workshop asks how an engagement with past 
disappointments, losses and defeats can help us creatively respond to 
the difficulties and failures of resistance – and inspire our 
imagination of political alternatives in the present. It addresses this 
question by providing a platform for a mutually enriching dialogue 
between theorists, activists and engaged artists. The contributors 
address the conjunction of high aspirations and deep disappointments 
within the modern revolutionary experience – from the socialist and 
anti-colonial revolutions of the twentieth century to the multipronged 
struggles for justice and equality today. The purpose is to confront the 
challenges involved in resisting oppression in the present era of 
political disillusion and identify sustainable strategies for tackling 
disengagement from public sphere.

*Please click **here 
<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/disappointed-hopes-reclaiming-the-promise-of-resistance-tickets-127326953345>****to 
register. You will have to book your ticket for each session separately. *

*Programme *

*Monday, 7 December, 5:30 pm (GMT) *

Lawrie Balfour, /Too Late? Toni Morrison and the Revolutionary Work of 
Words/

Ganzeer, /The Flame of Rebellion /

Mathias Thaler, /What Happens to Dystopian Thinking When the Apocalypse 
is Already Here with Us? Cautionary and Post-cautionary Tales of the 
Anthropocene/

Moderator: Maša Mrovlje

*Tuesday, 8 December, 5:30 pm (GMT) *

Jonathan Dean, /Spectres of Blair: 90s Nostalgia and Post-2015 Left 
Politics in Britain/

Srila Roy, /Beyond Co-option: Some Reflections on Indian Feminism in the 
New Millennium./

Ann Rigney, /Remembering Defeat, Generating Hope/

Moderator: Lukas Slothuus

*Wednesday, 9 December, 5:30 pm (GMT) *

Janine Francois, /The Impossibility of Whiteness: Or Why White 
Institutions Cannot Not Be Leading Institutional Change/

Nermin Allam, /Affects, Emotions, and the Egyptian Uprising/

Briana Toole, /How to Avoid Anti-resistance Sentiments? /

Moderator: Cat Wayland

The workshop is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the 
Humanities, University of Edinburgh, and CRITIQUE – Centre for Ethics 
and Critical Thought, University of Edinburgh.

*Organising team*

Maša Mrovlje and Gisli Vogler


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