[Commlist] CfP, Conference, "Gramsci and Our Current Crises: Is This an Interregnum?"

*Conference, Gramsci and Our Current Crises: Is This an Interregnum?*
27-28 April 2027, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montreal

Our worlds have been in perpetual catastrophes for decades. Yet it 
hardly seems hyperbolic to suggest that our present is permeated by an 
escalating constellation of crises: expanding warfare; climate disasters 
and ecological breakdown; extreme inequalities produced by contemporary 
capitalism; geopolitical transformations in the global balance of power; 
intensified surveillance and control wielded by social media oligopolies 
and other technological powers; and the resurgence of white supremacy, 
authoritarianism, and heteropatriarchy in societies that once imagined 
themselves to be consolidated liberal democracies. Antonio Gramsci’s 
name and ideas are increasingly invoked in attempts to understand and 
respond to such crises. “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in 
this interregnum, morbid phenomena [fenomeni morbosi] of the most varied 
kind come to pass.” (Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Q3, §34).

The phrase has acquired a remarkable afterlife in contemporary political 
discourse. The viral formulation “the time of monsters,” however 
evocative, risks obscuring what is at stake in Gramsci’s original 
formulation. His notion of the interregnum invites us to think beyond a 
simple transition between political regimes. It names a crisis of 
authority in which established forms of political and social 
organization lose their capacity to secure consent, while new 
configurations have yet to consolidate themselves.

This conference takes Gramsci and his work as inspiration to explore 
questions such as:
What happens when established institutions retain power but lose legitimacy?
What political projects emerge from such crises?
And what might Gramsci’s analysis of his own historical conjuncture tell 
us about ours?

We welcome contributions that engage with Gramsci historically, 
theoretically, politically, and through his reflections on culture and 
aesthetics, as well as contributions that bring his thought into 
dialogue with contemporary crises. We are interested not only in 
applying Gramsci to the present, but also in reconsidering the 
historical and intellectual conditions from which his concepts emerged, 
and in exploring the possibilities and limits of Gramscian thought. We 
particularly welcome papers addressing, but not limited to, the 
following themes:

· Gramsci and the conjunctural and organic crises of the liberal order
· Resurging white supremacy and/or heteropatriarchy as “backlash” or 
interregunum
· Fascism and the historical, political and intellectual experiences of 
the 1920s and 1930s
· The Southern Question and the territorial dimensions of hegemony
· Civil society and the integral state in our current or past conjuncture(s)
· The role(s) of digital capitalism, social media, and surveillance
· Contemporary socialist, feminist, anti-racist, ecological, and 
anti-fascist movements
· Aesthetics and Politics
· Popular culture, folklore, and the production of alternative forms of 
political subjectivity

Submissions: Those interested should send 250- to 300-word abstracts 
along with a short bio to *(igs.canada.conference /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(igs.canada.conference /at/ gmail.com)>* by December 1st, 2026.
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