[D66] GCAS Conference “Democracy Rising”

[J.N.]

https://gcasblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/gcas-world-conference-democracy-rising-free-open-to-the-public/

CALL FOR PAPERS: GCAS Conference “Democracy Rising”

The Global Center for Advanced Studies

Announces Our First World Conference

“Democracy Rising: From Insurrections to ‘Event’”

Date: July 16-19th 2015, Athens, Greece

Speakers: (The Following Speakers will be Present in Athens)

Keynote:

Costas Douzinas, Jodi Dean, Bruno Bosteels & Maria Aristodemou

Tariq Ali, Kenneth Surin, Stathis Kouvelakis, Azfar Hussain, Paul
Mason,Alex Callinicos, Maria Nikolakaki, Athena Athanasiou, Creston
Davis, Athina Karatzogianni, Kostis Karpozilos, Lola Sánchez ,Giovanni
Tusa, Dimitris Dalakoglou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Claudia Landolfi, Peter
Thompson, Aris Chatzistefanou II, Julie Resche, Theodore Koulouris,
Sigrid Hackenberg, Srecko Horvat, Paolo Gerbaudo, Dave Hill,Stavros
Stavrides and special guests from Syriza and Podemos.

Description:

Margaret Thatcher’s slogan, “There is no alternative” was a declaration
of war that installed the horrors of neoliberal policies that have
eroded and systematically undermined democratic and public-based
projects for more than 30 years.  The global financial crisis of 2008
exposed these neoliberal policies that have paved the way for the rise
of an untouchable oligarchical class whose top 80 members now possess
more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population. It is now
abundantly clear that neoliberalism has accelerated radical inequality
and at the same time forced the world to conform to their
unquestionable, anti-democratic policies, lest even greater disasters
befall us.  Faced with no alternative, on their terms, in 2011 a new
series of insurrections began to emerge from the Occupy movement to
Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, to Spain, Ireland, and Greece. The
recent historic victory of Syriza brings forth the message that citizens
must decide their own future and thus the reassertion of the primacy of
politics takes place again in the world. In the wake of Syriza’s victory
and the hope it articulates for the world, we propose a conference
comprised of academics and activists from the birthplace of democracy,
Athens, Greece.  The purpose of the conference is to bring together
intellectuals and activists to think through and propose strategic
alternatives for democracy and its future.