2008 panels

Links to Panels by Subject:
africa : race & racism : asia : culture : ecology and environment :
education : electoral politics : europe : women, gender & sexuality : healthcare : labor : latin america : marxism & theory : media :
middle east : movement building : political economy : religion & spirituality :
united states : urban issues : 1968 : migration

PLENARIES

Opening Plenary
Friday, 6:30pm

CRACKS IN THE EDIFICE
Naomi Klein – Writer and filmmaker
Mahmood Mamdani – Columbia University
Tariq Ali – Journalist and author
Adam Hochschild – Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Heather Rogers – Journalist and filmmaker

Closing Plenary
Sunday, 5:30pm

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE: CHANGING THE WORLD FROM THE GROUND UP
Grace Lee Boggs – James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, Detroit
Maude Barlow – Chairman, The Council Of Canadians
Patricia McFadden – Southern African Feminist Review (SAFERE), Zimbabwe
Amy Goodman – Democracy Now!
Moderator: Eddie Yuen – San Francisco Art Institute

     

AFRICA

POPULAR STRUGGLES FOR DEMOCRACY IN KENYA: LESSONS FROM THE 2007 ELECTIONS
Mukoma wa Ngugi – University of Wisconsin, "African Leadership in Crisis"
Caroline Elkins – Harvard University, "Historical Legacies and Kenya's Contemporary Crises"
Micere Githae Mugo – Syracuse University, "What went wrong? A class analysis of the pitfalls of the democratic project in Kenya"
Tavia Nyong'o – New York University, "Perverse Neoliberalism"
Moderator: Horace G. Campbell, Syracuse University, "Kenyan political struggles and political transformation in Africa"

THE AFRICAN CRISIS: POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A ROUNDTABLE
Contributing authors to the November 2007 special issue of Socialism and Democracy will exchange ideas about the current prospects for popular progressive and revolutionary movements in Africa.
Nigel C. Gibson – Emerson College
Paget Henry – Brown University
Biodun Jeyifo – Harvard University
Judith Van Allen – Cornell University
Moderator: Victor Wallis – Socialism and Democracy
(Socialism and Democracy)

SOUTHERN AFRICA: POPULIST LEADERS AND THE LEFT
Patricia McFadden – Southern African Feminist Review (SAFERE), Zimbabwe
Patrick Bond – Center for Civil Society, South Africa
Dennis Brutus – Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Moderator: Thomas Ponniah – Harvard University

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: AFRICA’S INDEPENDENT MEDIA AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLES AROUND THE CONTINENT
How does the traditional press and new media forms, including blogs, websites, and text messaging, contribute to democracy movements on the continent and among the diaspora?
Sowore Omoyele – Journalist, Sahara Reporter
Kassahun Checole – Africa World Press and Red Sea Press
M’ampela Mpela – UN Department of Public Information
Moderator: Milton Allimadi – Black Star News
(Global Information Network)

POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN DARFUR
This panel will focus on the debate around how to understand the political violence in Darfur since the start of the February 2003 rebellion.
Mahmood Mamdani – Columbia University
Stephen Eric Bronner – Rutgers University
Moderator: Lawrence Davidson – Middle Eastern History, West Chester University, Pennsylvania

 

race & racism

REIMAGINING 1968: THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT AND ITS LEGACIES
This panel critically analyzes the way in which Black Power radicalism impacted the local, national and international events of 1968.
Donna Murch – Rutgers University
Herb Boyd – Journalist, New York, Amsterdam News
Moderator: Peniel Joseph – Brandeis University

HARLEM IS SEIZED!
How do land issues manifest within black communities, what are their commonalities to other liberation struggles, what is the relationship between the struggle for specific local reforms such as tenants rights and the liberation of the “imagined community", in what ways is Harlem a new manifestation of the diaspora of folks of African descent.
Nellie Hester Bailey – Harlem Tenants Council
Kamau Franklin – Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Haja Worley – Community Gardens
René Francisco Poitevin – New York University
Moderator: Cleo Silvers – For A Better Bronx

RADICALIZING RIGHTS: BRINGING HUMAN RIGHTS HOME
In recent years, important sectors of the feminist movement and the left have adopted a strategy of using the language of international human rights to mobilize people for economic and social justice within the US; in what ways is this approach useful in winning reforms and building a movement and what are its possible limitations in terms of a radical strategy?
Cathy Albisa – National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, "Bring Human Rights Home"
Loretta Ross – SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, "Reproductive Justice"
Sangeeta Budhiraja – Queers for Economic Justice,"Immigration and Human Rights"
Moderator: Meredith Tax – Women's World Organization for Rights, Literature & Development, Women’s WORLD, "Some Strategic Questions about Human Rights"

RACE & ETHNICITY IN AMERICA: A LEFT PERSPECTIVE
An author/critic discussion of Stephen Steinberg's provocative new book, Race Relations: A Critique, which argues that social science has been complicit in advancing "an epistemology of ignorance" that glosses over racial oppression and denies the reality of a "dual melting pot" — one for peoples of African descent, the other for everybody else, including Asians and light-skinned Latinos.
Jerry Watts – English and Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY
Stephen Steinberg – Urban Studies, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Philip Green – Government, Smith College, and Political Science, New School for Social Research
Moderator: Alyson M. Cole – Political Science, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

WHY HAVE THE WOMEN’S AND BLACK MOVEMENTS STALLED? WHAT CAN BE DONE TO RESTART THEM?
Johanna Brenner – Sociology, Portland State University, “Women and the Politics of Class”
Bill Fletcher, Jr. – Center for Labor Renewal, Black Commentator
Frances Fox Piven – Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Kazembe Balagun – Brecht Forum

SPORTS AND THE CULTURE WARS
In a world where coverage of sports is increasingly pervasive, this panel examines the way that popular journalism address issues of race, gender and culture.
Dave Zirin – The Edge of Sports
Selena Roberts – New York Times, Sports Illustrated
David Aldridge – Philadelphia Inquirer, TNT
Moderator: Jack McCallum – Sports Illustrated

NON-DEGREED THEORIZINGS ARE POSSIBLE, NON-TRADITIONAL REVOLUTIONS ARE NECESSARY: MUSIC IS THE WEAPON
Lyrical Resistance/Action Planning: Fighting the criminalization of black youth. An interactive dialogue of artists and activists on the criminalization of black youth and how art intersects with scholarship to fight these racist ideologies, the potentials available in revolutionary music to mobilize communities and students to resist the criminalization and mass incarceration of black people.
Viviane Saleh-Hanna – University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Spiritchild – Poet and performer, Mental Notes
Stephanie Rooker – Party for the People
Not4prophet – Musician
Moderator: Ashanti Alston – Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

THE THOUSAND-YARD STARE: PUBLIC HEALTH ON A CORRUPT TRAJECTORY
We propose that AIDS prevention and treatment have failed in the US as a consequence of the harms to thinking systems that resulted from the US “original sin” of counting African Americans as “3/5’s of a man.”
Mehret Mandefro – Founding Director of TruthAIDS
Rodrick Wallace - Research Scientist, New York State Psychiatric Institute, "Concentration is NOT containment"
Robert E. Fullilove - Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, “Finding the moral high ground”
Moderator: Lourdes Hernández-Cordero - Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health

RACIAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
Panelists will discuss the ways in which different communities are addressing the challenges they face fighting for decent and equitable education, how they have resisted and organized, and how their particular struggles speak to the larger political climate of the US.
Priscilla Gonzalez – Center for Immigrant Families
Donna Nevel – Center for Immigrant Families
Mona Eldahry – Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Adem Carroll – Muslim Consultative Network
Fatin Jarara – Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Moderator: Makani Themba-Nixon – Executive Director, The Praxis Project
(Center for Immigrant Families)

KEEPING DOWN THE BLACK VOTE: RACE AND THE DEMOBILIZATION OF AMERICAN VOTERS
New voters are trouble, so it is more efficient to work to suppress opposition voters, and blacks are the usual target of vote suppression, a tactic is used both by the Republican and the Democratic parties.
Lori Minnite – Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University
Major Owens – US Congress, retired
Frances Fox Piven – Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Andrew Hsiao – The New Press

BEYOND WALLS AND CAGES: LINKING IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND PRISON ABOLITION MOVEMENTS
The criminalization of migration builds on the nearly three-decade long project of mass incarceration. How can we understand how walls and cages target different groups of people, yet with similar effects, and how can the prison abolition and immigrant justice movements learn from and support each other?
Andrew Burridge – Geography, University of Southern California, “Might a theory and politics of open borders manifest themselves spatially and challenge current forms of border securitization and militarization?”
Trishala Deb – Audre Lorde Project, “The intersections of racism, transphobia, and homophobia for immigrant community members, particularly around issues of enforcement and incarceration”
Micol Seigel – African American Studies, African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, “Zero Tolerance Goes South: focus on the international police consulting of former NYPD and current LAPD Police Chief William Bratton”
Seth Freed Wessler – Research associate, Applied Research Center
Fahd Ahmed – DRUM, Desis Rising Up and Moving
Moderator: Lisa Bhungalia – Geography, Syracuse University
Moderator: Jenna Loyd – Syracuse University

asia

NEOLIBERALISM, CITIZENSHIP, AND LAND WARS IN THE "NEW INDIA"
As the Indian state attempts to bring into being a new consumer citizen, farmers, workers and cultural activists fight to retain a democratic notion of citizenship, located within specific political spaces and practices.
Leela Fernandes – Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick "The Political Economy of Lifestyle: Consumption, India's New Middle Class and Changing Development Regimes"
Dolly Daftary – Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, "Morphing dryland communities into 'India Shining': A critique of participatory democracy, watershed development and the postcolonial state"
Moderator: Kanishka Chowdhury – English, and Director, Program in American Culture and Difference, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, "Contesting Claims: Land Acquisition and Dispossession in Bengal"

MARXISM, FEMINISM AND CRITICAL THEORY IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
A discussion of recent trends in Chinese philosophy and social theory, with participants from China and the US.
He Ping – Wuhan University, China, “Gender in China”
Wu Xinwei – Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, “Gramsci in China”
Li Dianlai – Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, “Habermas in China”
Wang Xinyan – Wuhan University, China, “Keeping a Foothold on Concrete Reality in Chinese Marxist Philosophy”
Discussant: Peter Hudis – Oakton Community College
Moderator: Kevin B. Anderson – Purdue University
Moderator: Josh Howard – Graduate Center, CUNY

CHINA: ECONOMIC CRISIS, ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE AND WORKERS’ STRUGGLES IN CHINA’S MARKET STALINISM
The introduction of market reform in China has installed economic forces that are savaging Chinese society and driving the country toward ecological collapse — trends which are exacerbated by China’s hybrid capitalist-communist social structure which has defeated all efforts at reform but provoked growing resistance from workers and farmers.
Richard Smith – Author, “China’s Capitalist Catastrophe”
Stephen Philion – Sociology, St. Cloud State University, “The Ideology of Rights and Workers’ Resistance to Privatization in China”
Yan Sun – Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY, "Corruption, growth and reform, the Chinese enigma"
Moderator: Magali Sarfatti Larson – Temple University (emerita)

TARIQ ALI ON PAKISTAN
Tariq Ali – Journalist and Author
David Barsamian – Journalist, Alternative Radio

culture

SPORTS AND THE CULTURE WARS
In a world where coverage of sports is increasingly pervasive, this panel examines the way that popular journalism address issues of race, gender and culture.
Dave Zirin – The Edge of Sports
Selena Roberts – New York Times, Sports Illustrated
David Aldridge – Philadelphia Inquirer, TNT
Moderator: Jack McCallum – Sports Illustrated

LITERATURE AND POLITICS: A SESSION IN MEMORY OF ANNETTE RUBINSTEIN
Marxist literary historians and theorists will discuss the red line of literary history and the continuing necessity for historical materialism in literary criticism and cultural critique.
Jacqueline DiSalvo – English, Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY, "William Blake's Revolutionary Socialism"
Alan Wald – English, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, "Humboldt's Gift: Annette Rubinstein, Charles Humboldt, and the Masses & mainstream writers in Cold War America"
Kimberly Macellaro – Rice University, "The Politics of 'Intersectional' Feminism"
Moderator: Barbara Foley – English, Rutgers University, Newark
(Science and Society)

LEFT PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOANALYSIS
Isis Leslie – “Romantic Individualism, Existentialism, and Melancholia: The Case of Richard Wright”
Stanley Aronowitz – Graduate Center, CUNY, “Can We Grasp the Social World with Psychoanalysis?”
David N. Smith – “Resistance of the Wrong Kind: Probing the Psychological Roots of Resistance to Psychology"
Richard Lichtman – Critical Theory in Psychology, Sacramento, California, “Psychology and Torture: Their Long Dark History”
Moderator: Harriet Fraad – Psychologist

CLOSED DOORS: HOUSEHOLD EXPLOITATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW SOCIETY
The hidden class struggles that occur within contemporary households and their implications for understanding social change and politics today.
Harriet Fraad – Psychotherapist, New York, “The Class Analysis of Caring Labor”
Rick Wolff – Economics, University of Massachussetts, Amherst, "Households and Families, Class Analysis, and Revolutionary Strategy Today"
Moderator: Graham Cassano – Sociology, Oakland University, Michigan

POLITICAL SATIRE: SPEAKING SPOOF TO POWER
If you’re tired of Leftists over-analyzing everything, and just want a good, pain-filled laugh, see comics, writers and filmmakers present their ingeniously outraged work, inspired by what the US government is doing to us and to the world.
Billionaires for Bush
Alrick Brown – Filmmaker
Andy Bichlbaum – The Yes Men
Andrew Boyd – Author and humorist
Elissa Jiji – Billionaires for Bush
Moderator: Marco Ceglie – Billionaires for Bush
Moderator: Susie Day – Columnist

TRANSFORMATIVE THINKING, INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
What role can indigenous or "precapitalist" forms of knowledge and spirituality play in this transformation, and what are the politics of mobilizing them, and does the recent (re)turn to consciousness mark a significant break from the distinction between idealism and materialism?
Jack Z. Bratich – Rutgers University
Tiokasin Ghosthorse – "First Voices Indigenous Radio," WBAI Radio
Daniel Pinchbeck – Author
Moderator: James Trimarco – Writer

THE LEFT ANALYZES EVERYDAY LIFE
Lauren Langman – Loyola University, Chicago, “Consumption and the Colonization of Daily life”
Richard Lichtman – Critical Theory in Psychology, Sacramento, California, “'Cry' Morality in American Life”
Chyng Sun – New York University, “Why Is Pornography a Left Issue?”
Moderator: Harriet Fraad – Psychologist, “Laborers in the Field of Emotion: What is Emotional Labor and Why Is It Unpaid”

NON-DEGREED THEORIZINGS ARE POSSIBLE, NON-TRADITIONAL REVOLUTIONS ARE NECESSARY: MUSIC IS THE WEAPON
Lyrical Resistance/Action Planning: Fighting the criminalization of black youth. An interactive dialogue of artists and activists on the criminalization of black youth and how art intersects with scholarship to fight these racist ideologies, the potentials available in revolutionary music to mobilize communities and students to resist the criminalization and mass incarceration of black people.
Viviane Saleh-Hanna – University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Spiritchild – Poet and performer, Mental Notes
Stephanie Rooker – Party for the People
Not4prophet – Musician
Moderator: Ashanti Alston – Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

ecology and environment

WATER PRIVATIZATION: THE ULTIMATE THEFT
The campaign to make clean water accessible to all brings together socialists, environmentalists, wealthy suburbanites and the poorest people in the world in a fight that may save the planet.
Maude Barlow – Chairman, The Council Of Canadians
Alan Snitow – Author, Filmmaker
Patrick Bond – Center for Civil Society, South Africa
Moderator: Barbara Garson – Writer

DANIEL SINGER ESSAY PRIZE: “ECO-SOCIALISM IN THE TIME OF GLOBAL WARMING”
The panel will feature comments on the essay of Arthur Mitzman, Dutch professor and the winner of the 2007 Daniel Singer Prize, on the theme of his paper, "The Eco-Socialist Challenge."
Michael Löwy – Sociology, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris
William Kornblum – Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY
Eleni Varikas – Political Science, University of Paris VIII
Moderator: Frank Fried – Activist, Daniel Singer Foundation
(Daniel Singer Foundation)

RADICAL APPROACHES TO GLOBAL WARMING
Global Warming is not a technical problem, and cannot be solved within the terms of capitalism; we need, rather, a massive uprising and joining together of movements from below, dedicated to keeping carbon within the ground, and to the transformation of society accordingly.
Michael Löwy – Sociology, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris
Karen Charman – Managing Editor, Capitalism Nature Socialism
Moderator: Joel Kovel – Editor, Capitalism Nature Socialism, author
(Capitalism Nature Socialism)

CHINA: ECONOMIC CRISIS, ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE AND WORKERS’ STRUGGLES IN CHINA’S MARKET STALINISM
The introduction of market reform in China has installed economic forces that are savaging Chinese society and driving the country toward ecological collapse — trends which are exacerbated by China’s hybrid capitalist-communist social structure which has defeated all efforts at reform but provoked growing resistance from workers and farmers.
Richard Smith – Author, “China’s Capitalist Catastrophe”
Stephen Philion – Sociology, St. Cloud State University, “The Ideology of Rights and Workers’ Resistance to Privatization in China”
Yan Sun – Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY, "Corruption, growth and reform, the Chinese enigma"
Moderator: Magali Sarfatti Larson – Temple University (emerita)

CORPORATE VS. POPULAR SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS
In a warming world, corporate intransigence and government dithering are getting heat from grassroots movements around the world mobilizing to stop climate catastrophe.
Ted Glick – Climate Crisis Coalition, Coordinator, US Climate Emergency Council, “Building a Mass Movement for Climate Solutions that Solve the Crisis and Advance Justice and Peace”
Michael K. Dorsey – Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College, “Neoliberal Bird Flu Infects Climate Policy Making: Unveiling Reactionaries, Responses, & Resistance”
Anne Petermann – Co-Director, Global Justice Ecology, "Climate Change: Crisis and Opportunity"
Moderator: Natalie Jeremijenko – New York University
(Climate Crisis Coalition)

education

RACIAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
Panelists will discuss the ways in which different communities are addressing the challenges they face fighting for decent and equitable education, how they have resisted and organized, and how their particular struggles speak to the larger political climate of the US.
Priscilla Gonzalez – Center for Immigrant Families
Donna Nevel – Center for Immigrant Families
Mona Eldahry – Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Adem Carroll – Muslim Consultative Network
Fatin Jarara – Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Moderator: Makani Themba-Nixon – Executive Director, The Praxis Project
(Center for Immigrant Families)

BETWEEN TEACHING, FACILITATING AND PROMOTING: WHAT KIND OF WORLDS DO TEACHERS ENVISION?
Examining the Friere, the Free School and the Zapatista models, and questioning the responsibilities of teachers to students, this panel will explore these questions through both personal experience and professional critique, calling on those who work in all levels to participate in this critical discussion.
Fernando Reals – Teacher, Rikers Island
Ora Wise – Palestine/Israel Education Project
Matt Meyer – High School Teacher, New York City
Esperanza Martel – Community Organizing, Hunter College, CUNY
Moderator: Rosemary Mealey – Writer and educator

EDUCATION VERSUS SCHOOLING - THE ROLES OF THE POLITICAL INTELLECTUAL IN AND OUT OF ACADEMIA
Stanley Aronowitz – Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY, “Against Schooling”
C. Ricardo Brown – Cultural Studies, Pratt Institute, “The end of critical theory and the institutionalization of cultural studies asks for creating a new political culture in the university”
Michael Pelias – Philosophy, Long Island University, Brooklyn, “Doing Philosophy and confronting its consistent depoliticization in the academy - restoring historical materialism”

Edwina Stokes – Long Island University, Brooklyn
Moderator: Dominic Wetzel – Graduate Center, CUNY
(Situations Journal)

ELECTORAL POLITICS

LEFT POLITICAL PARTIES, LEFT ELECTORAL SUCCESSES AND THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE OF NEOLIBERALISM AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM
Michael Krätke – Political Economy, University of Amsterdam, "The Origins of the Success of the Dutch Socialist Party"
John Sanbonmatsu – Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, "Building the Left in the United States"
Ingar Solty – Political Science, York University, Toronto, "Neoliberalism, Right-Wing Populism and Neosocialism: The Significance of the New German Left Party"
Asbjorn Wahl – Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees, "The Origin of the Success and the Experience With the Government Participation of the Norwegian Left Party"
Moderator: Leo Panitch – York University, Toronto
(Rosa Luxemburg Foundation - Berlin)

ELECTORAL REFORM IN THE US
The elections of 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 cast a spotlight on serious distortions in the American electoral system, exposing problems so serious that the term "vote suppression" had become commonplace in the press.
Regina Eaton – Associate Director,The Democracy Project at Demos, “Voter Registration Reform”
Rob Richie – Director, Fair Vote
Mike Slater – Director, Project Vote, “The Promise and Politics of Voter Registration”
Moderator: Lori Minnite – Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

THE INTERPLAY OF MOVEMENTS AND ELECTORAL POLITICS IN THE US
Focusing on particular movements, the perennial dichotomy between doing electoral work or movement work will be examined, as will what can we learn about the impact of electoral politics on political movements, and the impact of political movements on electoral politics.
Dorian Warren – Political Science, Columbia University, “Electoral/movement dynamics in the labor movement”
Howard Hawkins – Teamster, Green Party, "A Green Party Strategy Debate"
Linda Gordon – New York University
Ron Scott – Member, Detroit Black Panther Party, TV producer
Ronnie Eldridge – Eldridge & Co., CUNY-TV, “The Second Wave Women's Movement, or How the Victims became Victorious - Women and Politics”
Moderator: Nancy Holmstrom – Rutgers University, Newark

KEEPING DOWN THE BLACK VOTE: RACE AND THE DEMOBILIZATION OF AMERICAN VOTERS
New voters are trouble, so it is more efficient to work to suppress opposition voters, and blacks are the usual target of vote suppression, a tactic is used both by the Republican and the Democratic parties.
Lori Minnite – Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University
Major Owens – US Congress, retired
Frances Fox Piven – Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Andy Hsiao – The New Press

ANARCHISM AND THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Can anarchists shrug off the end of the Bush era and this particular U.S. presidential election as just the same old statecraft - and proceed to "shut down" the conventions - or do the race (Obama), gender (Clinton), and "hope" factors problematize our usual responses?
Cindy Milstein – Institute for Anarchist Studies
Ashanti Alston – Anarchist People of Color
Ariel – New York City Anarchist Bookfair Collective
Eric Laursen – New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists

LOOKING PRESIDENTIAL? SYMBOLS AND SUBSTANCE, OBAMA AND CLINTON
How race and gender have been used, abused and misunderstood in the primaries.
Amy Richards – Writer
Patricia Williams – The Nation
Peggy C. Davis – NYU School of Law
Moderator: Gary Younge – The Guardian and The Nation
(The Nation)

EUROPE

BUILDING THE LEFT IN NORTHERN CORE CAPITALIST COUNTRIES
Frank Deppe – Political Science, University of Marburg, Germany, “The crisis of neoliberal hegemony and the emergence of authoritarian capitalism”
Javier Navascués – Management Science and Industrial Organisation, University of Seville, Spain, “United Left in Spain - Its current difficulties and former successes”
Mimmo Porcaro – Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, “Building a new Left party into a populist society: Is the 'Italian Case' back?”
Thomas Seibert – Interventionist Left, Germany, “Party and movements, moderates and radicals. Lessons learned from Cologne 1999 to Heiligendamm 2007”
Moderator: Rainer Rilling – University of Marburg, Germany
(Rosa Luxemburg Foundation - Berlin)

THE BALKANS IN CRISIS: (1990-2008)
This panel will examine the history of the dismantling of Yugoslavia and the politics of "humanitarian intervention" and capitalist transition as seen "from below" through the struggles of workers, students, Roma and other political activists in the region.
Irina Ceric – York University, Toronto
Ziga Vodovnik – University of Ljubljana
Moderator: Tamara Vukov – McGill University

UNDERSTANDING TURKEY TODAY: CLASS DYNAMICS, STATE RESTRUCTURING AND POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES
An examination of the recent dynamics of Turkish capitalism in terms of the accumulation process, social classes and the state, with a specific focus on the post-2001 period.
Fuat Ercan – Economics, Marmara University, Turkey
Selime Guzelsari – Department of Public Administration, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Moderator: Sebnem Oguz – Trent University, Canada

LEFT POLITICAL PARTIES, LEFT ELECTORAL SUCCESSES AND THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE OF NEOLIBERALISM AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM
Michael Krätke – Political Economy, University of Amsterdam, "The Origins of the Success of the Dutch Socialist Party"
John Sanbonmatsu – Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, "Building the Left in the United States"
Ingar Solty – Political Science, York University, Toronto, "Neoliberalism, Right-Wing Populism and Neosocialism: The Significance of the New German Left Party"
Asbjorn Wahl – Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees, "The Origin of the Success and the Experience With the Government Participation of the Norwegian Left Party"
Moderator: Leo Panitch – York University, Toronto
(Rosa Luxemburg Foundation - Berlin)

KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE: TIMELY OR ABSURD?
Bogdan Denitch – Sociology (emeritus), Graduate Center, CUNY
George Szamuely – Writer
Susan Woodward – Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Julia Wrigley – Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY

women, gender & sexuality

WHAT WOULD A FEMINIST LEFT BE LIKE?
The next wave of the left must integrate the experience and ideas of the feminist and queer movements with an understanding of class and race in order to build a social justice movement that is not only progressive but humane, and able to address people’s real life concerns.
Amber Hollibaugh – Queers for Economic Justice, “Sex, Class, and Desire”
Sara Kershnar – Generation Five, "Transformative Justice”
Vanessa Moses – Generation Five, "Transformative Justice”
Patricia McFadden – Southern African Feminist Review (SAFERE), Zimbabwe, “The Need for a Radical African Feminism"
Moderator: Meredith Tax – President, Women’s WORLD, “What I’ve Learned”

THE PLEASURE FRONTIER: AN INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUE ON SEX IN FEMINISM
An interrogation of sex and sexuality through various generations of feminisms
Nona Willis-Aronowitz – Journalist
Rebecca Traister – Salon.com
Jennifer Baumgardner – Grassroots
Loretta Ross – SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, "Reproductive Justice"
Moderator: Marcia Gillespie – Ms. Magazine

DANGEROUS LIAISON: FEMINISM AND NEO-LIBERALISM
This panel explores the unexpected ideological and political points of convergence — in the US, Europe, and the Third World — between the economic orthodoxy of free market neoliberalism (privatization, welfare cuts, free access for capital everywhere) and mainstream feminism (individualism, women's autonomy).
Hester Eisenstein – Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY, “Feminism Seduced? The Uses Of Feminist Ideology For Corporate Elites In The Age Of Terror”
Iris Nowak – Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, “About the conservative German Secretary of Family Affairs and other feminists. Why feminism is (not) a Left issue”
Kornelia Hauser – University of Innsbruck, Austria, Sociology of Education, Gender Studies, "Neocapitalistic Construction of the Self in Third Wave Feminism"
Moderator: Soniya Munshi – Queens College, CUNY
Moderator: Steve Brier – Graduate Center, CUNY

ADVANCING A LEFT FEMINIST AGENDA
This panel seeks to create an intergenerational, multiracial, multicultural left feminist analysis of global capitalism and patriarchy including intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, nationalism, sexuality, and class and to focus on the relationship between theory and practice and the need to build a broad-based feminist movement for social justice.
Patricia Blau Reuss – "The State of Reproductive Rights in the US Today"
Nkenge Toure – "Not All Panthers were Men"
Beverly Guy-Sheftall – "The Role of Women of Color in the Feminist Movement"
Andree-Nicola McLaughlin – "Feminist Resistance: An International Perspective"
Nancy Holmstrom – "The Role of Socialist Women in the Feminist Movement"
Luz Marquez – "Violence and Hate Crimes against Women"
Moderator: George Friday – National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network
* Workshop to follow during the lunch hour in the same room, with an open roundtable discussion to create and participate in a dialogue for women to deal with, define and develop solutions to their problems to result in a common agenda for social change, networking and collaboration.

SEX WORK, TRAFFICKING, AND LEFT POLITICS: TOWARDS A NEW VISION ON PROSTITUTION AND JUSTICE
This panel will unite sex workers rights’ activists and professional intellectuals working on queer theory, feminism and progressive sexual politics to discuss the relationship between sex work and the Left.
Audacia Ray – $pread Magazine
Kerwin Kaye – New York University
Elizabeth Wood – Nassau Community College
Amber Hollibaugh – Queers for Economic Justice
Ignacio Rivera – Queers for Economic Justice
Moderator: Antonia Levy – Graduate Center, CUNY

IS A RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA POSSIBLE?
Jessica Rechtschaffer – Radical Homosexual Agenda
Tim Doody – Radical Homosexual Agenda
Kaitlyn Tikkun – Callen Lorde Community Health Center Transgender Community Advisory Board
Josh Pavan – Q-Team
Moderator: Dominic Wetzel – Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY
(Radical Homosexual Agenda)

A LABOR MOVEMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
What kind of labor movement is needed to deal with 21st century conditions of globalization, labor migration, widespread unemployment and a huge but largely unorganized service sector; and how do women’s rights and workers’ rights, workplace issues and community issues, come together to build this kind of movement?
Willie Baptist – Union Theological Seminary Poverty Initiative, “Organizing the Poor”
Marisa Franco – Domestic Workers United, “Unionizing Domestic Workers”
Katie Quan – University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, “Women, Work, and Globalization”
Moderator: Carol Barton – Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice, “Economic Rights”

WHY HAVE THE WOMEN’S AND BLACK MOVEMENTS STALLED? WHAT CAN BE DONE TO RESTART THEM?
Johanna Brenner – Sociology, Portland State University, “Women and the Politics of Class”
Bill Fletcher, Jr. – Center for Labor Renewal, Black Commentator
Frances Fox Piven – Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Kazembe Balagun – Brecht Forum

MARXISM, FEMINISM AND CRITICAL THEORY IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
A discussion of recent trends in Chinese philosophy and social theory, with participants from China and the US.
He Ping – Wuhan University, China, “Gender in China”
Wu Xinwei – Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, “Gramsci in China”
Li Dianlai – Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, “Habermas in China”
Wang Xinyan – Wuhan University, China, “Keeping a Foothold on Concrete Reality in Chinese Marxist Philosophy”
Discussant: Peter Hudis – Oakton Community College
Moderator: Kevin B. Anderson – Purdue University
Moderator: Josh Howard – Graduate Center, CUNY

ORGANIZING FOR TAX JUSTICE
Mimi Abramovitz – Social Policy, Hunter School of Social Work, CUNY, “Taxes are a Woman's Issue”
Lucy Komisar – Journalist, Tax Justice Network-USA, taxjustice-usa.org, “Tax Justice Activism: targeting the corporate & super-rich tax cheats”
Stephanie Greenwood – Editor, 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Hate Taxes
Carol Barton – Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice, “Economic Rights"
Moderator/Discussant: William Tabb – Economics, Queens College, CUNY

HEALTHCARE

NOT POLITICALLY FEASIBLE? NOT SO FAST!: ORGANIZING FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE IN AN ELECTION YEAR
Len Rodberg – Queens College, CUNY, “Back to the Health Care Future: Why the Mainstream Candidates’ Proposals Can’t Work, and Can’t Win”
Ayana Jordan – Einstein College of Medicine, “Medical student organizing”
Mary O’Brien – “Organizing in the Medical Profession”
Bill Henning – Vice-President, CWA Local 1180, “Labor’s role”
Eric Sawyer – ACT UP, “Community activism”
Moderator: Martha Livingston – SUNY College, Old Westbury
(Physicians for a National Health Program, New York-Metro Chapter)

THE THOUSAND-YARD STARE: PUBLIC HEALTH ON A CORRUPT TRAJECTORY
We propose that AIDS prevention and treatment have failed in the US as a consequence of the harms to thinking systems that resulted from the US “original sin” of counting African Americans as “3/5’s of a man.”
Mehret Mandefro – Founding Director of TruthAIDS
Rodrick Wallace – Research Scientist, New York State Psychiatric Institute, “Concentration is NOT containment”
Robert E. Fullilove – Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, “Finding the moral high ground”
Moderator: Lourdes Hernández-Cordero – Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health

labor

REORGANIZING THE WORKING CLASS
The panel will address the profound crisis within the labor movement and the strategic dimensions of its potential revival as an oppositional force.
Kate Bronfenbrenner – Labor Education Research, Cornell University, “The Impasse in Unions and Union Organizing”
Ai-Jen Poo – Domestic Workers United, “Organizing Immigrant Workers in Non-traditional Union Sectors”
Bill Fletcher, Jr. – The Black Commentator, co-founder of Center for Labor Renewal, “From the Workplace to the Community: Re-strategizing Class Struggle”
Moderator: Jerry Tucker – Co-founder, Center for Labor Renewal, United Auto Workers
(Center for Labor Renewal)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE ANTI-LABOR LAW
This panel examines the state of US labor law 60 years after the passage of Taft-Hartley through critique and assesses alternative means of establishing a just labor law through innovative political and activist strategies by workers.
Sarumathi Jayaraman – Brooklyn College, CUNY and  ROC-NY
James Gray Pope – Rutgers Law School
Steve Early – Union Activist, Writer
Harris Freeman – Western New England Law School, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Moderator: Harris Freeman
(Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society)

GENDER, ETHNICITY AND CULTURE: ORGANIZING ON THE MARGINS
In the context of the steady decline of organized labor’s white male workers manufacturing jobs, this panel shifts the focus to organizing precarious employment and immigrant labor in an increasingly anti-immigrant climate.
Jennifer Klein – History, Yale University, "We Were the Invisible Workforce: Low-wage Labor in the American Welfare State"
Graham Cassano – Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University, "Republicanism, class war, and the cultural struggle: Lou Dobbs and the new nativism"
Troy Rondinone – History, Southern Connecticut State University, "Republicanism, class war, and the cultural struggle: Lou Dobbs and the new nativism"
Nicole Trujillo-Pagán – Sociology, Wayne State University, "Limits to Solidarity: The Case of Latina Organizers of Male Casual Laborers in Post-Katrina New Orleans"
Moderator: David Fasenfest – Editor, Critical Sociology, Sociology, Wayne State University
(Critical Sociology)

A LABOR MOVEMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
What kind of labor movement is needed to deal with 21st century conditions of globalization, labor migration, widespread unemployment and a huge but largely unorganized service sector; and how do women’s rights and workers’ rights, workplace issues and community issues, come together to build this kind of movement?
Willie Baptist – Union Theological Seminary Poverty Initiative, “Organizing the Poor”
Marisa Franco – Domestic Workers United, “Unionizing Domestic Workers”
Katie Quan – University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, “Women, Work, and Globalization”
Moderator: Carol Barton – Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice, “Economic Rights”

US MANUFACTURING: RESTRUCTURING OR DISAPPEARING?
The hollowing out of American manufacturing is an article of faith in much left analysis, but the truth is more complex and this has important organizing, bargaining, and political implications
Mark Brenner – Labor Notes, “Overview of job loss and restructuring in US manufacturing”
Nicole Aschoff – Sociology, John Hopkins University, “ New data on the net flow of jobs out of and into the US auto industry”
Stanley Aronowitz – Graduate Center, CUNY, long-time labor activist, “The shift to high tech manufacturing and the implications for organizing”
Moderator: Sam Gindin – York University, former Assistant to the President, CAW
(Socialist Register)

PRECARIOUS WORK, PRECARIOUS LIVES
Mia Son – Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Kangwon National University, Korea
Iris Nowak – Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin
David Van Arsdale – Sociology, Hartwick College and Joseph S. Murphy Institute, CUNY
Moderator: Bill DiFazio – St. Johns University

HOW CAN STUDYING WORKERS’ CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS HELPS TO RAISE IT?
An attempt to combine our research interests on this important topic with our political ones.
Bertell Ollman – New York University, “Are Class Interests Part of What Workers Are or Part of What They Know (Or Don’t)?”
Howard Horowitz – Howard Horowitiz Associates, “Report on Two Focus Group Studies on Workers’ Class Consciousness”
Lee Levin – Public Administration, Baruch College, “Problems of Class Consciousness in Working Class Women”
Moderator: Michael Zweig – Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook

SEX WORK, TRAFFICKING, AND LEFT POLITICS: TOWARDS A NEW VISION ON PROSTITUTION AND JUSTICE
This panel will unite sex workers rights’ activists and professional intellectuals working on queer theory, feminism and progressive sexual politics to discuss the relationship between sex work and the Left.
Audacia Ray – $pread Magazine
Kerwin Kaye – New York University
Elizabeth Wood – Nassau Community College
Amber Hollibaugh – Queers for Economic Justice
Ignacio Rivera – Queers for Economic Justice
Moderator: Antonia Levy – Graduate Center, CUNY