RSS FeedRSS FeedYouTubeYouTubeTwitterTwitterFacebook GroupFacebook Group
You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Archive for category Goldsmiths

Mondays, 7pm
Richard Hoggart Building, Rm 356

27 January, 7pm, The Hobgoblin, 272 New Cross Road, SE14 6AA

A moderated panel discussion hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society on the interrelation of capital, history and ecology.

Goldsmiths College, New Cross,
London Borough of Lewisham, London SE14, UK
November 20, 7:30 PM

- Andy Price (New Compass)
- Camilla Royle (Kings College London)
- Camilla Power (University of East London)
- David Black (The Hobgoblin)

Description:
The Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen recently characterized the period marked by the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th Century to the present as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This periodization is meant to capture a change in the history of the planet, namely that for the first time in history its course will be determined by the question of what humanity will become.

This panel will focus on different interpretations of why the Left has failed to deal with the deepening crisis of the Anthropocene through the 19th and 20th Centuries and how and if this problem is interrelated with the growing problems associated with ecological systems across the earth. While Karl Marx would note that the problem of freedom shifted with the industrial revolution and the emergence of the working class - the crisis of bourgeois society that Marx would term capital - the idea of freedom seemed not to survive the collapse of Marxist politics in the 20th Century. We seem to live in a world in which the fate of ecological systems seem foreclosed, where attempts at eco-modernization seem to emerge many steps behind the rate of ecological degradation. For many, degradation of the environment appears a permanent feature of modern society, something which can only be resisted but never transformed.

This panel will consider the relationship between the history of capital and the Left—and thus the issue of history and freedom - and how it may be linked to our present inability to render environmental threats and degradation visible and comprehensible, and by extension, subject to its conscious and free overcoming by society.

Come one come all! Before going out to celebrate Hallowe'en come have a pint with us. (If the Marquis gets too crowded we'll move across to the New Cross House)

Marquis Of Granby, New Cross

322 New Cross Rd, se14 6ag London

Our weekly Coffee Breaks are a great way to meet Platypus members and fellow travelers, and to get to know the Platypus project. It’s an opportunity to discuss issues raised in the latest issue of the Platypus Review, consider the state of the Left, and just hang out with people who have similar political interests.

 

Fall 2013 Coffee Breaks

Sundays | 4:15 pm
The London Particular, 399 New Cross Road, SE14 6LA
Contact: london@platypus1917.org