*Round up the usual philosophers.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/12/philosophy

Move over Jacko, Idea of Communism is hottest ticket in town this weekend

Duncan Campbell

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 March 2009

The hottest ticket in London this weekend is not for a pop singer or a football match but for a conference on communism which brings together some of the world’s leading Marxist academics. The international financial crisis has led to a resurgence of interest in a philosophy that many claimed had been buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Such has been the interest in the conference, entitled On the Idea of Communism, being staged at London university’s Birkbeck college from tomorrow, that the venue has been changed three times to accommodate the extra demand and is sold out. Participants are flying in from the US, Latin America, Africa and Australia to hear from some of the world’s big hitters on the subject.

One of the organisers, the Slovenian philosopher and writer, Slavoj Zizek, (((I might have known))) has emphasised that the purpose of the gathering is not to “deal with practico-political questions of how to analyse the latest economic, political, and military troubles, or how to organise a new political movement”. He added: “more radical questioning is needed today – this is a meeting of philosophers who will deal with communism as a philosophical concept, advocating a precise and strong thesis: from Plato onwards, communism is the only political idea worthy of a philosopher.”

Although the conference seems particularly timely, it was planned last summer, well before the scale of the current economic collapse had become apparent. (((Sometimes a communist just plan gets lucky.)))

“The response has taken us by surprise,” said Costas Douzinas, director of the Birkbeck institute for the humanities, which is hosting the three-day event. “It must be related to the wider political context. There is a sense that we have to start thinking again.” (((Good thing our philosophers have been spared that ordeal lately.)))

He said that the gathering was about the meaning of communism and speakers had indicated that they would be very critical of the Soviet model. Among the questions to be addressed is whether “communism is still the name to be used to designate the horizon of radical emancipatory projects”.

The participants include the radical Italian writer and academic, Toni Negri, who was once sentenced to a long prison term for “insurrection against the state” in Italy, Terry Eagleton and the French philosopher, Alain Badiou, author of the recent book on the French president, The Meaning of Sarkozy. Other speakers include Michael Hardt, Gianni Vattimo, Bruno Bosteels from Cornell university, Alessandro Russo, Judith Balso, and Alberto Toscano….