This call is for expressions of interests and for papers to be delivered at an online seminar once a month throughout 2023 (with the possibility of an in-person event in the summer. It seeks to build a collection of contributions that could form an edited collection, with an international publisher already showing initial interest. There has been significant rapprochement between Marxism and identity focused politics at the beginning of the 21st Century, with social reproduction, racialised capitalism and queer Marxism amongst those initiatives that provide a critical foundation for contemporary theory, politics and struggle.
Disability studies developed in an uneasy relationship with Marxism, though many of its founding figures draw from Marxist influences (Mike Oliver, Lennard J Davis, Margaret Shildrik, Fiona Campbell, Tanja Aho, David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder) or identify directly with Marxist approaches (Marta Russell, Staffan Bengtsson, Roddy Slorach, David Matthews).
At the same time, disability studies have developed its own distinctive critiques, including radical iterations such as crip theory (Robert McRuer, Simi Linton, Dan Goodley, Shelley Tremain, Gregor Wolbring, Alison Kafer) and critical disability studies.
The purpose of this initiative is to explore how disability and Marxist analyses create fruitful bases for an inclusive, creative, and critical approach to the inequalities, alienation, and oppression of disabled people under contemporary capitalism, as well as to the central place of disability politics within working-class and anti-capitalist struggles.
We welcome contributions cross and trans-disciplinary in nature, drawing from all Marxist traditions and strands of disability theory and focused on both philosophical/theoretical and political/empirical questions.
We very much welcome work in progress.
We are looking, specifically, for two types of contribution:
1.Willingness to give a paper at the seminar series online
2.Willingness to attend sessions each month in order to build a critical mass of intellectuals and activists (we regard the division as porous) engaged with the subject matter.
Please send expressions of interest in the project to arianna.introna@open.ac.uk. We will compile an email list who will receive notifications of monthly seminars and the programme of papers. These expressions of interest might include titles and 250-word abstracts of contributions to the seminar series. Each seminar will be 90 minutes with 45 minutes for papers and 45 minutes for discussion.
Arianna Introna – arianna.introna@open.ac.uk
Paul Reynolds – paul.reynolds@open.ac.uk