International Congress - The strength of Critique: Trajectories of Marxism – Feminism

Conference venue: Berlin, Germany
Period: March 20-22, 2015

More than 40 years ago, feminists among Marxists in many countries spoke out. They criticized the concept of labour that was then commonly used in Marxism, they criticized value theory, views on domestic labour and the family, the way of dealing and interacting with each other and with the nature around us, on the economy and wars, visions of the future and the urge for liberation.
They triggered passionate debates – their criticism wasn’t totally ignored. But the work they have carried out on an international scale is far from complete. For some decades feminist Marxist debates subsided because neoliberalism, stumbling from one crisis to another, had brought other issues into focus.
Next year, in March 2015, we intend to pick up the threads. Many of those voices -- and many who have since joined -- will come together at a congress in order to investigate what has been left undone. We will discuss successes and defeats as well as new projects with the intention of finding out together what has been gained so far, what we need to continue working on, what new issues are on the agenda, and how we can bundle our energies to achieve worldwide resonance to our demand to intervene.
What remains as fundamental as almost half a century ago is that socialist feminists join forces internationally.

Friday, 20.3.2015

10:00 Arrival (with bread rolls, coffee and tea)
10.30-10:45 Opening with/Eröffnung mit Katja Kipping (Head of the party Die LINKE); German-English
10.45 -11:15 Introduction / Einführung Frigga Haug (Esslingen): Gender Relations as Relations of Production - Marxism-feminism a Challenge. Shifting problems, changing frames and how to go on; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

11.15-12.00 General debate

12.00-13.00 Lunch

13:00-15:00 Workshop 1: Female Proletariats / Weibliche Proletariate
Gabriele Dietrich (Madurai): Women's Movements and Workers in the Unorganised Sector in India under onslaught of Neo-liberal Globalisation
Ece Kocabicak (Lancaster): Conditions of patriarchal appropriation in Turkey
Veronika Schild (Toronto): Latin American Feminisms and Neoliberal Regulation
Chair: N.N.; Sprache: nur Englisch
      
13:00-15:00 Workshop 2: Conflicts on Agency / Konflikte um Handlungsfähigkeit;
Sarah Schulman (New York): Conflict Is Not Abuse
Daniela Tepe-Belfrage (Sheffield): Intervening and criminalising poor women's social reproduction: "Troubled" Families in the UK
Birge Krondorfer (Wien): The new taboo: „say WE“. Particularities instead of political connections
Chair: N.N.; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

13:00-15:00    Workshop 3: Feminist Theory and Feminist Movements I / Feministische Theorie und feministische Bewegungen I
Adrienne Roberts (Manchester): The Business of Gender Equality: A Marxist-Feminist Critique and other contributions
Chair: NN; Language: German only

15:00-15:30 Coffee break

15:30-17:30 Panel 1: Learning from history / Aus der Geschichte lernen
Cynthia Cockburn (London): Feminist uses of the Standpoint concept
Lynn Segal (Sydney): Learning from our defeats: Between Rebellion and Coalition Building
Lise Vogel (New Brunswick): About “Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Towards a Unitary Theory”
Katharina Volk (Köln): On historical struggles and (utopian) ideas - socialist, marxist and Materialist feminists
Chair: Heidi Hartmann (Washington DC); Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

18:00-19:00 Dinner
19:00-20:00 Book Launch: Marxism and Feminism
with Shahrzad Mojab, Helen Colley, Cynthia Cockburn, Frigga Haug; Translation/    Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

20:30-21:00 Luxemburg Lecture by Saskia Sassen (New York):
What do we see when we go back to ground level - detheorize, in order to re-theorize? / Was sehen wir, wenn wir auf den Grund zurück kehren - de-theoretisieren um zu re-theoretisieren?;
Chair: N.N.; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

Saturday, 21.3.1015

9:00-11:00 Panel 2: Critique of current feminisms / Kritik gegenwärtiger Feminismen (Intersectionality 1)
Birgit Sauer (Wien): Intersectionality. A materialist perspective
Hester Eisenstein (New York): Holding up half the sky? Hegemonic Feminism in the Service of Neoliberalism
Tucker Pamela Farley: Contemporary Developments of Lesbian Movement, intersectionality and neoliberalism
Harriet Fraad (New York): What remains? About the feminist movement
Chair: NN; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:30 Panel 3: Interventions / Eingriffspunkte (Intersectionality 2)
Nira Yuval-Davis (London): Class Politics, Identity Politics and Intersectionality Politics: Socialist feminist Contestations
Martha Gimenez: Whither Marxist Feminism? Back to Class and Away from the Trilogy!
Zillah Eisenstein (Ithaka): Towards the new proletariats
Chair: Karen Kramer (Berlin); Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

11:30-13:30 Workshop 4: New Materialist Feminisms I / Neuer materialistischer Feminismus I    Ariel Salleh (Sydney, requested) and Sandra Harding (Los Angeles, requested)
Chair: Katharina Pühl (Berlin); Sprache: nur Englisch

11:30-13:30 Workshop 5: Feminist-Marxist Analysis of the Care-Sector / Feministisch-marxistische Analysen des Care-Sektors
Monserrat Galceran Huget (Madrid): Social Reproduction in a Capitalist System
Tove Soiland (Zürich): Care-sector in advanced western Capitalist Societies
Catherine Hoskyns (Coventry) and Shirin Rai (Warwick): Depletion – the Cost of Social Reproduction
Chair: N.N.; Sprache: nur Englisch

13:30-15:00 Lunch

15:00-17:00 Workshop 6: Relations between Humans and Nature / Mensch-Natur-Verhältnisse
Uta von Winterfeld (Wuppertal): Some remarks about Nature, Crisis and Domination
Elisabeth List (Graz): Thinking Life. A perspective for the transfomation of the marxist project from a feminist point of view
Nora Räthzel (Umea): Work and Nature – Work against Nature? What do feminist Marxists have to say to the question of Climate Change and the issue of growth
Chair: N.N.; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

15:00-17:00 Workshop 7: Neoliberalism, Politics and Education / Neoliberalismus, Politik und Bildung
Contributions by Erica Burman, Terri Seddon, discussants from members of the SDS (Kerstin Wolter and Ines Schwerdtner)
Chair: N.N.; Sprache: nur Englisch

15:00-17:00 Workshop 8: Activist Feminism against neoliberal Authoritarianism / Feministischer Aktivismus gegen neoliberalen Autoritarismus; Sprache: nur Englisch

15:00-17:00 Workshop 9: Feminist Theory and Feminist Movements II / Feministische Theorie und feministische Bewegungen II; Language: German only

17:00-17:30 Coffee break

17:30-19:30 Panel 4: Towards a Human Society / Perspektiven einer menschlichen Gesellschaft
Gabriele Winker, Sharhzad Mojab, Ann Ferguson (commentator), and Helen Colley
Chair: Barbara Fried (Berlin); Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

17:30-19:30 Workshop 10: New Materialist Feminisms II / Neuer materialistischer Feminismus II
(AG feministische Kapitalismuskritik RLS)
Katharina Pühl (Berlin); Language: German only

19:30-20.30 Dinner

20:30-21.15 Luxemburg Lecture by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York)
The use of Marxism among the subalterns where institutional socialism has failed / Die Nutzung des Marxismus unter Subalternen an Orten, an denen der institutionalisierte Sozialismus scheiterte
Chair: N.N.; Translation/Übersetzung: Deutsch + English

Open end: Talk, Drinks and Music in the Luxemburg Lounge

Sunday, 22.3.2014

10:00-10:30 Bread Rolls, Coffee and Tea

10:30-12:30 Feminism and the Political Party: Strategic debate from within / Feminismus und politische Partei: Eine interne Strategiedebatte; Language: German only

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 On Re-Foundation of Marxism-Feminism / Zur Neubegründung des Marxismus-        Feminismus; Sprache: nur Englisch
Workshops and panels are presented as building blocks for a collective manifesto

15:30-16:30 Conclusions. Perspectives of international networking / Fazit und Perspektiven internationaler Zusammenarbeit; Sprache: nur Englisch
What next
All participants who want to go on

Participants between others: Erica Burman (England), Cynthia Cockburn (England), Helen Colley (Canada), Gabriele Dietrich (Indien), Hester Eisenstein (USA), Zillah Eisenstein (USA), Tucker Pamela Farley (USA), Ann Ferguson (USA), Harriet Fraad (USA),  Barbara Fried (Deutschland), Catherine Hoskyns (England), Montserrat Galceran Huguet (Spanien), Martha Gimenez (USA), Heidi Hartmann (USA), Frigga Haug (Deutschland), Katja Kipping (Deutschland), Ece Kocabicak (England/Türkei), Karen Kramer (Deutschland/USA), Birge Krondorfer (Österreich), Elisabeth List (Österreich), Shahrzad Mojab (Canada), Shirin Rai (England), Nora Räthzel (Schweden), Adrienne Roberts (England), Saskia Sassen (USA), Birgit Sauer (Österreich), Veronika Schild (Canada/Chile), Sarah Schulman (USA), Terri Seddon (Australien), Lynn Segal (England), Tove Soiland (Schweiz), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (USA/Indien), Daniela Tepe-Belfrage (England), Lise Vogel (USA), Katharina Volk (Deutschland), Gabriele Winker (Deutschland), Uta von Winterfeld (Deutschland), Nira Yuval-Davis (England).

Team: Frigga Haug, Ruth May, Mario Candeias, Julia Dück, Barbara Fried, Katharina Pühl, with Gabriele Winker and many others.

Michaela Klingberg
tel: (030) 44310-160
e-mail: klingberg@rosalux.de