Left Forum

From KeyWiki

Left Forum is the new name for the Socialist Scholars Conference.

About
2005
2007
2008
2009
2010

Left Forum is held annually in New York City. it is the successor to the Socialist Scholars Conference.

The Left Forum was held March 9 - 11, 2007 at Cooper Union College, New York City.

Left Forum board

In April 2009, the Left Forum board included Stanley Aronowitz, Roderick Bush, Eric Canepa, Vivek Chibber, Nancy Holmstrom, Jamie McCallum, Lorraine Minnite, Frances Fox Piven, Hobart Spalding, Bill Tabb, Richard D. Wolf and Julia Wrigley^[1]^[2]

Staff

In 2009, sole Left forum staff member was Seth Adler^[3].

Left Forum 2008 took place March 14-16 at The Cooper Union, New York City. The event was themed "Cracks in the Edifice".^[1]

What is the nature of the emerging crises in global political economy? How can the Left confront its current challenges to build stronger anti-capitalist movements? If another world is possible, what will it look like?

Left Forum Board of Directors

Board of Directors, 2008:^[2]

Panels

Africa

Cracks in the Edifice

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

Resistance is fertile: Changing the World from the Ground Up

Grace Lee Boggs of James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, Detroit
Maude Barlow, Chairman of The Council Of Canadians
Patricia McFadden of the Southern African Feminist Review, SAFERE, Zimbabwe
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!
Moderator: Eddie Yuen of the San Francisco Art Institute

Popular Struggles for Democracy in Kenya: Lessons from the 2007 Elections

Mukoma wa Ngugi of the University of Wisconsin: "African Leadership in Crisis"
Caroline Elkins of Harvard University: "Historical Legacies and Kenya's Contemporary Crises"
Micere Githae Mugo of Syracuse University, "What went wrong? A class analysis of the pitfalls of the democratic project in Kenya"
Tavia Nyong'o of New York University, "Perverse Neoliberalism"
Moderator: Horace G. Campbell of the 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 of Emerson College
Paget Henry of Brown University
Biodun Jeyifo of Harvard University
Judith Van Allen of Cornell University
Moderator: Victor Wallis of Socialism and Democracy

Southern Africa - Southern African Feminist Review (SAFERE), Zimbabwe

Patrick Bond of the Center for Civil Society, South Africa
Dennis Brutus of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Moderator: Thomas Ponniah of Harvard University

Speaking Truth to Power: Africa's Independant 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 and Sahara Reporter
Kassahun Checole, of the Africa World Press and the Red Sea Press
Miampela Mpela, of the UN Department of Public Information
Moderator: Milton Allimadi, of Black Star News, and the 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 of Columbia University
Stephen Eric Bronner of Rutgers University
Moderator: *Lawrence Davidson of Middle Eastern History, West Chester University, Pennsylvania

Racism

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 of Rutgers University
Herb Boyd, a Journalist, New York, Amsterdam News
Moderator: Peniel Joseph of 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 ìimagined community", in what ways is Harlem a new manifestation of the diaspora of folks of African descent.

Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council
Kamau Franklin of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Haja Worley of Community Gardens
Rene Francisco Poitevin of New York University
Moderator: Cleo Silvers of the For A Better Bronx

Radicalizing Human 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 of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, "Bring Human Rights Home"
Loretta Ross of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, "Reproductive Justice"
Sangeeta Budhiraja of Queers for Economic Justice,"Immigration and Human Rights"
Moderator: Meredith Tax of Women's World Organization for Rights, Literature & Development, Womens WORLD, "Some Strategic Questions about Human Rights"

Race and 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 of 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 Blacks' Movements Stalled? What Can Be Done to Restart Them?

Johanna Brenner, Sociology, Portland State University, and Women and the Politics of Class
Bill Fletcher, Jr. of the Center for Labor Renewal and the Black Commentator
Frances Fox Piven, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Kazembe Balagun of the 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 of The Edge of Sports
Selena Roberts of the New York Times and Sports Illustrated
David Aldridge of the Philadelphia Inquirer and TNT
Moderator: Jack McCallum and 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 of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Spiritchild, Poet and performer, Mental Notes
Stephanie Rooker of Party for the People
Not4prophet, Musician
Moderator: Ashanti Alston of the 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 3/5ths of a man.

Mehret Mandefro, Founding Director of TruthAIDS
Rodrick Wallace, a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, "Concentration is NOT containment"
Robert E. Fullilove of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, "Finding the moral high ground"
Moderator: Lourdes Hern·ndez-Cordero of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University and the 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 of the Center for Immigrant Families
Donna Nevel of the Center for Immigrant Families
Mona Eldahry of Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Adem Carroll of the Muslim Consultative Network
Fatin Jarara of Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Moderator: Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director of The Praxis Project, (Center for Immigrant Families)

Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the DeMobolisation of African 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.

Lorraine Minnite, Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University
Major Owens of the US Congress, retired
Frances Fox Piven, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Andrew Hsiao of 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 of the [[Audre Lorde Project, The intersections of racism, transphobia, and homophobia for immigrant community members, particularly around issues of enforcement and incarceration
Micol Seigel of the 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 Brattonî
Seth Freed Wessler, Research associate at the Applied Research Center
Fahd Ahmed of DRUM, (Desis Rising Up and Moving)
Moderator: Lisa Bhungalia, Geography, Syracuse University
Moderator: Jenna Loyd of Syracuse University

International

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 of the 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 of Wuhan University, China, Gender in China
Wu Xinwei of Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, ìGramsci in Chinaî
Li Dianlai of Wuhan University, China, Purdue University, ìHabermas in Chinaî
Wang Xinyan of Wuhan University, China, "Keeping a Foothold on Concrete Reality in Chinese Marxist Philosophy"
Discussant: Peter Hudis of Oakton Community College
Moderator: Kevin B. Anderson of Purdue University
Moderator: Josh Howard of the Graduate Center, CUNY

China: Economic Crisis, Environmental Collapse, and Workers Struggles in Chinas' 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 ó trends which are exacerbated by Chinaís hybrid capitalist-communist social structure which has defeated all efforts at reform but provoked growing resistance from workers and farmers.

Richard Smith, Author, ìChinaís Capitalist Catastrophe
Stephen Philion, Sociology, St. Cloud State University, "The Ideology of Rights and Workers Resistance to Privatization in China"
Yan Sun of Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY, "Corruption, growth and reform, the Chinese enigma"
Moderator: Magali Sarfatti Larson of Temple University (emerita)

Tariq Ali on Pakistan

Tariq Ali, Journalist and Author
David Barsamian a 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 of The Edge of Sports
Selena Roberts of the New York Times and 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 of 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 of the Graduate Center, CUNY, "Can We Grasp the Social World with Psychoanalysis?"
David N. Smith - ìResistance of the Wrong Kind: Probing the Psychological Roots of Resistance to Psychology"
Richard Lichtman - Critical Theory in Psychology, Sacramento, California, ìPsychology and Torture: Their Long Dark Historyî
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, a 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 of The Yes Men
Andrew Boyd author and humorist
Elissa Jiji of Billionaires for Bush
Moderator: Marco Ceglie of Billionaires for Bush
Moderator: Susie Day, Columnist

Transformative Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Future of Capatilism

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 of 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 of New York University, ìWhy Is Pornography a Left Issue?î
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 of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Spiritchild, Poet and performer, of Mental Notes
Stephanie Rooker of Party for the People
Not4prophet, Musician
Moderator: Ashanti Alston, of the 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 of The Council Of Canadians
Alan Snitow, Author and Filmmaker
Patrick Bond of the 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 Lowy, 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

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 Lowy, Sociology, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris
Karen Charman, Managing editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism
Moderator: Joel Kovel, author and editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism

China: Economic Crisis, Environmental Collapse and Worker's 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 ó trends which are exacerbated by Chinaís 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 of the 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 of Global Justice Ecology, "Climate Change: Crisis and Opportunity"
Moderator: Natalie Jeremijenko of 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 of the Center for Immigrant Families
Donna Nevel of the Center for Immigrant Families
Mona Eldahry of Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Carroll of the Muslim Consultative Network
Fatin Jarara of Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media
Moderator: Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director of 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 Vs. 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 universityî"
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 Successess and the Strategic Challenge of NeoLiberalism and Right Wing Populism

Michael Krotke, 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 of the 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 of Fair Vote
Mike Slater, Director of Project Vote, "The Promise and Politics of Voter Registration"
Moderator: Lorraine 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 of Teamster, Green Party, "A Green Party Strategy Debate"
Linda Gordon, New York University
Ron Scott, Member, Detroit Black Panther Party, TV producer
Ronnie Eldridge of Eldridge & Co., CUNY-TV, "The Second Wave Women's Movement, or How the Victims became Victorious - Women and Politics"
Moderator: Nancy Holmstrom of Rutgers University, Newark

Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobolization 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.

Lorraine Minnite, Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University
Major Owens of the US Congress, retired
Frances Fox Piven, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Andy Hsiao of The New Press

Anarchism and the 2008 American 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?

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 of The Nation
Peggy C. Davis of the New York University School of Law
Moderator: Gary Younge of The Guardian and 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 Navascues, 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 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 Krotke, 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 Liason: 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

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, Spread Magazi
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 womenís rights and workersí 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 - Womenís International Coalition for Economic Justice, ìEconomic Rightsî

Why Have the Womens and Blacks 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

Organising 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: Bill Tabb, Economics, Queens College, CUNY

Healthcare

Not Politically Feasible? Not so Fast!: Organising 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 OíBrien, "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 Hernandez-Cordero, Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health

Labor

Reorganising 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 the 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: Organising on the Margins

In the context of the steady decline of organized laborís 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-Pag·n, 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 womenís rights and workersí 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 of 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 Help 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, Spread 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

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)

Latin America

Militant Puerto Ricans: Diaspora, Struggle & Political Prisoners

This panel focuses on the role of the Diaspora in the struggle for Puerto Rican national liberation describing and evaluating the radicalization of communities, the differing forms of struggle, political prisoners and use of the grand jury today.

Mickey Melendez, Author, former Young Lord, "Trends in community organizing from the Young Lords to actual Diaspora struggles"
Michael Gonz·lez-Cruz, University of Puerto Rico, Mayag¸ez, "Militant Puerto Ricans: from Diaspora to Nation Building"
Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera, LMSW, La Nueva Escuela, "Historic role of the Diaspora in the Struggle for Independence"
Moderator: Ana Lopez, "Grand Jury, Repression, and Resistance in Puerto Rico and the US"

The Latin American Right

Much attention in recent years has been devoted to the Latin American ìleft turnî with little attention focused on how right-wing politics has adjusted to meet new challenges to its dominance.

Steve Ellner, Political Science, University de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela
Fred Rosen, NACLA
Forrest Hylton, New York University
Carlos Vilas, Political Science, Argentina
Moderator: Jack Hammond, Sociology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, NACLA

New Participatory Working Class Movements Challenge Left Reformism in Latin America

Confronting Left Reformism in Latin America: Non-hierarchical, democratic, and participatory working class movements present challenges to social democratic and centrist governments

Jack Hammond, Sociology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, "Popular Movements and Left Governments: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela and Chile"
Peter Ranis, Political Science, Graduate Center and York College, CUNY, "Struggles of Worker Recuperated Enterprises and Cooperatives in Argentina"
Nancy Romer, Psychology, Brooklyn College, CUNY, "Indigenous and Workers Organizations in Bolivia"
Moderator: Renate Bridenthal, History, Brooklyn College, International Committee of PSC-CUNY, AFT, Local 2334))

Evaluating Chavez From the Left

The international Left must address whether we should line up behind Chavez, is he a populist and/or a revolutionary, and is the opposition in Venezuela, perhaps, correct?

Steve Ellner, Political Science, University de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela
Greg Wilpert, Venezuelanalysis.com
Fernando Coronil, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Michigan

Moderator: *Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, Director, Venezuela Information Office

Urban Roots of Resistance And the New Left in Latin America

The historical antecedents of many of the leftist movements coming to power across Latin America today, the relationships of social movements with new Left leaders, and the current social movements and their historical roots will be examined.

Forrest Hylton, New York University, "Indigenous Movements in Bolivia"
Marina Sitrin, New College, "Horizontalism in Argentina"
Alejandro Velasco, New York University, "El 23 de Enero in Caracas"
Moderator: Sujatha Fernandes, Queens College, CUNY, "Barrio-based movements in Caracas"

Changing the World by Taking Power? Challenges Facing the Latin American Left

Leftists have come to power in governments throughout Latin America, from Venezuela to Brazil to Cuba and beyond, and questions of the relationship between state power and social movements are a subject of heated debates: How do left forces relate to questions of electoral struggles, executive power and its contestation, parliamentary reform and revolutionary movements, socialism from above and below?

Carlos Vilas, Political Science, Argentina
Michael Lowy, Sociology, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris
Greg Wilpert, Venezuelanalysis.com
Moderator: Nancy Romer, Brooklyn College

Marxism & Theory

No Neoliberalism Without 1968? The Contradictory Legacy of the Cultural Rebellion

Is it possible that the cultural upheavals of the 60s paved the way for neoliberal policies to be not only implemented but accepted widely?

Ingar Solty, York University, Toronto
Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz
Thomas Seibert, Interventionist Left, Germany
Leo Panitch, York University, Toronto
Moderator: Lisa Maya Knauer, Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin

Towards a Synthesis of Anarchism and Marxism?

Dave Berry, European Studies, Loughborough University, UK, "Towards a libertarian communism? Daniel Guerin and the synthesis of marxism and anarchism"
Ruth Kinna, Politics, Loughborough University, UK, "Bridging Differences Through Revolutionary Action: Aldred on Anarchism and Marx"
Moderator: Laurence Davis - Founding member, Anarchist Studies Network, "Anarchism, Marxism, and the Ends of Revolution"

Dialectics of Liberation: Praxis For a New Century?

Utilizing over 90 years of collective movement experience, participants in this conversation will discuss using dialectics to explore ways that theorizing social change must change to fit the 21st Century.

Melanie Bush, Sociology, Adelphi University
Kazembe Balagun, Brecht Forum
Matt Birkhold, Independent scholar and writer
Moderator: Roderick Bush, Sociology, St. John's University

Real Utopia: Participatory Society For the 21st Century

This panel engages visions for what a future participatory society may look like while looking at real world examples in the US, Asia and Latin America, and the strategy and activism needed to take us there.

Michael Albert, Znet, "Participatory Society for the 21st Century"
Jessica Azulay, WebRoot Solutions, "Parecon in Practice"
Brian Dominick, WebRoot Solutions, ìOrganizing for a Participatory Societyî
Richard W. Franke, Montclair State University, New Jersey, "Kerala. India"
Chris Spannos, ZNet
Marie Trigona, ZMag, "Argentina"
Greg Wilpert, Venezuelanalysis.com, "Socialism for the 21st Century/Venezuela"
Moderator: Meaghan Linick-Loughley, New York Organization for a Participatory Society, Students for a Democratic Society, Z Communications

Lenin's Return?

While many have proclaimed Goodbye to Leninî since Communismísm's collapse, discussions and debates are re-emerging regarding his historical meaning, contemporary resonance and future relevance.

Paul Le Blanc, History, La Roche College, Pennsylvania
Lars Lih, Independent scholar and author
Helen Scott, English, Women's and Gender Studies, University of Vermont
August Nimtz, Jr., Political Science, African Studies, University of Minnesota
Moderator: Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society

Connecting Globalization and Revolution

Marx's slogan about "workers of the world unite" was premature such that only today are the conditions in place to make that possible, and how does contemporary globali==tion repose anew the strategic question, "Reform and/or Revolution?"

Maliha Safri, Drew University, "The Global Household: Immigration and Economics in Transnational Families"
John Manley, Political Science, Stanford University, 'Globalization: Precondition of Socialist Revolution?"
Rick Wolff, Economics, University of Massachussetts, Amherst, "Reaction to Global Neoliberalism: Reform or Revolution?"
Moderator: Cathy Mulder, Economics, Washington College

Rethinking Marxism and the Future Of Global Struggles: Class Theory, Political Subjects and Contemporary Capitalism

Scholars associated with Marxism and with Rethinking Marxism will interrogate the journal's goals and accomplishments, Marxism's history in relation to political transformations in the world over the last 20 years, and the future of Marxism in the United States and abroad, as both a scholarly discourse and a form of political practice.

Rick Wolff, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Maliha Safri, Drew University
David Harvey, Graduate Center, CUNY
Joseph Buttigieg, Notre Dame
Moderator: David Ruccio, Notre Dame University, editor of Rethinking Marxism

How Can Studying Workers' Class Consciousness Help 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 Worker's Class Consciousness"
Lee Levin, Public Administration, Baruch College, "Problems of Class Consciousness in Working Class Women"
Moderator: Michael Zweig, Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook

Beyond the Inarticulate: A "Conversation" With Staughton Lynd On Anarchism and Marxism and History From the Bottom Up

An exploration of the contributions of historian and organizer Staughton Lynd.

Staughton Lynd, Historian and Author
Carl Mirra, Adelphi University
Daniel Gross, Co-author, "Labor Law for the Rank and File"
Moderator: Jerry Watts, English and Sociology, Graduate Center, [[CUNY

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

Media

Speaking Truth to Power: Africa's Independent Media and its Relationship to Dmocratic 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
Miampela Mpela, UN Department of Public Information
Moderator: Milton Allimadi, Black Star News, Global Information Network

Unembedded From Corporate Journalism At Home - Grassroots Media-Making

Panelists will share video and radio examples as they discuss media-making as a critical component of their community organizing, analysis and communications.

Nijmie Dzurinko, Media Mobilizing Project
Kat Aaron, Co-Director, People's Production House
Moderator: Lisa Rudman, Director of Making Contact, National Radio Project

Middle East

The Iran Crisis: Continuing Threat of War, Post-National Intelligence Estimate

Our panelists will explore US-Iran relations and questions raised by the striking US Intelligence turnaround by looking at domestic politics in the US and Iran, the effects of trade sanctions on Iran's economy and its people, the connection to the war in Iraq, and the long-range energy ambitions of the US.

Reza Ghorashi, Richard Stockton College
Tom O'Donnell, Fulbright Scholar, CENDES Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, and The New School
Faramarz Farbod, Moravian College, Union for Radical Political Economics

Lessons of the Iraq Occupation

This panel will explore a broad range of issues, from mercenaries and outsourcing to counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and the impact of the ongoing occupation for other conflicts, as well as the anti-war movement.

Jeremy Scahill, The Nation
A.K. Gupta, Editor, The Indypendent
Dennis Brutus, Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Frida Berrigan, Senior Program Associate, New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative
Moderator: Lisa Maya Knauer, Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, The Indypendent and International Socialist Review magazine

Oil and Politics in a Neoliberal World Economy

The political economy of the international oil industry in the neoliberal world economy with special foci on the consequences of the rising cost of oil extraction and nationalization of the oil industry for Middle East politics and US foreign policy.

Michael Klare, Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College, "Oil, War, and Geopolitics: The Struggle Over What Remains"
Max Fraad Wolff, International Affairs, The New School, "Rising Petrol Prices and Redistribution"
Irene Gendzier, Political Science, Boston University, "Past Tense, Present Sense: Reflections on US Oil Policy and Middle East Politics from the start of the Good Old Days"
Moderator: Adolfo Doring

The Backlash Against Dissent on Israel - Strategies For Response

Drawing upon their own experiences, panelists will address how dissenting voices on Israel have been suppressed or silenced, and ways to respond politically to the backlash that is taking place against dissent on Israel.

Joel Kovel, Author, Overcoming Zionism, Founding Member, Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism, CODZ
Debbie Almontaser, Educator, Founding Principal, Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York City
Donna Nevel, Community Psychologist and educator
Alison Weir, Journalist, Founder of If Americans Knew
Moderator: Esther Kaplan, Investigative editor at the Nation Institute, "Author of With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right", Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism

Movement Building

Whither the World Social Forum?

This panel will reflect on the World Social Forum process over the last 8 years in terms of challenges, successs, ideologies and future possibilities.

Patrick Bond, Center for Civil Society, South Africa
Heather Gautney, Fordham University
Michael Menser, Brooklyn College
Marina Karides, Florida State University
Moderator: Thomas Ponniah, Harvard University

Usable Pasts: Approaches to Movement Histories For Today's Struggles

This panel, featuring a range of younger scholar-activists, will stimulate discussion around creatively and critically bringing movement histories into contemporary struggles.

Sean Burns, History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz
Maia Ramnath, History, University of California, Santa Cruz
Marina Sitrin, New College of California
Eddie Yuen, San Francisco Art Institute
Moderator: Chris Dixon, History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz

Poverty and Poor People's Movements - Social Analysis and Reflections on Strategies

This workshop analyzes the political economy of todayís poverty and discusses the potentials and difficulties of re-igniting sustainable poor peopleís movements today, looking at theoretical debates and the experiences of current anti-poverty movements in the US.

Willie Baptist, Poverty Initiative, Union Theological Seminary
Chris Caruso, Cultural Anthropology, Graduate Center, CUNY
Jan Rehmann, Co-editor, German Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism, Philosophy and Social Theories, Union Theological Seminary
Liz Theoharis, Coordinator of the Poverty Initiative, Union Theological Seminary
Moderator: Charlene Sinclair, Union Theological Seminary, Organizer in Poor People's movements

Real Utopia: Participatory Society For the 21st Century

This panel engages visions for what a future participatory society may look like while looking at real world examples in the US, Asia and Latin America, and the strategy and activism needed to take us there.

Michael Albert, Znet, "Participatory Society for the 21st Century"
Jessica Azulay, WebRoot Solutions, "Parecon in Practice"
Brian Dominick, WebRoot Solutions, "Organizing for a Participatory Society"
Richard W. Franke, Montclair State University, New Jersey, "Kerala. India"
Chris Spannos, ZNet
Marie Trigona, ZMag, "Argentina"
Greg Wilpert, Venezuelanalysis.com, "Socialism for the 21st Century/Venezuela"
Moderator: Meaghan Linick-Loughley, New York Organization for a Participatory Society, Students for a Democratic Society, Z Communications

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
Moderator/Discussant: William Tabb, Economics (emeritus), Queens College, CUNY

Towards a Revolutionary Student Movement: Organization, Vision and Strategy For a Revitalized Left

This panel is an opportunity for young radicals in the student movement to discuss and share their views on the role students can play in confronting the new challenges our society is faced with, how to transcend the errors of previous generations of revolutionaries, and the difficulties in creating a new new left.

Patricia Gonzalez, The New School, Students for a Democratic Society
Rachel Haut, Queens College, Students for a Democratic Society
Dave Shukla, UCLA, Students for a Democratic Society
Moderator: Pat Korte, The New School, Students for a Democratic Society

The Evolution of Revolutionary Theory and Practice

Detroit City of Hope campaign points the way for twenty-first century cities.

Ron Scott, TV producer
Shea Howell, Co-founder and coordinator, Detroit Summer, columnist, Michigan Citizen
William Copeland, Poet, cultural worker
Moderator: Grace Lee Boggs, James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, Detroit

Study Groups in Search of the Questions

This panel is composed of several actual study groups who have been trying to confront the really difficult questions of revolution around consciousness-raising, organizational structure, ideology and the intersections of identity, class-race-gender-place and what ìif notî revolution as we have understood it.

Another Politics is Possible study group
Revolution & Evolution in the 20th Century study group
Resistance in Brooklyn study group
Party Study Part study group
Moderator: Edget Betru, Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, Center for Constitutional Rights

Movement-Building: Finding Common Ground

Drawing on organizing experience across race, ethnic, gender, and generational lines, panelists will discuss what kind of movement we need to build, how we can bridge theory and practice, how to raise difficult issues, and how older activists can make themselves useful to the young.

Howie Machtinger, Heirs to a Fighting Tradition, "Intergenerational Politics: Legacies of the Sixties"
Susan Wilcox, Brotherhood/SisterSol, "Youth Development for Social Change"
Moderator: *Suzanne Pharr, Southerners on New Ground (SONG), "Let the Circle Be Unbroken"

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"

Re-Constructing Solidarity

Often invoked, rarely examined, this panel addresses the concept of solidarityówhat it is, why itís important, and the various reasons why it is blocked or flourishes in particular instances.

Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz
Bill Fletcher, Jr., Center for Labor Renewal, Black Commentator
Staughton Lynd, Historian and author
Moderator: Chris Dixon, History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz

Autonomy, Social Change and the Global Justice Movement

Panelists will present on urban and rural movements in Europe and North America, discuss how these local activities are linked to larger movements, and then raise questions about the modalities of feminist, anti-racist, and anticapitalist social change being offered by these actors that are both antagonistic and transformative.

Thomas Seibert, Interventionist Left, Germany
Brenda Biddle, Graduate Center, CUNY
Mike Menser, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Omar Freilla, Green Workers Cooperatives, New York City
Cindy Milstein, Institute for Anarchist Studies
Moderator: Jamie McCallum, Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY

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"
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

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 womenís rights and workersí 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"

The Solidarity Economy as a Path Towards Radical Economic Transformation

Speakers from the US and Canada, representing five different solidarity economy networks, including the recently founded US Solidarity Economy Network, will introduce the solidarity economy framework and debate key aspects of solidarity economy organizing.

Ethel Cote, Canadian Community Economic Development Network, International Network for the Social/Solidarity Economy, Solidarity Economy of Ontario
Emily Kawano, US Solidarity Economy Network, North American Network for the Solidarity Economy, Center for Popular Economics
Ethan Miller, US Solidarity Economy Network, Grassroots Economic Organizing
Carl Davidson, US Solidarity Economy Network, solidarityeconomy.net
Moderator: Julie Matthaei, US Solidarity Economy Network, Economics, Wellesley College

Political Economy

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"
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

Oil and Politics in a Neoliberal World Economy

The political economy of the international oil industry in the neoliberal world economy with special foci on the consequences of the rising cost of oil extraction and nationalization of the oil industry for Middle East politics and US foreign policy.

Michael Klare, Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College, "Oil, War, and Geopolitics: The Struggle Over What Remains"
Max Fraad Wolff, International Affairs, The New School, "Rising Petrol Prices and Redistribution"
Irene Gendzier, Political Science, Boston University, "Past Tense, Present Sense: Reflections on US Oil Policy and Middle East Politics from the start of the Good Old Days"
Moderator: Adolfo Doring

Decline of the Dollar: Decline or Flexibility of the Empire?

Jane D'Arista, Financial Markets Centre
David Harvey, Graduate Center, CUNY
Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer
Chris Rude, Writer
Moderator: Leo Panitch, York University, Toronto, Socialist Register

The Solidarity Economy As a Path Towards Radical Economic Transformation

Speakers from the US and Canada, representing five different solidarity economy networks, including the recently founded US Solidarity Economy Network, will introduce the solidarity economy framework and debate key aspects of solidarity economy organizing.

Ethel Cote, Canadian Community Economic Development Network, International Network for the Social/Solidarity Economy, Solidarity Economy of Ontario
Emily Kawano, US Solidarity Economy Network, North American Network for the Solidarity Economy, Center for Popular Economics
Ethan Miller, US Solidarity Economy Network, Grassroots Economic Organizing
Carl Davidson, US Solidarity Economy Network, solidarityeconomy.net
Moderator: Julie Matthaei, US Solidarity Economy Network, Economics, Wellesley College

The Housing Meltdown

Panelists review the massive house price inflation (2001-2007), withdrawal of money and eventual decline of home prices, wealth and ownership.

Max Fraad Wolff, International Affairs, The New School, The Huffington Post, "How Big? How Bad? How Long?"
Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, WBIA, KPFA, "The Building/Housing Boom, Bust and Response"
Kenneth Levin, Queens College, CUNY, "Middle Class Home Insecurity: Policy and Practice"
Moderator: Jason Ricciuti Borenstein, Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The Coming Depression?

Jack Rasmus, "From Minsky to Marx and Beyond: Financial instruments and value"
Hillel Ticktin, Critique - A Journal of Socialist Theory, "Why this downturn is different from all others since 1929"
Elizabeth Ramey, University of Massachussetts, Amherst, "The Commodity/Ethanol Boom and the Housing Bubble"
Moderator: Suzi Weissman, Critique - A Journal of Socialist Theory

The Political Economy of Oil, Energy and the Environment

How the changing oil industry affects recession in the US economy, energy politics, and the growing US inequality of income and wealth.

AK Gupta, Editor, The Indypendent, "The United States and the political-economy of the global oil order"
Michael Tanzer, Tanzer Economic Associates, "Oil, Energy and Global Warming: The Disconnect between Scienceís Warnings and Proposed Solution"
George Caffentzis, Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, "Oil, the US Working Class and the Crisis of Neoliberalism"
Moderator: Cathy Mulder, Economics, Washington College

Organising 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
Moderator/Discussant: William Tabb, Economics, Queens College, CUNY

Dimensions of the Financialization Crisis

David McNally, York University, Toronto, "Global Finance, the Current Crisis, and Challenges to the Dollar"
Michael Krotke, University of Amsterdam, "The Financial Crisis has arrived in Europe - Europe`s share in the international bubble economy"
Bill Tabb, Economics, Queens College, CUNY, "The Minsky Moment and the Structure of Contemporary Finance"
Jane D'Arista, Financial Markets Centre, "Broken Systems: the US Financial and Monetary Policy Framework"
Moderator: Rainer Rilling, University of Marburg, Germany

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Belin

Up to Our Eyeballs: America's Unfolding Crisis of Personal Debt

An unregulated lending and financial services industry, crying out for rules far tougher than our political leaders (with their Wall Street bankrollers) will propose, will be examined, and solutions discussed.

Robin Blackburn, Committee on Historical Studies, New School for Social Research
Jose Garcia, Senior Research and Policy Associate at Demos
James Lardner, Journalist, Senior Fellow at Demos
Danny Schechter, Television Producer and Independent Filmmaker
Moderator: Heather McGhee, Economic Opportunity Program

Religion & Spirituality

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 Radical Roots of Theology: What Left Movements Can Learn From Religion

Left movements tend to be skeptical (typically for good reasons) about religion, but are there theological approaches within contemporary religions that can not only be compatible with left politics but can contribute to leftistsí ability to understand the world and create social change?

Robert Jensen, University of Texas, Austin
Junaid S. Ahmad, College of William and Mary School of Law, Virginia
Fahd Ahmed, DRUM, Desis Rising Up and Moving, "Immigrant Rights Since 9/11"
Moderator: Reverend Jim Rigby, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas

Racial and Religious Solidarity: Breaching the Barriers

What keeps religious leftists and secular leftists from building coalitions, what keeps white religious leftists and religious leftists of color from true dialogue and understanding?

Noble Bratton, Trade Union activist
Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, National Coordinator of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq, Minister, Judson Memorial Church, New York City
Elliot A. Ratzman, Swarthmore College
Moderator: Juanita Webster, Religion & Socialism Commission of Democratic Socialists of America

United States

Left Perspectives on Immigration Controversies

This panel will focus on the impact of immigrant workers on the political and economic realities facing the US working class today.

Amy Sugimori, Executive Director, LaFuente
David Van Arsdale, Sociology, Hartwick College and Joseph S. Murphy Institute, CUNY
Immanuel Ness, Political Science, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Stephen Steinberg, Urban Studies, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Marty Oppenheimer, Sociology, Rutgers University

The Battle For Immigrant Rights: From Dialogue To Action

Join us for a dialogue exploring how we can respond effectively to tough questions about immigration, chip away at the anti-immigrant attitudes being amplified by the media, and support immigrants who are organizing against deportation, defending their labor rights and building community power.

Jane Guskin, Author
Aarti Shahani, Co-founder, Families for Freedom
Victor Toro, Founder, Vamos a la PeÒa del Bronx
Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Director, Make the Road, New York
Moderator: Adriana Rocha, Program Officer, New York Foundation

Torture and the Decline of the American Empire

Torture yields intelligence of dubious value, but its development and use is increasing by the US government as its grip on empire is challenged.

Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights
Alfred McCoy, University of Wisconsin
Marnia Lazreg, Sociology, Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Naomi Wolf, Author
Moderator: Michael Steven Smith, Attorney and author

The State of the Anti-War Movement

There is an urgent need for analysis as to why the anti-war movement has faded from public view despite the fact that it was the burning issue of the 2006 election and that nearly 70 percent of Americans support a US withdrawal from Iraq. Also, we will discuss how the movement can get back on track and make an impact in 2008 and beyond.

AK Gupta, Editor, The Indypendent
Max Uhlenbeck, Brecht Forum, Editor, Left Turn
Max Elbaum, Journalist
Moderator: Susie Day, Columnist

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

Soldiers Resist: Organizing Against War

This panel features the testimonials of activists employing diverse viewpoints and strategies in order to rebuild a vibrant anti-war movement.

David McReynolds, War Resisters League
Anna Brown, Witness Against Torture and the Kairos Community
Bill Weinberg, Editor, World War 4 Report
Brian Moore, St. Pete (Fla.) for Peace Coalition, Socialist Party USA
Moderator: Billy Wharton, Socialist Party USA, New York City Local

Is the Christian Right Dead?

The coalition between economic and social conservatives seems kind of rocky coming out of the Bush Presidency that brought them together. Is the Christian Right dead?

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates
Tarso Luis Ramos, Research Director, Political Research Associates
Michelle Goldberg, Author
Rich Meagher, Political Science, Marymount Manhattan College
Moderator: Esther Kaplan, Nation Institute, The Public Eye, Political Research Associates

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?

The Arrival of the American Police State

However narrow and restrictive American bourgeois democracy was before 9/11, its juridical and institutional underpinnings have been transformed by the Bush administration (with the complicity of the Democratic Party) into what can now most accurately be described as a police state.

Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild
Clark Kissinger, Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience
Lynne Stewart, Attorney
Moderator: Michael Steven Smith, Law and Disorder Radio

Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobolization 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.

Lorraine 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

Urban Issues

A Right to the City!

Communities throughout New York City are coming together to create a proactive, unified and strategic community-based response to gentrification and displacement, including through the development of a local and national alliance, Right to the City, that is working to build a broad-based urban movement fighting for housing, education, health, racial justice, and democracy.

Homelessness & Resistance In New York City

An interactive discussion around critical themes relating to homelessness, housing exclusion and the housing market, and the implication for strategies of resistance in terms of race, class and gender.

Jean Rice, Board Member and civil rights leader, Picture the Homeless
Nikita Price, Organizer, Rental Subsidies Campaign, Picture the Homeless

Rogers - Housing Campaign, Picture the Homeless

Lynn Lewis, Picture the Homeless
Sam Miller, Picture the Homeless
Moderator: Frances Fox Piven, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY, Picture the Homeless

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 ìimagined 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
Rene Francisco Poitevin, New York University
Moderator: Cleo Silvers, For A Better Bronx

The Evolution of Revolutionary Theory & Practice

Detroit City of Hope campaign points the way for twenty-first century cities.

Ron Scott, Detroit Black Panther Party, TV producer
Shea Howell, Detroit Summer, columnist, Michigan Citizen
William Copeland, Poet, cultural worker
Moderator: Grace Lee Boggs, James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, Detroit

1968 - 40 Years Later

Reimagining 1968: The Black Power Movement & 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

No Neoliberalism Without 1968? The Contradictory Legacy of the Cultural Rebellion

Is it possible that the cultural upheavals of the ë60s paved the way for neoliberal policies to be not only implemented but accepted widely?

Ingar Solty, York University, Toronto
Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz
Thomas Seibert, Interventionist Left, Germany
Leo Panitch, York University, Toronto
Moderator: Lisa Maya Knauer, Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin

Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Legacy of '68

Tariq Ali, Journalist
Max Elbaum, Journalist
Frank Deppe, Political Science, University of Marburg, Germany
Frances Fox Piven, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Lorraine Minnite, Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

Movement-Building: Finding Common Ground

Drawing on organizing experience across race, ethnic, gender, and generational lines, panelists will discuss what kind of movement we need to build, how we can bridge theory and practice, how to raise difficult issues, and how older activists can make themselves useful to the young.

Howie Machtinger, Heirs to a Fighting Tradition, "Intergenerational Politics: Legacies of the Sixties"
Susan Wilcox, Brotherhood/SisterSol, "Youth Development for Social Change"
Moderator: Suzanne Pharr, Southerners on New Ground SONG, "Let the Circle Be Unbroken"

Migration

The Battle for Immigrant Rights: From Dialogue To Action

Join us for a dialogue exploring how we can respond effectively to tough questions about immigration, chip away at the anti-immigrant attitudes being amplified by the media, and support immigrants who are organizing against deportation, defending their labor rights and building community power.

Jane Guskin, Author
Aarti Shahani, Co-founder, Families for Freedom
Victor Toro, Founder, Vamos a la Peoa del Bronx
Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Director, Make the Road, New York
Moderator: Adriana Rocha, Program Officer, New York Foundation

Gender, Ethnicity and Culture: Organizing on the Margins

In the context of the steady decline of organized laborís 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-Pag·n, Sociology, Wayne State University, "From 'Gateway to the Americas' to the 'Chocolate City': The Racialization of Latinos in New Orleans"
Moderator: David Fasenfest, Editor, Critical Sociology, Sociology, Wayne State University, Critical Sociology

Left Perspectives On Immigration Controversies

This panel will focus on the impact of immigrant workers on the political and economic realities facing the US working class today.

Amy Sugimori, Executive Director, LaFuente
David Van Arsdale, Sociology, Hartwick College and Joseph S. Murphy Institute, CUNY
Immanuel Ness, Political Science, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Stephen Steinberg, Urban Studies, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator: Marty Oppenheimer, Sociology, Rutgers University

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

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 womenís rights and workersí 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"

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

References

[0] ttp://leftforum.org/node/21

[1] Z Mag, Left Forum 2009

[2] ttp://leftforum.org/node/21

[3] ttp://www.leftforum.org/events/2005program

[4] ttp://www.leftforum.org/events/2007

[5] ttp://nymaa.org/node/644

[6] ttp://nymaa.org/node/644

[7] ttp://www.leftforum.org/2009/main

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Left Forum

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Open Plenary

The U.S., the World, and the Next Four Years

Panels

The Western Left and Iraq

The Daniel Singer Essay Prize: "The Soul of Socialism"

Just Around the Corner: The Paradox of the Jobless Recovery - Author Meets Critics

New Strategies for Rebuilding Power in the Labor Movement

The Digital Commons as a Public Good

The Future of the Social Forum Movement in the U.S.

Fighting for Health Under Neoliberalism in South Korea and Venezuela

Ecological Disasters: The Case of Bhopal

Social Insanity, Family Transformation, and Personal Neurosis

Racism and the Politics of Oil

Dialectical Perspectives on Developing an Alternative to Capitalism

Crisis of the Labor Movement

The Left and Ecology

Iraq, Imperialism, and Post-Colonialism

The Enlightenment

Postmodernism and Democracy

The Left in Local Government: Tuscany, Brazil, Germany, and New York State

After 1989: Marxism in Transition

The Dialectic of Poverty

Fascism Then and Now

Fighting for National Health Care in a Right-Wing Environment

Hard Questions for the Peace Movement

Media in the Context of Globalization

Palestine: The Occupation and the Challenges Ahead

History Matters: The Past, Public Memory, and Resistance

What's Happening in the U.S. Economy?

Anarchism and the Left: New Dialogues on Power and Social Change

The Politics of the Neoliberal University

Refocusing Marxism on Class, Surplus, and Exploitation

The Challenge of the Rightist Values Agenda to Secular and Religious Socialists

Capitalism and Collapse: A Symposium on Jared Diamond's New Book

Gendered Aspects of US Empire

Building Alliances: Parties, Movements, Left Strategies

Race-ing Justice: Black Resistance and the Politics of Mass Incarceration

The Global Geopolitics of Oil

Neoliberalism: Brazil, Venezuela, and Latin American Strategies of Resistance

Repression and Resistance in Higher Education: Academic Freedom,Corporatization and Organizing

Debtor Families - Debtor Nation

THE NEW IMPERIALISM: STRATEGY, STRUCTURE, AND IDEOLOGY

Roundtable: The Global Justice Movement

Imperial Contradictions at Home and Abroad: Empire Reloaded or Overloaded?

The Legacy of Bandung: Rebuilding a Third World Politics of Resistance

The Political Impact of Digital Technologies

The Crisis of American Education

The Marxist Theory of Class and Its Importance for Today

The Left and the Rich: Income Inequality and Democracy

After the 2004 Elections: Progressive Responses

Whither the Middle East?: Iraq, Lebanon and the Regional Reshuffle

Social Security "Crisis": Rolling Back the New Deal

Resistance in the Military

Class or Multitude

Euro-Imperialism?

We Got Next: Youth Activism in Harlem

Sex, Gender and Politics Today

Insurgency and the Limits of US Imperial Reach

The Frame-up of Lynne Stewart: The Emerging Police State

Educators to Stop the War: Moving Forward

China and the World

Freedom Dreamin': Imagining Socialism

Youth Organizing and Politics in the US

Why Americans Fall for the Ownership Society

Future of the Left

References

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Panels

Africa

Cracks in the Edifice

Resistance is fertile: Changing the World from the Ground Up

Popular Struggles for Democracy in Kenya: Lessons from the 2007 Elections

The African Crisis: Politics, Philosophy and Social Movements: A Roundtable

Southern Africa - Southern African Feminist Review (SAFERE), Zimbabwe

Speaking Truth to Power: Africa's Independant Media and its Relationship to Democratic Struggles around the Continent