Against Ion's Chain: Translatability in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks & In The Name of Women's Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism.
Against Ion's Chain: Translatability in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks
Dr Peter Thomas | Brunel University, London
- Friday 12 June
- Room 601, Michie Building (#9)
- 1pm - 2pm
This paper explores the concept of translatability developed in Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. Although it is only recently that scholars have turned their attention to this theme, translation in both linguistic and cultural senses constituted an enduring interest for Gramsci, from his university study of historical linguistics onwards.
The concepts of translation and Gramsci's distinctive notion of translatability are developed in at least three significant directions in the Prison Notebooks: first, an enquiry into the possibility of translating political strategies and techniques from one socio-political formation and conjucture to another; second, research on the theoretical foundations of an historicist theory of the form of translation between different cultures; and third, the question of the possibility of non-essentialist theory of translatability, including a critique of the notion of the untranslatable.
Dr Peter Thomas has studied and worked in the School of EMSAH at the University of Queensland, Freie Universität Berlin, L’Università “Federico II”, Naples, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Vienna. He has previously been a research fellow at the Finnish Academy, Helsinki, and the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, and has been a recipient of Australian, British, German, Italian and Dutch research fellowships.
He has published widely on Marxist political theory and philosophy (particularly Gramsci), the history of political thought and the history of philosophy. He has also translated the work of Antonio Negri, Slavoj Zizek and Mario Tronti, among others. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, and co-editor of the Historical Materialism Book Series. He also coordinates the English translation and publication of articles from Das historisch-kritische Wörterbuch des Marxismus (HKWM) in the pages of Historical Materialism.
In The Name of Women's Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism
Dr Sara Farris | Goldsmiths, University of London
- Friday 12 June
- Room 601, Michie Building (#9)
- 2pm - 3pm
My aim in this presentation is to propose a political-economic theoretical frame for reading the contemporary mobilizations of the idea of "gender equality" in debates on immigrants' and above all Muslims' integration, particularly in Europe. More specifically, I focus on the ways in which very different political actors such as right-wing nationalists, feminist intellectual and femocrats (or state feminists) as well as neo-liberal governments have all resorted to the theme of women's rights to stigmatise Muslim migrants and have implemented specific policies with this aim.
Dr Sara Farris holds degrees from the University of Rome, “La Sapienza”. Sara previously taught sociology at the University of Amsterdam, University of Brunel and King’s College. She has also been a member scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science, in Princeton (2012/2013), Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Cluster of Excellence in Konstanz (2011) and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (2009-2010).
She is International Book Review Editor for Critical Sociology and Corresponding Editor for Historical Materialism, as well as author of Max Weber's Theory of Personality: Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion (Brill 2013) and In the Name of Women's Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism (forthcoming).