CPERC Reading Group

Events Introduction Seminars & Conferences CPERC Reading Group Keynotes & Presentations

During term times, CPERC held a fortnightly reading group on CPE-related topics. On this page, you will find information on the previous groups and texts for download.

If you would like to participate in CPERC events and to subscribe to the CPERC mailing list, please send an e-mail to Majordomo@lists.lancs.ac.uk stating “subscribe cperc” in the body of the e-mail

Note that we do not currently run the reading group. If you would like to meet for some collaborative reading please subscribe to the list and let us know.

Reading Group Archive

Summer term 2012: Miscellany

During summer term, we will be discussing texts that one of us has to read in relation to her or his current work and that are instructive for a CPE perspective. The following texts have been proposed:

02/05: Reorganized Capitalism (Luigi)

Azmanova, Albena (2010): Capitalism Reorganized. Social justice after neo-liberalism. In: Constellations, Vol. 17, No. 2, 390-406.
http://kar.kent.ac.uk/28670/1/Azmanova_Constellations2010.pdf

16/05: Discourse of Competitiveness (Sarah)

30/05: Linkages between economic and political crisis (I) (Amelie / Mathis)

  • Scans of the Prison Notebook pages will be provided to participants via email
  • Gramsci, Antonio (1971): Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Norwell Smith, London: Lawrence and Wishart; pp. 275-276;201-218; 167-168.
  • Martin, J. (1997): Hegemony and the crisis of legitimacy in Gramsci, History of the Human Sciences, 10(1), 37-56.
    http://hhs.sagepub.com/content/10/1/37
  • Gill, Stephen: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/gill150210.html

13/06: Linkages between economic and political crisis (II) (Amelie)

  • Scans of the Legitimation crisis pages will be provided to participants via email
  • Jürgen Habermas (1976): Legitimation crisis [Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus,1973], London: Heinemann, translated by Thomas McCarthy; part I, chapt. 1 and part II, chapt. 1-3
  • Habbu, Aditya (2011): The Neoliberal Legitimation Crisis of 2008, Carceral Notebooks Work-in-Progress Paper Series, No. 2

27/06: Domination (Dermot)

Lent term 2012: The critique of ideology and CPE

This term, we will be dealing with approaches to the critique of ideology. We were thinking of starting out with a session on Thompson’s general overview over conceptions of ideology to move then on with texts on wooden language and spin (polito-linguistics), ideology and culture (Raymond Williams), critical theory, and Gramscian perspectives (Peter Ives and critics). However, as usually, this is open for discussion and alternative suggestions (to be sent to m.heinrich[at]lancaster.ac.uk) are more than welcome.

29/02/2012 “Critical Theory” (Frankfurt school) inspired by a Gramscian approach towards culture.

  • The basic reading for a that session is Alex Demirovic (1992): Regulation and Hegemony: Intellectuals, Knowledge, and Accumulation. Please contact Mathis m.heinrich[at]lancaster.ac.uk for a scan. If you are interested in briefly introducing the text please let Mathis know.

15/02/2012 Gramsci and Language

  • As a basic reading for everyone, we would like to propose Chapter 3 out of Peter Ives (2004): Language and hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto Press, 63-113.
    Please contact Mathis m.heinrich[at]lancaster.ac.uk for a scan.
  • In addition Ngai-Ling volunteered to introduce another text by Ives:
    Peter Ives (2005): Language, Agency and Hegemony: A Gramscian Response to Post‐Marxism. In: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8(4) 455-468.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230500204980
  • …and a critique of his concept of vernacular materialism by Stefano Selenu:
    Selenu, Stefano(2009) ‘Ives and Gramsci in Dialogue: Vernacular Subalternity, Cultural Interferences,
    and the Word-Thing Interdependence’, Rethinking Marxism, 21: 3, 344 — 354
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935690902955054
  • …while Bob will give some background information about where the concept of vernacular materialism is actually coming from.
  • So, if you have some spare time, you could also have a look into one of those additional texts – however, the core reading is just Chapt

01/02/2012: This session will be dealing with ideology and culture and the text we are going to discuss is Raymond Williams (1973): Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory. In: New Left Review I/82, November-December 197, which can be found here: http://newleftreview.org/?view=1568

18/01/2012: The first session provides an introduction into the different conceptions of ideology.

  • For this, we would like to discuss chapter 1 (The concept of Ideology) out of J. B. Thompson’s book (1990): Ideology and modern culture: critical social theory in the era of mass communication, pp. 28-67. A scan and paper copy is available through Mathis m.heinrich[at]lancaster.ac.uk

Michaelmas term 2011

In the first meeting we agreed that the first two meetings will be dedicated to two angles from which one can approach disciplinary debates on Cultural Political Economy: the debate on the cultural turn and the debate on neogramscianism. Session three and five will be on the phenomenon of “debt”, and in the concluding session will return to CPE as an approach.

CPE reading suggestions:

12/10/2011:     The cultural in political economy

26/10/2011:     Debates on neo-gramscian political economy

09/11/2011:    Debt I: Anthropology of (modern) credit systems

  • Graber, David (2011) ‘Debt: the first 5,000 years’. New York: Melville House.
  • Andrew Sayer will suggest further readings.

16/11/2011:    Debt II

Further readings:

  • Langley, Paul (2009) ‘Debt, Discipline and Government: foreclosure and forbearance in the sub-prime mortgage crisis’, Environment and Planning A, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 1404-1419.http://www.envplan.com/epa/fulltext/a41/a41322.pdf
  • Montgomerie, Johnna (2010): Neoliberalism and the Making of Subprime Burrowers. In: Konings, Martjin (eds.): The great credit crash. London: Verso.
  • Bob Jessop will suggest further readings.

07/12/2011: Ideology?

  • The core text is: Eve Chiapello (2003): Reconciling the Two Principal Meanings of the Notion of Ideology: The Example of the Concept of the `Spirit of Capitalism’. In: European Journal of Social Theory6, availale here: http://est.sagepub.com/content/6/2/155
    Thank you Dermot for suggesting it! However, we are still missing somebody who can shortly introduce this text – please let Mathis know, if someone is willing to do so.Thanks!
  • Bob will also give a short comment on an additional text, namely Chapter 1 in Susan Marks’ book The Riddle of the Constitution (2000). Unfortunately this chapter is not available online, but you can step by at Bob’s office on monday if you want to have a look at it

Summer term 2011

June 28th, 2011, 1-2:30, Bowland North, Meeting Room B135: Financialization Revisited II

  • We will discuss a text on geographies of money and financial subjects which is available for download for all members of Lancaster University via the link given below.
  • Hall, Sarah (2011) Geographies of money and finance II: Financialization and financial subjects, Pogress Report published online in Progress in Human Geography,http://phg.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/05/28/0309132511403889
  • Abstract: In this report, I examine the growing interest in financial subjects within economic geography and the wider social sciences. I begin by locating this literature within work on financialization and earlier geographical research on money and finance. I then review the contribution made by research into everyday and elite financial subjects to understandings of the geographies of money and finance. I argue that recent work examining the role of space and place in constituting financial subjectivities is particularly important in allowing geographers to engage with emerging academic and policy debates about the changing nature of financial subjectivities within neoliberal economies.

June 14th, 2011, 1-2:30pm, Bowland North, Meeting Room B135: Financialization Revisited I

  • We will discuss more recent approaches to the exploration of financialization.
  • For members of Lancaster University Library, the proposed texts are all available for download via the links given below. The text selected for discussion is:
  • Engelen et al. (2010) ‘Reconceptualizing financial innovation’, Economy and Society 39 (1), 33-63; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085140903424568

Recommended background reading:

May 31st, 2011, 1-2:30pm, Bowland North, Meeting Room B135: Applying Lancaster CPE

We will continue the discussion on Lancaster CPE that we started last time and focus on an example of emprical application:

May 16th, 2011, 1pm, Bowland North, Seminar Room 3: Lancaster Approaches to CPE Revisited

Anybody interested in participating is expected to have read:

  • Norman Fairclough, Bob Jessop and Andrew Sayer (2003) ‘Critical Realism and Semiosis’, published by the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

Recommended further readings:

We will also discuss which of the following topics should be studied next:

    • Re-scaling – how to combine Cultural Political Economy and Critical Discourse Analysis
    • Governing risk during crisis – the case of the International Monetary Fund
    • Financialization revisited after crisis
    • Political crisis in the Arab world – an example of legitimacy crisis