Last Conference (see Schedule to the right)

Rosa Luxemburg and Her Ideas:
Engaging the Left and Impacting the World

Date and Location:

Friday, 27 April, 9 am – Sunday, 29 April, 2018, noon
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
37, South Ashland Avenue, C h i c a g o , IL 60607

The German-Polish prominent socialist Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) dedicated her life to the fight against war, poverty, exploitation and any kind of suppression. Yet today in the age of neo-liberalism, we have the same problems as in the beginning of the 20^th century. Luxemburg, a versatile Marxist theoretician, excellent journalist, and effective agitator has left us a body of work that may support and impact on the present left. At the conference international scholars presented relevant papers on the life and work of Rosa Luxemburg and her close comrades.

For this conference in Chicago we had a numerous demand for registration which regrettably could not be accepted completely. This showed the intensive interest in Rosa Luxemburg research in many different countries. The congress offered a broad variety of Rosa Luxemburg research with focus on gender and economic aspects by scholars from Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Lithuania, UK, and USA. Significant for this congress was the participation of many young and many female scholars. The presented papers opened some new perspectives for the Rosa Luxemburg research.

The conference papers which were sent in could be read in clicking onto the marked names at the schedule (to the right).

Organizers: 
International Rosa Luxemburg Society (IRLS)
Co-Chairs: Prof. (pens.) Dr. Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Kolkata, India
& Prof. Dr. William A. Pelz †, Chicago, Illinois, USA
& Prof. Dr. Pablo Slavin, Mar del Plata, Argentina
Voluntary Secretary: Ottokar Luban, Berlin, Germany
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung — New York Office (RLS-NYC)
Co-Director: Dr. Albert Scharenberg, New York, USA
Program Manager: Ethan Earle, New York, USA

Conference Schedule with Conference Papers

You can read and download several conference papers clicking the marked names.

Day 1: Friday, April 27^th, 2018

8:30AM - 9:00AM
Light Breakfast

9:00 - 9:30AM
Welcome
Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Albert Scharenberg, Ethan Earle

9:30 - 10:15AM
- Memorial for William A. Pelz by Axel Fair-Schulz
- Memorial for Narihiko ITO by Ottokar Luban

10:15AM - 10:20AM
Short Break

10:20AM - 12:15PM
Panel 1
Reports on International Research
- Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Universiyof Calcutta, India
 “Evaluation of Rosa Luxemburg : an examination of changing perspectives of international scholarship"

- MA Jiahong, University Peking, PR of China; Post-doc researcher at IISH, Amsterdam, Netherlands  
„Review and Prospect of Chinese Study in Rosa Luxemburg”

- Axel Fair-Schulz, State University of New York, Potsdam, USA
"Rosa Luxemburg and the November Revolution: Recent Trends in Historiography"

- Uwe Sonnenberg, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
Report: “Coming (Co-)Organized Events by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung on the Centenary of the German Revolution 1918/19”
Chair: Mario Keßler

12:15PM - 1:00PM
Lunch

1:00PM - 2:10PM
 P a r a l l e l  Panel 2 a
Race, Class, and Movement Building
- Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, IL, USA
“Racism and the Logic of Capital: A Marxist-Humanist Assessment of the Relevance of Luxemburg’s Thought for Today’s Struggles Against Racism”

- Valentine Eben, Univ. of Minnesota, USA
 "A View from Indymedia Africa: What would Luxembourg Say About Today's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Revolution?
Chair: Michael Löwy

1:00PM - 2:10PM
P a r a l l e l  Panel 2 b
The Private Rosa Luxemburg
- Helen Scott, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA 
 “’Like a flash from eternity’: Rosa Luxemburg on Literature”

- Rory Castle Jones, Swansea Univ., Wales, UK
“’All the hidden, bitter tears’”: family, identity and the shaping of revolutionary Red Rosa”
Chair: Helen Boak

2:10PM - 2:15PM
Short Break

2:15PM – 3:25
Panel 3
Rosa Luxemburg and Colonialism
- Alyssa Adamson, Stony Brook University, NY, USA
 “Rosa Luxemburg and Decolonial Political Theory

- Sandra Rein, University of Alberta, Canada
“Rosa Luxemburg on colonialism:  Why it still Matters”
Chair: Lorraine Cohen
 

3:25PM – 3:40PM
Coffee/Tea Break

3:40PM - 6:00PM
Panel 4
Luxemburg and Other Female Socialist Thinkers
- Andreas Stuhlmann, University of Alberta, Canada
“The Ghost of Rosa Luxemburg”: Hannah Arendt on Undogmatic Judgment, Spontaneity, and Revolution”
- Eleni Varikas, Univ. Paris 8/ Saint-Denis, CNRS, France; 2018: Visiting Prof. at Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA, “Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt and the question of plurality”

- Franklin Dmitryev, Chicago, USA
“Revolutionary Intercommunication between the Ages: The "Dialogue" between Rosa Luxemburg and Raya Dunayevskaya”

- Dana Mills, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK 
“Going Ahead in 1893: when Eleanor met Rosa”
Chair: Sandra Rein
 

6:00PM - 6:05PM
Short Break
 

6:05PM - 7:45PM
Keynote 1
Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ, USA
“The Contemporary Significance of Rosa Luxemburg’s Socialist Feminism”
Chair: Ankica Čakardič

Day 2: Saturday, April 28^th
8:30AM - 9:00AM
Light Breakfast

9:00AM - 10:40AM
Panel 5

Discussions on Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital (1)
- Bradley Mayer, San Leandro, California, USA  
“Primitive Accumulation Inside and Out”
Chair: Ingo Schmidt

10:40AM - 10:45AM
Short Break

10:45AM - 11:45AM
Panel 6
Discussions on Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital (2)
- LIN Haochao, Wuhan University, PR of China
 “The Inevitable Rise of Opposing Individual Freedom in Modernization: Based on the Theory of the Accumulation of Capital”

- Ankica Čakardič, Univ. Zagreb, Croatia
 “Rosa Luxemburg and ‘woman question’- From theory of accumulation to social reproduction theory” Chair: MA Jiahong

11:45AM - 12:00PM
Coffee/Tea Break

12:00PM - 1:10PM
Keynote 2
- Helen Boak, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
“Women in the German revolution, 1918/19”
Chair: Alyssa Adamson
 

1:10PM - 2:00PM
Lunch

2:00PM - 4:00PM
P a r a l l e l  Panel 7 a
Marxist Thinking
- Julia Killet, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, office Munich, Germany
„Rosa Luxemburg‘s advice to the socialist movement (Considerations by the Luxemburg Biographer Paul Froelich)”

- Mario Keßler, Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany
"Ossip K. Flechtheim, 1909-1998: Editor of Rosa Luxemburg's Works and Pioneer of Research on Communism in Germany"

- ZHANG, Meng, Wuhan University, PR of China
 “Reflection on the Relationship between Rosa Luxemburg’s Thought and Marx’s Theory”
Chair: Albert Scharenberg

2:00PM - 4:00PM
P a r a l l e l  Panel 7 b
Rosa Luxemburg’s Activities in the Socialist Movement
- Arunas Vysniauskas, University Vilnius, Lithuania
“Rosa Luxemburg and the Polish ‘mosaic’ in Lithuania”

- Reiner Tosstorff, University Mainz, Germany
 „Between Bockenheim, Hanau and Frankfurt: Rosa Luxemburg's Rhein-Main connections“

- Ottokar Luban, Berlin, Germany    
“The Spartacus Group in the German Novemberrevolution 1918/19”
Chair: Rory Castle

4:00PM - 4:10PM
Coffee/Tea Break

4:10PM - 6:00PM
Panel 8
Party and Leadership
- Chris Cutrone, School of the Art Institute, University of Chicago, USA
“Rosa Luxemburg and the Party”

- Lorraine Cohen, LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York, USA   
 “Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of leadership: An Alternative Approach”

- Edward Remus, Ronald Williams Library, Northern Illinois University, Chicago
"American Bernstein, American Luxemburg: Views of the SPD's revisionist dispute and great schism from the Socialist Party of America, 1900-1918”

- Henry Holland, Hamburg, Germany  
 “Beyond Nationalisms: Spontaneity and Working-Class Organization in Scotland, 2012-2017 through the lens of Luxemburg’s dialectic”
Chair: Kaveh Boveiri

6:00PM – 6:05PM 

Short Break

6:05PM - 8:00PM

International Plenary
Chances for Socialist Solutions of Current World Problems?
With Erek Slater, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Chicago; Michael Löwy, Brazil; Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, India; Ankica Čakardič, Croatia; Jiahong Ma, PR China; Ingo Schmidt, Canada
Chair: Peter Hudis

Day 3: Sunday, April 29^th
8:30AM - 9:00AM
Light Breakfast

9:00AM - 10:45AM
Panel 9
Luxemburg and Lukács and Gramsci: Interpretations and Evaluations
- Kaveh Boveiri, Univ. Montreal, Canada 
„Lukács’s Reading of Rosa Luxemburg’s Conception of Totality: A Reappraisal”

- Sevgi Doğan, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy 
“ANALYSIS OF INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT AS POLITICAL ACTION THROUGH GRAMSCI AND LUXEMBURG”

- Daniel Egan, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA 
“Rosa Luxemburg and the Mass Strike: A Corrective to Gramsci’s Critique”
Chair: Ethan Earle

10:45AM - 11:00AM
Coffee/Tea Break

11:00AM - 12:45PM
Panel 10
Socialist Internationalism versus Imperialism
- Michael Löwy, Univ. Paris, France, Paris, France; 2018: Visiting Prof. at Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA  “Rosa Luxemburg and Internationalism“ https://www.dropbox.com/s/caa8icxzrer2khb/Copie%20de%20secours%20de%20Rosa%20Luxemburg%2C%20Internationalism%2C%202018.doc?dl=0

- Attila Antal, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary:
 “Anti-war Theory and Activism in Permanent State of Exception”

- Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, Canada  
 “Hilferding, Luxemburg & Lenin on Imperialism: Variations Amongst the Classic”
Chair: Bradley Mayer

12:45PM - 1:00PM
Farewell Words
Peter Hudis, Ottokar Luban, Albert Scharenberg

Pablo Slavin had to cancel his paticipation due to a serious case of illness in his family but sent his paper:
- Prof. Dr. Pablo Slavin, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina
“The Thinking of Rosa Luxemburg in our Time: The Fight for the Right to the City”