Rosa Luxemburg Symposium

Friday, February 9, 2024

ROSA LUXEMBURG SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

9:30 AM – Welcome and coffee

9:45–10:45 AM – CHRISTIAN LOTZ, Michigan State University 

The Current Crisis of Liberal Democracies. Can We Learn Anything from Rosa Luxemburg? 

Moderator: Matthew Delhey, University of Toronto

11:00 AM–12:00 PM – ANKICA ČAKARDIĆ, University of Zagreb

The Cutting Weapon of Hegelian Dialectics: The Philosophy and Feminism of Rosa Luxemburg

Moderator: Antonio Calcagno, King’s University College

1:45–2:45 PM – JETA MULAJ, Toronto Metropolitan University 

Violently Torn Away from the Present: Frigga Haug’s Reading of Rosa Luxemburg 

Moderator: Natasha Hay, Toronto Metropolitan University

3:00–4:00 PM – AMY ALLEN, Pennsylvania State University 

“Imperialism Ultimately Works for Us”: Rosa Luxemburg's Theory of History

Moderator: William Paris, University of Toronto

Bios and Abstracts

Ankica Čakardić

The Cutting Weapon of Hegelian Dialectics: The Philosophy and Feminism of Rosa Luxemburg

  • Rosa Luxemburg is one of those authors who is often invoked under the most diverse circumstances. This also applies to the fact that she has inspired many political organisations, but no major movement has ever been defined by her theoretical perspective. In this lecture, I will present two topics related to Luxemburg's theory. Firstly, I will present several notes on her philosophy. Even though Luxemburg did not write a study that we can call a philosophical work in the usual academic sense, nor did she leave any "philosophical notebooks," she was more interested in philosophical and methodological questions of her time than we might expect. In dialogue with György Lukács, I will show how Luxemburg's philosophical and at the same time political struggle with the Social Democrats heralded not only the theoretical rebirth of Marxism, but also of Hegelian dialectics. Secondly, I will attempt to contribute to the rather rare feminist analyses based on Luxemburg's critique of bourgeois feminism and her critique of political economy. By combining Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation and social reproduction theory, I will try to develop a concept of "Luxemburgian feminism."

  • Ankica Čakardić holds the Chair of Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Gender at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb and is a member of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Editorial Board (Verso). She is the author of three books: The Rebellious Mind. Essays in Radical Social Philosophy (2021), Like a Clap of Thunder. Three Essays on Rosa Luxemburg (2019) and Spectres of Transition. Social History of Capitalism (2019). She is currently working on a new book entitled Yugoslav Praxis School: Red Philosophy, Feminism and Revolution.

Christian Lotz

The Current Crisis of Liberal Democracies. Can we Learn Anything from Rosa Luxemburg?

  • Democracy is in crisis! Right-wing populism and fascist attitudes are emerging everywhere, the public realm has turned into a spectacle, and capital as well as the way in which we produce and consume continues to destroy what Marx once declared to be one of the two sources of wealth: the earth. Additionally, through cybernetics and algorithms capital increasingly controls the other source of wealth, namely, us! Liberal technocratic and political elites, hand in hand with an upper class that works on their escape routes to the moon, are still the oppressors of the masses via tools that oppress all of us. Some have argued that we are living in "post-democracies" (Crouch) while others even argue that the project of liberal Western democracy is a thing of the past (Selk). The future of democracy is bleak. Rosa Luxemburg defended democratic ideas that blended social, institutional and radical aspects of the political, integrating the idea of a council democracy into her thought. Spontaneity is her central concept for understanding political action. In light of our current crisis of democracy, can we learn anything from her reflections on and demands for (socialist) democracy, or are they a thing of the past?

  • Christian Lotz is professor of philosophy at Michigan State University. His main research area is Post-Kantian European philosophy with focus on phenomenology and critical social philosophy. Books: The Art of Gerhard Richter. Hermeneutics, Images, Meaning (Bloomsbury Press, 2015); The Capitalist Schema. Time, Money, and the Culture of Abstraction (Lexington Books, 2014); From Affectivity to Subjectivity. Revisiting Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology (Palgrave, 2008); Vom Leib zum Selbst. Kritische Analysen zu Husserl und Heidegger (Alber, 2005). Selected Editions: Continental Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (co-ed. with A. Calcagno, Lexington Books 2023); Christian Lotz zu Marx, Das Maschinenfragment (Laika Verlag, 2014); Ding und Verdinglichung. Technik- und Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der kritischen Theorie (Fink Verlag, 2012). His current research interests are in classical German phenomenology, critical social-political thought, Lukács, and contemporary European political philosophy. Web: https://christianlotz.info/

Amy Allen

“Imperialism Ultimately Works for Us”: Rosa Luxemburg’s Theory of History

  • Although Rosa Luxemburg is currently enjoying a well-deserved renaissance, much of the current discussion of her work fails to contend with her commitment to a rather orthodox reading of the Marxist theory of history. This article argues that all of the features that make Luxemburg’s work so attractive to contemporary scholars—her revolutionary radicalism, her accounts of spontaneity and democracy, and her critique of imperialism—are undergirded by her commitment to that theory, along with its commitments to unilinearity, necessity, and progress. This theory provides the systematic backbone for Luxemburg’s thought. In the wake of postcolonial, Indigenous, Black, and feminist critiques of the Marxist theory of history, this feature of Luxemburg’s work considerably complicates her legacy for contemporary critical theory.

  • Amy Allen is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of five books including, most recently, Critique On the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis (Columbia University Press).

Jeta Mulaj

Violently Torn Away from the Present: Frigga Haug’s Reading of Rosa Luxemburg

  • This talk focuses on Rosa Luxemburg’s understanding of emancipation in relation to what used to be called “the woman question.” Drawing on Frigga Haug’s analysis of Luxemburg’s portrayal of women in her writings as well as her unique position in the feminist tradition, it explores Haug’s argument that progress, for Luxemburg, entails a process of being violently torn from the present. Building on this interpretation, the talk argues that Luxemburg’s concept of progress lies at the center of her understanding of women’s emancipation as the total redemption of humanity. This account of progress offers valuable insights for anti-capitalist feminist politics today.

  • Jeta Mulaj is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University. After receiving her PhD in philosophy from DePaul University in 2021, she was a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Grinnell College in 2022. Her research areas include feminist philosophy, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and psychoanalysis. She works on questions related to capitalism, emancipation, revolution, gender and sexuality, Eastern European thought, and the Balkans. She is currently working on her book manuscript, which reclaims stability as a revolutionary concept. She is also the founder and executive director of the Balkan Society for Theory and Practice, an international research society based in Kosova.