By ‘Power, Capital, Chaos’, we refer to a context of ongoing global economic crisis, the neo-liberal destruction of social democracy and the ever-widening entrenchment of inequalities of wealth, power and technology within and between a global ‘North’ and global ‘South’. A contemporary political situation marked by austerity and privatisation, by security and responsibility, by racist political reaction, class-war and gender-domination.

Yet, this is also a situation marked by manifold acts of protest, struggle, occupation, riot and revolution. All of which demand the reimaging of social, political, juridical and material life. These are modes of resistance that call-out disparate and conflicting visions of the ‘public good’, ‘human dignity’ and ‘justice’. Equally these involve legal and political claims to knowledge which exist within and contend with a late-modern context of endless critique, scepticism and disagreement. As such, the contemporary theorisation of ‘power’ and ‘capital’ involves critical thought’s confrontation with a certain ‘chaos’ of reason and unreason.

Conference participants are asked to consider how we might attempt to understand, explain and respond to a chaotic contemporary political situation? You are invited to do so on the lovely campus of the University of Sussex set in the chalky South Downs of South-East England. In this respect, one context of the CLC 2014 is the city of Brighton and Hove, which carries on a long tradition of pleasure and distraction. In another, the context is the University of Sussex which holds onto both a radical intellectual tradition and a tradition of radical student protest.

We ask you to make your own interpretation of the theme ‘Power, Capital, Chaos’, and invite scholars from a range of disciplines to propose papers. Traditionally the Critical Legal Conference is a friendly and interdisciplinary conference bringing together scholars from a wide body of disciplines.

Proposals should consist of a short abstract (max. 250 words).

Extended Deadline for Paper Proposals: 25 July 2014

Plenary Speakers

• Mark Devenney (University of Brighton)
• Maria Drakpoulou (University of Kent)
• Denise Ferreira da Silva (Queen Mary)
• Mark Neocleous (Brunel University)
• Louiza Odysseos (University of Sussex)
• Nina Power (University of Roehampton)

Conference Streams

• Beyond the Law: State of Exception and the Powers of Capital
• Chaotic Property
• Commodification, Global Capitalism, and Liberal Democracy
• Critiquing Crime
• Defend, Occupy or Shut Down? Capital and Chaos in Neoliberal Higher Education
• Dispossessing the Dispossessed: Legally Sanctified Market Violence
• Equity in Crisis
• Identifying the Global South: Law, Power, Subjectivity and Liberation
• Identity Politics and Human Rights
• Ideology, Hegemony and Law: An East/West Perspective
• Law-Capital-Pacification
• Law’s Humanitarian Sentiments
• Law and Neo-Liberalism
• The Law and the Promise of a New World
• Political Struggle and Performative Rights
• Rationalities of Legal Decision-Making
• Spatial Justice and Diaspora : Law, Chaos, and Postcoloniality
• State in situ? Rethinking the Trial
• The Symbolic Force of Law and Feminism: A Decolonial Perspective
• Thinking Resistance Beyond Power, Violence and … Law?
• General Stream:  Power, Capital, Chaos

Full descriptions: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/law/newsandevents/clc/streams 

Organisation

The CLC 2014 is hosted by the Sussex Law School, and by the School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

For paper proposals and general information please contact: Kimberley Brayson or Tarik Kochi: clc2014@sussex.ac.uk

Conference Fees, including conference dinner, drinks reception, lunch and refreshments

Early-Bird Registration (by 31 July 2014): £180

Late Registration: £200

Reduced Rate (postgraduate): £100

Reduced Rate (postgraduate — Excluding Conference Dinner): £70

Further info: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/law/newsandevents/clc