16.3.-18.3.2012, New York City, USA

Sat., march 17th, 12:00pm, Room E301

Social Movements, the State and the Question of Autonomy
This panel will address the question of the meaning of autonomy from various perspectives, all based in social movement activity. Panelists will speak from: The Occupy Wall Street movement, and it’s desire to not participate in electoral politics; Experiences of autonomous movements in Argentina, struggling to simultaneously get what they can from the state while resisting it; Struggles for local and workers self administration in Venezuela; and International Migration and the nation state, focused on US based migrant experiences.

Dario Azzellini: Dario is lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria) and holds a PhD in political science. He is an activist, writer and film maker. His latest film is Comuna under construction (2010) about local self government in Venezuela, and latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, Ours to Master and to Own. Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket, 2011).

Marina Sitrin: Marina is a participant in the Occupy Wall Street movement. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center Committee on Globalization and Social Change, and the author of the forthcoming Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina (Zed Press 2012) and the editor of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. She holds a PhD in Global Sociology and a JD in International Women’s Human Rights.

Marisa Holmes: Marisa has been organizing with Occupy Wall Street since its inception in August, 2011. She is an independent filmmaker, activist, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. For the past seven years she has been involved in the international student movement, anti-war movement, independent media projects, and intentional communities. She is currently an MFA student in Integrated Media at Hunter College, where she utilizes new media for social change.


Sat., march 17th, 03:00pm, Room E304

Venezuela's Social Movements and Chavez's Reelection
The relationship between Venezuela's social movements and the Chavez government has been a complicated one, which will be put to a new test in 2012 with the presidential election scheduled for October. This panel will discuss how the relationship between the government and the social movements has evolved and what form it will take in this crucial election year. Will Chavez dominate the movements or will the movements have a major role to play in shaping the campaign and the government's policies?
Sponsoring Journal: Venezuela Analysis and NACLA

Gregory Wilpert: Gregory Wilpert is the founder and former editor of Venezuelanalysis.com, author of the book, "Changing Venezuela by Taking Power" (Verso, 2007), is a former project coordinator of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and currently works as part-time professor in Political Science at Brooklyn College's Graduate Center for Worker Education. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Brandeis University in 1994.
Steve Ellner: Steve Ellner has taught at the Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela since 1977. He is the author of many books and articles on the labor movement and left in Venezuela and Latin America, and is a regular contributor to "In These Times" and "NACLA: Report on the Americas." His latest book is "Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict and the Chavez Phenomenon" (2008), soon to be released in Spanish.
Dario Azzellini: Dario is lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria) and holds a PhD in political science. He is an activist, writer and film maker. His latest film is Comuna under construction (2010) about local self government in Venezuela, and latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, Ours to Master and to Own. Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket, 2011).
George Ciccariello-Maher: George Ciccariello-Maher teaches political theory at Drexel University in Philadelphia and has written widely on radical movements throughout the Americas for Counterpunch. He is the author of a forthcoming people's history of revolutionary movements in Venezuela entitled "We Created Him."
Williams Camacaro: Originally from Venezuela, Williams is co-founder of the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York and is an artist, radio host, and activist in New York City.

Sat., march 17th, 05:00pm, Room W613

Worker Occupations and Worker Control
The take-over of their work places by workers has happened throughout the last 100 years during political, economic or social crisis’. In most take over’s workers have not only demonstrated that they are able to run factories, services and institutions, they also acted far beyond the need to maintain their jobs and experimented and created new ways of how to work and new relations among themselves, with other workers and with communities. During the last years we have seen again hundreds if not thousands occupations of work places, especially in Latin America, but also a few one in the North of the world. Facing a financial and systemic crisis these occupations are likely to grow in the near future as a mechanism of defense against the destructive force of capitalism. In this panel we want to have a look at the history and the actuality of workers control, discussing success and problems of workers control.
Sponsoring Journal: WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and Workerscontrol.net

Dario Azzellini: Dario is lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria) and holds a PhD in political science. He is an activist, writer and film maker. His latest film is Comuna under construction (2010) about local self government in Venezuela, and latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, Ours to Master and to Own. Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket, 2011).

Elaine Bernard:  Harvard University Law School, Executive Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School

Michael Goldfield was for many years an in-plant labor activist. He currently teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is author of numerous articles and books on labor, race, and the global economy, including The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States, The Color of Politics, and Labour, Globalization, and the State (with Debdas Banerjee). He is writing a a book on the failures of southern labor organizing in the 1930s and 1940s, and a study of public sector unions in the US.

Élise Thorburn is a graduate student and researcher in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies,University of Western Ontario specializing in Italian Marxist philosophy and technology. Her research includes assemblies in political organizing, digital technology in alternative economic projects. She is on the editorial board of the journal Upping the Anti, a member of the Edu-Factory Collective, and a founding member of the Feminist Action Committee in the Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly.

Jeremy Brecher: Labor Network for Sustainability. Jeremy Brecher’s new book Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action, just published by Paradigm Publishers, addresses how social movements make social change. Brecher is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Strike! and Global Village or Global Pillage and the winner of five regional Emmy awards for his documentary movie work. He currently works with the Labor Network for Sustainability.


Sun., march 18th, 12:00pm, Room E327

Occupy Wall Street, and Main Street, and the White House, Not Just Physically, but Socially: Design Socialism!
Even in periods when the political forces necessary to begin building socialist societies do not yet exist, the careful envisioning of socialism -- methods of coordination, principles of decision making, exact plans to raise solidarian consciousness, increase meaningful participation and overcome long-existing divisions -- is hugely important. Thinking grandly, but also rigorously, about alternatives to capitalist polarization and crisis helps the 99% do what needs doing in the present. It is time we begin comparing, critiquing and aligning our visions of what a post-capitalist society can and should be. This panel is presented in conjunction with the appearance of a Special Issue of Science & Society: "Designing Socialism: Visions, Projections, Models," Vol. 76, No. 2, April 2012.
Sponsoring Journal: Science & Society

David Laibman: David Laibman is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Editor of Science & Society. His research centers on the capitalist socioeconomy, and theoretical socialism. His most recent books are *Deep History: A Study in Social Evolution and Human Potential* (SUNY Press, 2007), and *Political Economy After Economics: Scientific Method and Radical Imagination* (Routledge, 2012).

Al Campbell: Al Campbell is Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Utah. He is a long-time activist and leader in the Union for Radical Political Economics, a coordinator of the Socialism Working Group in the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy, and has written widely on socialist theory, the Cuban economy (including editing a forthcoming book by Cuban economists on *The Economics of the Special Period*), and contemporary developments of the world capitalist system.

Renate Bridenthal: Retired from CUNY's Brooklyn College History Department, Renate Bridenthal is a member of the S&S Editorial Board. She has co-edited and contributed to several volumes: *Becoming Visible: Women in European History*; *When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany*; *The Heimat Abroad: The Boundaries of Germanness*; and *The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption and States* (forthcoming).

Dario Azzellini: Dario is lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria) and holds a PhD in political science. He is an activist, writer and film maker. His latest film is Comuna under construction (2010) about local self government in Venezuela, and latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, Ours to Master and to Own. Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket, 2011).