The Main Forum

Globalization and the Possibility of Oppositional Theory

• Mon, June 30, 18:30-20:30, Liberty Tower of Meiji University (Kanda-Surugadai 1-1 , Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo)

Chairperson

Satoshi Ukai (Hitotsubashi Univ., French Literature, French Thought)

Commentators

Mariko Adachi (Ochanomizu Univ., Economics)
John Holloway (Autonomous University of Puebla, Theory of the State)

Respondents

Michael Hardt (Duke Univ., Political Philosophy)
Minoru Iwasaki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Political Thought)

Dominant media discharge the discourses insisting that this world is the only possible form of reality and it is where the G8 is the most meaningful political program. However, the G8 is nothing but an informal, arbitrary gathering; it cannot provide any authentic leadership for the international society. Not to mention that it does not solve any existing problems, but it triggers global poverty and nightmares of the people. The G8 as such is about to suffocate innumerable creation and resistance of the people by way of surveillance, removal, and oppression.
Then how can we rearticulate such world, the world made up of injustice and inequality? In the main forum, Mariko Adachi, the feminist political economist seeks to elucidate the situation where the wage labor, that which once assumed the premise of both capitalism and conventional socialism, is now going through a meltdown, from the vantage point of the globalization of reproductive domain. Meanwhile, John Holloway, the author of Change the World Without Taking Power, presents a new image of revolution that begins with a “scream” directly coming out of our experiences of social injustice. In response to the two engagements, Michael Hardt, the co-author of Empire, and the two main organizers of the Forum, Satoshi Ukai, the scholar of French Literature, and Minoru Iwasaki, the political philosopher intervene to expand the arguments to the limit in order to look for the possibility of an oppositional theory that can grasp the world differently.
Our Friends! Let us share the belief that the search for an oppositional theory can create diverse practices and rich solidarity and join the debate of the Main Forum.