Presented By: Program in International and Comparative Studies
PICS Event | Power, Profit, and Production in the 21st Century: Theorizing with Søren Mau’s Mute Compulsion
Dr. Søren Mau, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, Aarhus University
Attend live or via Zoom. Zoom registration is required at: http://myumi.ch/j73q4
This event focuses on Soren Mau’s new book Mute Compulsion, which argues that capitalism survives crises because of the historically unique form of abstract and impersonal power that is set in motion by the subjection of social life to the profit motive. Unlike the forces of violence or ideology that directly acts upon individuals, Mau argues that economic power as a unique form of capitalist domination shapes the material and social environment in such a way as to indirectly compel people to produce and reproduce capitalist social relations. In the course of his argument, Mau intervenes in debates covering several topics including: value form theory, logistics and supply chains, agricultural production, ecology and the metabolic rift, biopolitics, crisis theory, technology and humanism, theories of the body, biopolitics, social reproduction and surplus populations, and theories of the empirics of power.
This event will bring together scholars from various disciplines including History, Philosophy, Political Science, Cultural Studies, and International Studies, to engage in Mau’s interdisciplinary arguments that revolve around his central thesis of mute compulsion. The aim is to stimulate fresh insights across disciplines concerning the economic logic and domination specific to capitalism. Therefore this event has the potential to attract interest across disciplinary lines and to encourage collaboration at the University of Michigan. To this end, we also hope to publish an edited collection of interdisciplinary essays on Mute Compulsion in collaboration with the event’s participants and other U-M scholars in different fields of research. This event will consequently be of interest to various departments within the University of Michigan community given its interdisciplinary focus and timeliness.
Given that the main topic in Mute Compulsion is global capitalism, this event also entails an international perspective that will speak to the University’s diverse faculty, staff, and student body. This event has panelists from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Mexico whose collective scholarship and research focuses on different global issues ranging from colonialism, nationalism, war, ecology, cosmopolitan socialism, and the planetary commons. This event’s international perspective aims to synthesize knowledge about global issues that cross regions to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the world. Moreover, as the inaugural event of International Studies’ new annual workshop series, this event will help further the program’s commitment to developing interventions into complex international issues. This international perspective will encourage further collaboration between different national scholars and we hope to use this event to solicit additional perspectives and topics from the Global North and Global South for the proposed edited collection of essays on Mute Compulsion.
This event will also be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students interested in enriching their pedagogical experience at the university. Students will have the opportunity to dialogue with junior and senior academics about their expertise in order to build knowledge in their own respective fields. They will also benefit by learning from the impressive and cutting edge scholarship of an upcoming major theorist writing in the critical tradition. We hope that students will be inspired by the new ideas generated during this event to further their own interests and scholarship during their study at the University of Michigan.
Event Program
The event involves two panels of three discussants each followed by a keynote talk by Soren Mau. Each panel will be an hour long (15 minutes per discussant followed by a 15 minute Q&A). There will be one 15 min break between panels. The keynote will be approximately 30-45 minutes with 15-20 minutes for Q&A.
Panel 1 (1:00pm-2:00pm)
Dr. Matt McManus, Lecturer in Political Science, U-M
Lacey Slizeski, PhD candidate in Political Science, U-M
Break (2:00pm-2:30pm)
Panel 2 (2:30pm-3:30pm)
Marion Trejo, PhD candidate in Political Science, York University
Dr. Dave Zeglen, Lecturer in International Studies, U-M
Jasmine Chorley-Schulz, PhD candidate in Political Theory, University of Toronto
Keynote (3:30pm-4:30pm)
Dr. Soren Mau, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, Aarhus University
Panelist Biographies
Søren Mau is a philosopher who specialises in Marxist theory. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he is working on the research project ‘A Philosophical Anthropology for the Capitalocene’. Earlier this year, he published the book Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital.
Jasmine Chorley-Schulz is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation theorizes the contradictory location of soldiers in capitalist society, drawn from the subaltern and working classes and employed for the state’s reproduction of international capitalist social relations. She has been a member of the Legal Form editorial collective since 2019 and is a proud member of CUPE Local 3902.
Matt McManus is a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan and the author of The Political Right and Equality and the forthcoming The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Routledge) amongst other books.
David Zeglen is a Lecturer in International Studies at the University of Michigan. His most recent article, “Temporal Ideologies in Uneven and Combined Development”, was published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. He is currently working on a book about science fiction utopias, colonial trauma, and the ecological crisis. He also has a forthcoming essay on globalization and nostalgia in synthwave coming out next year in an anthology on 1990s nostalgia from Bloomsbury. He is a proud member and union steward of LEO-AFT Local 6244.
Marion Trejo is a PhD student in Political Science at York University and a co-author of Myth and Mayhem and the forthcoming Flowers for Marx amongst other writings.
Lacey Slizeski is a PhD candidate in Political Theory at the University of Michigan. Her research interest include the Politics of Care, Social Anarchism, Socialist and Marxist Feminism, and 20th Century Civil Rights Movements. She is currently working on a dissertation that develops the question of how organizations use mutual aid activities in service of political goals.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at is-michigan@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
This event focuses on Soren Mau’s new book Mute Compulsion, which argues that capitalism survives crises because of the historically unique form of abstract and impersonal power that is set in motion by the subjection of social life to the profit motive. Unlike the forces of violence or ideology that directly acts upon individuals, Mau argues that economic power as a unique form of capitalist domination shapes the material and social environment in such a way as to indirectly compel people to produce and reproduce capitalist social relations. In the course of his argument, Mau intervenes in debates covering several topics including: value form theory, logistics and supply chains, agricultural production, ecology and the metabolic rift, biopolitics, crisis theory, technology and humanism, theories of the body, biopolitics, social reproduction and surplus populations, and theories of the empirics of power.
This event will bring together scholars from various disciplines including History, Philosophy, Political Science, Cultural Studies, and International Studies, to engage in Mau’s interdisciplinary arguments that revolve around his central thesis of mute compulsion. The aim is to stimulate fresh insights across disciplines concerning the economic logic and domination specific to capitalism. Therefore this event has the potential to attract interest across disciplinary lines and to encourage collaboration at the University of Michigan. To this end, we also hope to publish an edited collection of interdisciplinary essays on Mute Compulsion in collaboration with the event’s participants and other U-M scholars in different fields of research. This event will consequently be of interest to various departments within the University of Michigan community given its interdisciplinary focus and timeliness.
Given that the main topic in Mute Compulsion is global capitalism, this event also entails an international perspective that will speak to the University’s diverse faculty, staff, and student body. This event has panelists from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Mexico whose collective scholarship and research focuses on different global issues ranging from colonialism, nationalism, war, ecology, cosmopolitan socialism, and the planetary commons. This event’s international perspective aims to synthesize knowledge about global issues that cross regions to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the world. Moreover, as the inaugural event of International Studies’ new annual workshop series, this event will help further the program’s commitment to developing interventions into complex international issues. This international perspective will encourage further collaboration between different national scholars and we hope to use this event to solicit additional perspectives and topics from the Global North and Global South for the proposed edited collection of essays on Mute Compulsion.
This event will also be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students interested in enriching their pedagogical experience at the university. Students will have the opportunity to dialogue with junior and senior academics about their expertise in order to build knowledge in their own respective fields. They will also benefit by learning from the impressive and cutting edge scholarship of an upcoming major theorist writing in the critical tradition. We hope that students will be inspired by the new ideas generated during this event to further their own interests and scholarship during their study at the University of Michigan.
Event Program
The event involves two panels of three discussants each followed by a keynote talk by Soren Mau. Each panel will be an hour long (15 minutes per discussant followed by a 15 minute Q&A). There will be one 15 min break between panels. The keynote will be approximately 30-45 minutes with 15-20 minutes for Q&A.
Panel 1 (1:00pm-2:00pm)
Dr. Matt McManus, Lecturer in Political Science, U-M
Lacey Slizeski, PhD candidate in Political Science, U-M
Break (2:00pm-2:30pm)
Panel 2 (2:30pm-3:30pm)
Marion Trejo, PhD candidate in Political Science, York University
Dr. Dave Zeglen, Lecturer in International Studies, U-M
Jasmine Chorley-Schulz, PhD candidate in Political Theory, University of Toronto
Keynote (3:30pm-4:30pm)
Dr. Soren Mau, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, Aarhus University
Panelist Biographies
Søren Mau is a philosopher who specialises in Marxist theory. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas at Aarhus University, Denmark, where he is working on the research project ‘A Philosophical Anthropology for the Capitalocene’. Earlier this year, he published the book Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital.
Jasmine Chorley-Schulz is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation theorizes the contradictory location of soldiers in capitalist society, drawn from the subaltern and working classes and employed for the state’s reproduction of international capitalist social relations. She has been a member of the Legal Form editorial collective since 2019 and is a proud member of CUPE Local 3902.
Matt McManus is a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan and the author of The Political Right and Equality and the forthcoming The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Routledge) amongst other books.
David Zeglen is a Lecturer in International Studies at the University of Michigan. His most recent article, “Temporal Ideologies in Uneven and Combined Development”, was published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. He is currently working on a book about science fiction utopias, colonial trauma, and the ecological crisis. He also has a forthcoming essay on globalization and nostalgia in synthwave coming out next year in an anthology on 1990s nostalgia from Bloomsbury. He is a proud member and union steward of LEO-AFT Local 6244.
Marion Trejo is a PhD student in Political Science at York University and a co-author of Myth and Mayhem and the forthcoming Flowers for Marx amongst other writings.
Lacey Slizeski is a PhD candidate in Political Theory at the University of Michigan. Her research interest include the Politics of Care, Social Anarchism, Socialist and Marxist Feminism, and 20th Century Civil Rights Movements. She is currently working on a dissertation that develops the question of how organizations use mutual aid activities in service of political goals.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at is-michigan@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
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