Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Capitalism: A Seminar Series

Mulitple speakers, Rasika Ajotikar, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

This seminar series is free and open to the public. Please register via Zoom to access the link.

This seminar series brings together activists, artists, performers and scholars from diverse disciplines who have contributed to the study of culture, art and aesthetics as it relates to the political economy. Putting into question the economic/cultural divide, this series views cultural practices as dynamic, historical processes and seeks to engage with a materialist conception of culture.

Thus, speakers will reflect on the theoretical contributions and limitations of the ‘cultural turn’ over the 20th century through discussions on issues of class, labour and inequality in contemporary neoliberal capitalism. At the same time, speakers will also deliberate on the importance of linking culture, art, and aesthetics with politics, that will inform our understanding of social justice and emancipatory projects, whilst keeping in mind the legacies of materialist approaches in different contexts.

In doing so, this seminar series examines the potentials and pitfalls of political revolts and cultural interventions mobilised today, particularly in times of growing social inequalities, exploitation, and capitalist extractivism. It will also help us evaluate the ways in which professionalisation, politics, and social movements have converged over the last few decades. Such an exploration would help us think of solidarities and common ground for struggles in a move away from liberal, essentialist frameworks, and address the contentious question of our time: the ostensible disconnect between theory and practice. Moreover, these discussions will offer analytical tools to examine performance art as labour and service subsumed under capitalism whilst at the same time linking them with philosophical enquiries of art, culture and politics.

The seminar series then seeks to facilitate a platform to engage with several crucial questions that include but are not limited to the following: How may we conceptualise and understand class and culture in contemporary neoliberal capitalism? How may we critically think about the cultural turn whilst not disregarding culture altogether? What can culture or cultural movements do to transform social relations or catalyse emancipatory struggles? What is the relationship between culture, art, and politics? What is the social place and function of art and aesthetics? What is a work of art? How does the conceptual focus on aesthetics help or hinder our understanding of art, culture, and society? What may we learn from the didactic and revolutionary artistic experiments and cultural movements of the 20th century? What would an emancipatory culture look like and can art mobilise it?

By addressing these and similar questions, particularly in the light of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, this seminar series aims to create a platform for a renewed understanding of the study of culture, politics, art, and aesthetics in contemporary times.

Registration :

This seminar series is free and open to the public. Please register via Zoom to access the link.

Schedule :

Vivek Chibber, Professor of Sociology, New York University

Rescuing Class from the Cultural Turn

25 February 2022, 5:00 PM GMT

Vaibhav Abnave, Independent researcher and Filmmaker

No Culture, but Culture: Preliminary Notes Towards a Materialist Dialectical Concept of Culture

18 March 2022, 2:30 PM GMT

Soumyabrata Choudhury, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Labour, Service, Performance: Virtuosity and Neutralisation in Neoliberalism

08 April 2022, 2:30 PM BST

Ana Hofman, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Aesthetic Solidarities in a Devastating World: The Im/possibilities of Communal Forms of Life After Socialism

15 April 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Andrew McGraw, Associate Professor of Music, University of Richmond

Music in the Richmond Virginia City Jail

29 April 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Rachel Harris, Professor of Ethnomusicology, SOAS

The Political Economy of Song and Dance in Securitised Xinjiang

13 May 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Richard Williams, Senior Lecturer in Music and South Asian Studies, SOAS

Songs and Shipyards: Music and Poetry by Bengali Migrant Workers in Colonial Rangoon

27 May 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Walter Benn Michaels, Professor of English, University of Illinois Chicago

(Anti)Capital Projects: The Political Economy of Aesthetic Ambition

10 June 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Brahma Prakash, Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Cultural Justice at the Crossroads in India

24 June 2022, 2:30 PM BST

Bashir Abu-Manneh, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, University of Kent

Raymond Williams: Culture, Capitalism, Empire

08 July 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Shital Sathe and Sachin Mali, Musicians and activists from an anti-caste collective, Navayaan Mahajalsa, India

Folk Music and Protest in Maharashtra, India

15 July 2022, 2:30 PM BST

Navtej Purewal, Professor in Political Sociology and Development Studies, SOAS

Cultural Challenges to Capitalism and Development

22 July 2022, 5:00 PM BST

Registration :

This seminar series is free and open to the public. Please register via Zoom to access the link.

Organiser: Rasika Ajotikar, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Contact email: cultureseminar@soas.ac.uk