CRMEP Graduate Conference 2026: 'Reading Capital' Sixty Years On

Over 60 years after the publication of Louis Althusser and Étienne Baliber, eds, Reading Capital, this conference seeks to revisit its intellectual legacy, investigating its contemporary relevance and the polemics around it that have emerged since its publication.

Programme

10.00–11.15 Opening Keynote

Svenja Bromberg (Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London)

‘What becomes of ‘critique’ after the epistemological break and the late Marx’s entrance to science? — Marx’s method after and beyond Reading Capital’

11.15–11.30 Break

11.30–13.00 Panel 1: Reading Capital

Cooper Francis (CRMEP Alumnus)

‘The Structure of Exchange Society’

Nicole S. Monaghan (CRMEP MA)

‘On the Concept of the Proletariat’

Billie Cashmore (CRMEP PhD)

‘The Appearance of Value in Capital’

13.00–14.00 Lunch Break

14:00–15:30 Panel 2: Reading Reading Capital

Felicia Jing (New School for Social Research/Johns Hopkins University)

‘Science: from Munich to May’

Raphael Kalid (Concordia University)

‘Althusser’s Critique(s) of Hegel and the Turn to Spinoza’

Michael Giesbrecht (Duquesne University)

‘The Work of Concepts: Pierre Macherey on Marx’s “Process of Exposition” in Capital and Materialist Epistemology’

15.30 Break

15.45–17.15 Panel 3: Readings of Capital

Thomas Waller & Sean O’Brien (UC Dublin & University of Bristol)

‘Marx to the Letter’

Anna Beria (CRMEP)

‘Reading Capital and Reading Reading Capital Through the Concept of Life’

Daniel Fraser (UC Cork)

‘Useful Angels: Marxist Modernity in Bolívar Echeverría and Walter Benjamin’

17.15 Break

17.30 Closing Keynote

Peter Hallward (CRMEP)

‘Must the Working Class Die so the Proletariat Can Live?’

18.45 End