Tag Archives: Mark Fisher

Common Ground: Democracy & Collectivity in an Age of Individualism

We live in an epoch of personal choice, hyper-mobility, celebrity-worship and fiercely competitive labour markets. But this is also the age of networked communication, of global culture, of Occupy and the new politics of ‘the Commons’.

What are the connections and tensions between such apparently diverse tendencies, and do they help democracy to develop, or render it impossible?

This public seminar, marking the launch of Jeremy Gilbert’s book Common Ground (Pluto Press),  will discuss the relationship between collectivity, individuality, affect and agency today, asking whether personal freedom is the great achievement of our era — or if individualism is actually forced on us by capitalist culture, fatally limiting our capacity to solve the problems that we can only solve together.What forms of politics, culture and philosophy might take us beyond the limits of traditional conservatism or banal individualism?

At: Brilliant Corners, 470 Kingsland Road, Dalston, London, E8 4AE

Speakers: Anthony Barnett, Lisa Blackman, Mark Fisher, Jeremy Gilbert
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Hauntology with Mark Fisher

Ghosts of My LifeCCSR welcomes Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? author Mark Fisher to launch his new book Ghosts of My Life, in conversation with the London-based artist and writer Laura Oldfield Ford. Are we, as Fisher argues, haunted by futures that failed to happen?

“Ghosts Of My Life confirms that Mark Fisher is our most penetrating explorer of the connections between pop culture, politics, and personal life under the affective regime of digital capitalism. The most admirable qualities of Fisher’s work are its lucidity, reflecting the urgency of his commitment to communicating ideas; his high expectations of popular art’s power to challenge, enlighten, and heal; and his adamant refusal to settle for less.” Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania and Rip It Up and Start Again.

Venue: Room US.G.17, University of East London, University Square Stratford, 1 Salway Road, E15. 1NF