Please join us for this online discussion on the theme of ‘negative ontology.’

During the Past & Present Reading Group’s progress through Kohei Saito’s volume Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, we noticed a lurking, recurring reference to ‘negative ontology’. This workshop is an exploratory session into this concept as it appears within contemporary debates around critical theories of the state, social domination, and abstraction. These larger theoretical debates form the conceptual backdrop for a deep-dive into ‘negative ontology’ through the work of Chris O’Kane. For more information, including links to the readings, see: https://www.ppesydney.net/special-workshop-on-negative-ontology/

O’Kane, C. (2021). ‘Critical Theory and the Critique of Capitalism: An Immanent Critique of Nancy Fraser’s “Systematic” “Crisis-Critique” of Capitalism as an “Institutionalized Social Order”, Science & Society, 85(2): pp. 207-235.

O’Kane, C. (2020). ‘The Critique of Real Abstraction: From the Critical Theory of Society to the Critique of Political Economy and Back Again’, In: Oliva A., Oliva Á., Novara I. (Eds.) Marx and Contemporary Critical Theory. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. London: Palgrave.

O’Kane, C. (2021). ‘Reification and the Critical Theory of Contemporary Society,’ Critical Historical Studies, 8(1): pp. 57–86.

OPTIONAL: O’Kane, C. (2018). ‘Society maintains itself despite all the catastrophes that may eventuate’, Constellations, pp. 1-15.

Join Zoom: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/86459620456