I. AESA’s purpose is to stimulate interest in and debate over the explanatory power and social consequences of non-essentialist Marxian economic, cultural, political, and social analyses in order both to interpret and to change world.
II. AESA recognizes that Marxism is a formation shaped by historical and contemporary processes that include political, social, economic, cultural, natural and intellectual dimensions. AESA seeks to articulate Marxism as a condensation of these processes into a concept of class and presents this articulation in an open-ended way. AESA emphasizes both the concept of class and the conditions of its possibility. This emphasis emerges from a non-essentialist, overdeterminist Marxism influenced especially by the work of Althusser. AESA’s particular articulation of Marxian class analysis began in the Economics department of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and from that basis it has proliferated. This work now encompasses varied research traditions, such as those that examine the relation of class to subjectivity, gender and its intersections with other axes of power and difference, community economies, psychoanalysis, private lives, ecology, and more.
III. AESA encourages contributions from people in many disciplines and from a wide range of intellectual, political/activist, and artistic perspectives, including both academic and non-academic projects. Notably, AESA remains committed to producing the journal Rethinking Marxism: a journal of economics, culture, and society and undertaking additional public activities such as conferences, both national and international, that expand the work of the organization.
Ongoing Activities
Rethinking Marxism: a journal of economics, culture and society
Since 1988, AESA has sponsored the publication of Rethinking Marxism (RM). RM is a quarterly journal, and each issue contains full-length scholarly articles, art (including photoessays and fiction), Remarx essays (short, current pieces that intervene in political and theoretical debates), reviews (of books, films, conferences, exhibits, demonstrations, and more), and correspondence. Plus special issues, minisymposia, interviews, and a new series entitled "Globalization Under Interrogation."
International Conferences
Approximately every 4 years, AESA sponsor an international conference at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Plenary speakers have included David Harvey, Mike Davis, Gayatri C. Spivak, Angela Davis, Sheila Rowbotham, Ernest Mandel, Judith Butler, Cornel West, and Etienne Balibar. The latest conference was "Surplus, Solidarity, Sufficiency," in September 2013. Pevious conferences are available here.
Occasional mini-conferences.
Since 1982, AESA has sponsored smaller-sized conferences. Speakers have included Fredric Jameson, Martha Rosler, Arturo Escobar, Michael Eric Dyson, Cindy Patton, and Anwar Shaikh. A list of previous conferences is available here.
AESA Board of Directors
Zoe Sherman, president
Drucilla Barker, treasurer
Serap Kayatekin, clerk
Enid Arvidson
Asatar Bair
Rayne Carroll
George DeMartino
Books by AESA members:
- Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy (Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff).
- The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy (J. K. Gibson-Graham).
- Global Economy, Global Justice: Theoretical Objections and Policy Alternatives to Neoliberalism (George DeMartino).
- Class and Its Others (J. K. Gibson-Graham, Stephen Resnick, and Richard Wolff).
- Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical (Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff).
- Postmodern Materialism and the Future of Marxist Theory: Essays in the Althusserian Tradition (Antonio Callari and David F. Ruccio).
- Marxism in the Postmodern Age: Confronting the New World Order (Antonio Callari, Stephen Cullenberg, and Carole Biewener).
- Re/presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Political Economy (J. K. Gibson-Graham, Stephen Resnick, and Richard Wolff).
Donations to AESA:
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