The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Paul Blackledge

Professor Paul Blackledge is to hold his Inaugural Lecture on Wednesday 13 June 2012 at the Rose Bowl, Leeds Met University City Campus at 17:30.

If you wish to attend please RSVP to: eventstream@leedsmet.ac.uk

Professor Paul Blackledge

Professor Paul Blackledge is a political theorist working within the classical Marxist tradition. His most recent works include a monograph, Marxism and Ethics: Freedom, Desire and Revolution, and a coedited collection, Virtue and Politics. In these books he articulated a Hegelian Marxist ethic through the lens of a neo-Aristotelian critique of liberalism and capitalism. The understanding of Marxism developed in these books builds upon arguments first presented in his second monograph, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History, and in a series of related articles.

Beyond the Impasse of the Modern Moral
Point of View: Towards an Ethical Marxism

The lecture takes as its starting point Raymond Geuss’s claim that contemporary moral philosophy “has little to tell us about real politics”. According to Geuss this failure stems from the way that the Kantian colouration  of most modern normative theory informs a tendency to separate discussions of what ought to be from questions of what is. It is precisely because we live in a world in which ethics has been reduced to an emotivist caricature of itself that Marx was scathing in his criticisms of moral discourse. This has often led commentators to erroneously claim that he had no interest in ethical theory. The opposite is the case. It was because Marx understood the social basis for our emotivist culture that he was able to grasp that competing moral claims would tend towards incommensurability, and thus that moralistic politics would take the form of “impotence in action”. Unfortunately, because Marx’s critics largely naturalise the modern moral point of view they tend to interpret his rejection of the moral form as evidence either of a crude mechanical materialism or of simple incoherence. In contrast to these approaches, this lecture seeks to outline an interpretation of Marxism that is able to point beyond the impasse both of modern moral philosophy and of much of modern radical theory towards an ethically grounded criticism of, and alternative to, capitalism. Blackledge argues that, understood thus, Marxism provides indispensible resources for contemporary political theory (and practice).

Save the NHS - Public Meeting

Dr John Lister will be speaking at a meeting organised by Leeds Hospital Alert and Leeds Keep our Health Service Public on Thursday 21 June 2012 from 7pm.


The meeting will take place at Holy Trinity Church Boar Lane, Leeds, LS1 6HW.


Please come and join in the discussion on how we can save the NHS from the attacks of the privateers.


For further information e-mail: leedshospitalalert@org.uk


Please also find below a link to the petition to Save Airedale Hospital Laundry Service.  This in-house service is under threat, and the petition asks the management of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust to do everything possible to keep the laundry in-house and its 40+ staff in work. 


Please also sign the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-airedale-hospital-laundry-service


Please support this petition, sponsored by UNISON, GMB and Keighley TUC, and distribute it to friends, family and colleagues, asking them to also sign.

Eclectica - A gig and social night in support of Positive Action for Refuges and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS)

After the Leeds Against the Cuts meeting at 6PM on Thursday 14 June 2012 at Leeds TUC Centre. Please consider attending the gig and social night in support of Positive Action for Refuges and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS) below.

TUFO PAFRAS PRESENTS

ECLECTICA

A line-up of local music spanning jungle, reggae, tubas, handlebar moustaches, indie, and psychedelic blues.

THURSDAY 14 JUNE 2012, WHARF CHAMBERS, WHARF ST OFF KIRKGATE, LEEDS. 6PM-11PM. £4 IN.

WITH:

LA LA & tHE BOO YA

CONTROL THE FULLNESS   KOG MOORCROFT

VEGETARIAN CURRY AND PIES!  PRIZES! CHEAP DRINKS!

ALL MONEY TO POSITIVE ACTION FOR REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS (PAFRAS): HELPING DESITITUTE ASYLUM SEEKERS WITH FOOD AND SUPPORT IN WEST YORKSHIRE



Pos­i­tive Action for Refuges and Asy­lum Seek­ers (PAFRAS) works with asy­lum seek­ers, refugees and local com­mu­ni­ties in Leeds and the sur­round­ing area. (Regd charity 1120950)

Leeds Against the Cuts Public Meeting

The next meeting  of Leeds Against the Cuts will be at Leeds TUC Centre, 88 North Street, LS2 7PN on Thursday 14 June 2012 starting at 6pm.


Please come along to share ideas about how we can fight against the coalitions cuts in Leeds.

Public Meeting this Thursday

The next meeting of Leeds Against the Cuts is this Thursday 17th May at 6 pm @ Leeds TUC, 88 North Street, Leeds LS2 7PN.

We will be discussing Mayday, the pension strikes and what we can do next in Leeds as an anti-cuts group linked to the unions and TUC.

So please come along and let's put our heads together on how to make the ConDems' summer a hot one!