John Holloway : Now is the Moment to Learn Hope.

John Holloway talking in Liverpool at the "Rediscovering the Radical" conference. John Holloway is a Professor of Sociology at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico. He has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement and on the new forms of anti-capitalist struggle. His book Change the World without taking Power (Pluto, London, 2002, new edition 2010) has been translated into eleven languages and has stirred an international debate. His recent book, Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), takes the argument further by suggesting that the only way in which we can think of revolution today is as the creation, expansion, multiplication and confluence of cracks in capitalist domination. Rediscovering the Radical was an international conference that explored how theatre can contribute to radical social and political change in the 21st Century. Hosted by Collective Encounters and the Department of Applied Theatre at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) in conjunction with Unity Theatre, Rediscovering the Radical was an inspirational and agitational weekend of international performances, papers, workshops and discussion. RtR was imagined in response to the wide-scale depoliticisation of community arts; and the absorption of participatory arts into the service of neo-liberal social inclusion agendas. Its aim was to bring together a diverse mix of passionate change-makers to learn from and share with each other. The focus for the conference was activism, artistic practice and academic thinking. The kinds of contributions included, but were not limited to, performances, workshops, performance lectures, academic papers, agitations, provocations and case studies.