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Call for papers

Historical Materialism Paris 2025 : Combatting the catastrophe

The last "International Marx Congress" took place in Paris in 2010. Since then, no international conference explicitly framed within Marxism has been organized in the Francophone world, where various intellectual and political currents could meet and engage in discussions over several days. The aim of the first "Historical Materialism Paris" conference, scheduled for June 26 to 28, 2025, is to bring to light and debate the most intellectually innovative and politically urgent Marxist research. This event is part of the series of conferences organized by Historical Materialism journal, first in London, and then in Ankara, Athens, Barcelona, Beirut, Berlin, Cluj, Istanbul, Melbourne, Montreal, New Delhi, New York, Rome, Sydney, Toronto, and also an online-version for South-East Asia.

In the meantime, the world hasn't fundamentally changed, but some of the main trends already in motion have intensified. The process of the de-democratization of states has radicalized, highlighting the entanglement of neoliberalism with authoritarian forms of political domination. The rise of neofascist movements and the fascization of traditional right-wing forces have accelerated on a global scale. Geopolitical tensions between major powers have hardened, with the 2022 invasion of Ukraine signalling the possibility of a broader military conflict. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 revealed new global threats to humanity and exposed the deterioration of public health systems. The genocidal war waged by the Israeli state against Gaza since October 2023, with the support of Western imperialism, has illuminated the persistence of colonialism in its most criminal forms. Finally, the deepening ecological crises—2023 being the hottest year since the pre-industrial era and 2024 expected to surpass that—contrast sharply with the inaction of bourgeois governments and are leading us toward the abyss.

However, the recent period has not only been marked by the rise of reactionary forces, militarism, and catastrophe; it has also witnessed popular uprisings, mass protest movements, and new alliances between movements that have challenged the dominant order: from the occupations of public squares in 2011 to support for Palestinian resistance, the resurgence of class conflict, the sharpening of anti-racist struggles, the revival of feminist practices, and the radicalization of ecological movements.

Intellectually, Marxism has undeniably regained an audience among the critical fringes of the intellectual field and in emancipatory movements, connecting with their most dynamic sectors, despite the absence of mass communist organizations. We have thus emerged from the long period of Marxism’s decline, a period marked by the counter-revolutionary offensive that strongly shaped the intellectual landscape in France during the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, Perry Anderson referred to Paris as the "capital of intellectual reaction in Europe," and Pierre Bourdieu described it as the era when the "latest fashion" was to be "disillusioned with everything, starting with Marxism."

We invite participants to submit panels or abstracts (maximum 300 words) in French or English by 15 February 2025, focusing on the following themes (indicating one or more themes in which their proposal fits). Proposals are to be submitted on this homepage. To contact us: paris@historicalmaterialism.org.

Axis: Marxist Theory
Post-Marxisms, which tend to reduce Marxism to a tradition from which one can arbitrarily extract a few elements while disregarding others, compel us to question Marxism’s specificities. On the one hand, Marxism constitutes a general theoretical framework for analysing human reality in all its dimensions—a project of total human science that articulates the study of all social spheres (economy, politics, culture, ideology, etc.) and even natural ones (socio-ecological metabolisms).
But how can we understand such an articulation, and doesn’t this risk reducing social reality to just one of its dimensions (reductionism, economism)? On the other hand, Marxism is a critique of the established social reality aimed at overturning it and is thus inseparable from political struggle. How can we understand the unity of theory and practice that is supposed to characterize it? Doesn’t this risk undermining its intellectual rigour? And what modifications to the theoretical framework should be accepted to keep up with historical changes (the problem of historicism)? This panel will therefore examine the specificities of Marxism in relation to other social theories, as well as the potential problems they pose.

Axis: Class
From Marx to the most contemporary research, passing through the early 20th-century theorists and the revival of debate in the 1960s and 1970s, Marxism has always placed decisive importance on the division into social classes and their antagonisms, seen as a central element in understanding the dynamics of capitalist societies. This axis proposes to cross-examine the various theoretical and political perspectives that stem from these principles:

• Questions on class structures: social segmentation, the boundaries and composition of classes in the context of current changes in the capitalist mode of production (impact of AI, tertiarization, proletarianization, precarization, rise of self-employed individuals, etc.)
• Research on class formation: socio-historical processes of the constitution and reconfiguration of classes, as well as the evolution of their forms of organization (birth of the labour movement, state of the trade union movement, renewal of repertoires of action, relations with feminist, anti-racist, ecological movements, etc.)
• Reflections on class consciousness: the issue of political representation(s) of the proletariat and the effects of capitalist transformations on modes of subjectivation (unity principles and lines of division, political structuring, practices of autonomy or collaboration, etc.).

Axis: Feminism
Since the 20th century, Marxist feminism has analysed the exploitation of women and gender minorities within the capitalist, patriarchal, and racial system. It enriches the theory of social inequalities while supporting militant practices aimed at overturning heteropatriarchy, with an anti-essentialist approach to domination and a defence of the convergence of struggles. Today, a new feminist wave is achieving global victories, but it faces a backlash: threats to the rights of women and minorities, co-optation by neoliberal feminism, and the rise of far-right anti-feminist doctrines. This axis seeks to provide a space for discussion on the following topics:

• Feminisms Against the Far Right: In the face of massive feminist opposition, the far right, in France and elsewhere, has adopted transphobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic discourses, attacked gender studies, restricted abortion rights, and fuelled homophobic and transphobic violence. This sub-axis analyses the discourse, practices, and policies of these movements to better combat them.
• Patriarchal Violence: Mobilizations like MeToo and Ni Una Menos have brought to the forefront violence against women and gender minorities, exacerbated in wartime contexts (Ukraine, Palestine, DR Congo, Sudan). This sub-axis explores theories, mobilizations, self-defence, and the interconnections of violence.
• Feminism/Queer and Ecology: While ecology is a central issue, often instrumentalized by capitalism, this sub-axis examines the impact of environmental upheavals on women and gender minorities, their roles in ecological struggles, and ecofeminist approaches.
• Militant Practices: This sub-axis reflects on the evolution of feminist militant practices, between progress (internal democracy, addressing violence) and limitations (competition for oppression, intracommunal tensions), by questioning our modes of organization.
• Marxist Feminist Epistemology: Theoretical or empirical contributions analysing relations of domination from a Marxist feminist perspective, particularly around the Theory of Social Reproduction, are welcome, as well as reflections on lesser-known authors or innovative research.
  We encourage empirical papers on historical or contemporary case studies, mobilizations, or artistic productions. Militantly oriented experience reports are equally welcome, alongside scientific proposals.

Axis: Economics
The deep economic crisis of 2008 revealed the contradictions of neoliberalism, yet a new, stable capitalist dynamic has not emerged. Rather than suffering a definitive setback, financialization has transformed, and companies are increasingly dependent on public authorities—reviving the idea of state capitalism. While inflation has returned to core countries, social, economic, and ecological difficulties have continued to worsen in the periphery. Existing inequalities have been cemented and even widened by the intellectual monopolization of an even greater share of the knowledge produced by society, from COVID vaccines to digital technologies. As if that were not enough, the era of AI in which we are currently living is also an era of war and stagnation, against a backdrop of rentier tendencies.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions that this axis will address:

• What mechanisms explain the stagnation of contemporary capitalism and the social and political tensions that arise from it?
• Are we witnessing the continuation of the neoliberal period or the emergence of a new phase of capitalism?
• How can we understand the economic contradictions linked to the ecological crisis: new accumulation strategies related to the "ecological transition," a renewal of planning, reconfiguration of the centre-periphery polarization, etc.?
• What role do states play in class struggle today?

Axis: Imperialism
Since the end of the Cold War, inter-state tensions and armed conflicts between states and non-state groups have multiplied across the globe. In parallel, the arms race has reached new records in military spending every year, with increases outpacing global GDP growth. Far from the liberal illusions of perpetual peace assured by the global market, Marxist thought stands out by highlighting the close connection between the development of capitalism and geopolitical tensions. The current situation calls for a resurgence of reasoning based on imperialist theories. This stream aims to gather theoretical reflections and concrete analyses inspired by Marxist conceptions of imperialism.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions to debate within this axis:

• How should we think about imperialism today? Which approaches should we prioritize: theories of Empire/transnational state? The concept of American super-imperialism? Or those that interpret current conflicts as a return to inter-imperialist rivalries?
• How can we understand the different types of tensions—conflicts between major powers, between regional powers, and intra-state wars—from an imperialist perspective?
• What are the drivers and transformations of French imperialism?
• How do imperialist states transform their own societies through their foreign interventions (militarism, racism, authoritarianism, femonationalism, class relations, etc.)?
• What link can be established between the theory of imperialism and anti-imperialist practices?

Axis: State
From the massive state intervention in the wake of the 2008 crisis, through pandemic management to the ongoing rearmament of all major geopolitical powers, there has been a resurgence of interest in critical  research on the state, particularly Marxist-inspired research, for both theoretical and practical reasons. In this section, we propose to explore these themes in greater depth, focusing on the following three issues:

- State, exploitation, domination: one of the questions structuring Marxist approaches to the state is its relationship with capitalist exploitation. To what extent is the state an instrument in the hands of capitalists, or does it perform capitalist functions for structural reasons? What is the specificity of capitalist states, compared with ancient and feudal states, for example? Are there any substantial differences between the way states function on a global scale today? How, in any case, can we rethink the question of its relative autonomy? Problems such as these, which can be traced back to Marx and Engels themselves, and which have given rise to famous controversies (between Miliband and Poulantzas, for example), obviously need to be examined afresh in view of the historical mutations of contemporary capitalism. What's more, these different approaches can be enriched by also taking into consideration the relationship of the state to other systems of domination, first and foremost systemic patriarchy and racism.
- State transformations: the role and interventions of the state need to be understood historically, and its transformations reinscribed within the framework of social and economic transformations. In particular, we need to analyze the establishment and development of the social state in the 20th century, as well as its undermining by neoliberalism. Does authoritarian neoliberalism correspond to a new type of state? Do contemporary economic and ecological crises call for a "return of the state", with greater investment and acertain amount of planning?
- What to do with the state? If the states (such as the Prussian state and that of Napoleon III) with which Marx and Engels were confronted appear indisputably as enemies, the establishment of the institutions and mechanisms that make up the social state, and the attacks on the latter by neoliberalism, make strategic debates more complex. How can we defend the social state against neoliberal attacks, without abandoning an anti-capitalist critique of the state? How can we promote struggles from below, without abandoning the terrain of the state, which today seems difficult to circumvent? What conclusions can be drawn from the two waves of so-called progressive governments in Latin America? In a word: what strategy should we adopt in the face of the state and within the state?

Axis: Work and Exploitation
For several years, work has once again become the centre of disputes. Without being exhaustive, these disputes focus on the "meaning of work" following the Covid-19 health crisis and the climate crisis; on the effects of new technologies (digitalization, Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence); and on the transformation of the boundaries of wage labour—returning to "archaic" forms of work (such as "piecework"), the rise of "platform capitalism"—within the context of a trend toward hybridization between precarious and stable wage labour.

Similarly, employment is at the heart of research and social mobilizations aimed at updating the concept by considering the dynamics of fragmentation and heterogeneity that characterize contemporary exploitation regimes. Most often, this involves integrating a feminist and intersectional perspective into the analysis of employment, first to account for how race and gender segment labour organizations, and secondly, to explore the subversive potential of a labour force that is increasingly feminized and racialized.

Finally, the concept of exploitation is making a comeback on the scene to analyse the relationship between work, employment, and capitalism, while expanding it to include transformations related to digital technologies or the "exploitation of the living" in the context of the climate crisis.

This axis therefore aims to gather contributions within these debates, questioning contemporary forms of work and exploitation, particularly based on concepts related to:

• The impact of new technologies on work: "platform capitalism," "digital labour," "Industry 4.0," "artificial intelligence."
• The boundaries of work and exploitation: "precarity," "multi-activity," "unpaid work," "meaning of work," "alienation."
• Intersectional and/or transnational perspectives: "gender and race articulations," "resistances," "reproductive labour."

Axis: Migrations
The observation is not new: the movement of workers across borders is both the product of global imbalances generated by imperialist domination and the development of capitalism on a global scale, and a necessity for entire sectors of capitalist economies at the local, national, or regional levels. The question of migration is thus at the heart of the economic and political tensions in capitalist societies, but it becomes all the more urgent as it fuels the rise of far-right movements, and the management of migration by capitalist states’ governments leads to thousands of deaths each year.
From the southern border of the United States to the external borders of Europe, including the recent re-establishment of border controls in Germany, imperialist governments seek to limit and control the movement of labour from regions of the world marked by war, armed conflict, or growing poverty. These policies have a dual consequence: on the one hand, they affect the composition of the immigrant working-class fractions, where irregular status is combined with various forms of exploitation; on the other, they impact the relationships between imperialist states and between these states and the Global South, leading to a deadly escalation. The migration issue is also pressing for countries in the Global South, which are not only "source" countries but also face internal migration and sometimes massive arrivals from neighbouring countries (for example, Syrians in Turkey, Afghans in Iran...).
This axis aims to bring together contributions that interrogate the role of immigration in today’s and yesterday’s capitalist societies, from the perspective of both receiving and sending countries, in the North and South, focusing on the following (non-exhaustive) themes:

• Migration, borders, and security policies;
• Migration, labour, and the formation or deformation of the working classes;
• Migration and labour needs: structuring, sectors, qualifications of migrant workers;
• Migration and politics: immigrant causes, mobilizations of immigrant workers, xenophobia, racism, and nationalism.

Axis: Race / Racialization
The analysis of racism has been significantly impacted over the past several years by major discussions: on the one hand, the call to consider the intersecting and combined forms of class, gender, and race relations, and on the other, historical and sociological debates surrounding the links between the emergence and functioning of capitalist societies and racism. The historical depth of these debates in Marxist thought is evidenced by the pioneering studies of US Marxist historians on the construction of whiteness, as well as by the analysis of racial capitalism in South Africa by Black Marxist activists and intellectuals.
The rise of analyses using the category of "race" is also linked to various forms of mobilization that have challenged trade unions and political organizations by raising the issue of considering the racial dimensions of exploitation and domination, as well as collective movements mobilized around these questions. A controversial question remains: to what extent is the category of "race" relevant for Marxist analysis of relations of domination and exploitation?
To address this question, this axis welcomes contributions on the following (non-exhaustive) themes:

• The concept of racial capitalism, its interests, and its limits;
• The relationship between racism, class formation, and the historical dynamics of capitalism;
• The relationship between racialization, labour exploitation, and all forms of domination;
• Anti-racist struggles and their potential connections to other types of social and political labour struggles;
• Racism as a policy or tool of bourgeois governments.

Axis: Political Ecology
Nothing today seems capable of halting the climate crisis and the disruptions to the biosphere. The global political context, marked by the rise of reactionary populisms, appears as another obstacle to an ecological revolution that alone could stem the productivist logic of capitalism. In this context, radical ecological movements have emerged across the globe, gradually breaking with the dogma of non-violence and past illusions about the role of bourgeois states in a hypothetical transition.
From a theoretical point of view, this radicalization has been accompanied by a strategic renewal of Marxism in political ecology. From planning to degrowth, from sabotage to new ecological theories of the proletariat, from social reproduction to subsistence, Marxist political ecology stands as one of the most dynamic fields of contemporary thought. However, it also raises internal debates on the role of technical solutions and productivism, on the centrality of class, and on the imperialist and racist dimension of the ecology of capital. This axis aims to gather concrete studies, theoretical reflections, and strategic approaches inspired by Marxist visions of political ecology, thereby helping to clarify the meaning of internal controversies and their role in a revolutionary ecological strategy.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions that could be addressed in the contributions:

1. What is the relevance of Marx's ecological critique today? What updates or departures from the theory of metabolic rupture should be considered? Does Marx's ecology point toward a critical theory of nature?
2. How can we think about the centrality of technology in the ecocidal trajectory of capitalism? Does it call for a communist technosolutionism, or does it lead us to break with all productivism and ideals of technological progress?
3. How can we think about the articulation of territorial struggles to defend the habitability of the earth and social struggles for the emancipation of workers? Is ecosocialism a sufficient answer?
4. What responses can eco-Marxism offer against neo-Malthusian arguments in political ecology, the so-called demographic threat, and the racist discourses that accompany them?
5. What type of ecological internationalism should be pursued in the face of the imperialist dimension of extractivist policies and the international racial division of labour?
6. How does agrarian Marxism help us enrich the description and analysis of capital accumulation processes on a global scale? What political perspectives emerge when agrarian issues are placed at the centre of analysis?
7. What transformations does ecofeminism impose on Marxist ecology? Can subsistence and social reproduction embody the strategic horizon of class struggle in the age of climate change?
8. How do we describe, from a Marxist perspective, environmental destruction and the struggles against it? What slogans can support these struggles?
9. What place should we give to animals and other non-human life in the description of ecological damage and in the development of an emancipatory ecology?
10. How can we reconcile a program of ecological planning with the demand for economic degrowth?

Axis: Culture and Arts
Often rendered invisible, the question of culture has nonetheless been the subject of intense debates within the Marxist tradition, notably around realism, popularity and avant-garde movements, and its relationship to ideology and the market. It draws on a multitude of works and essays that testify—whether firmly or tentatively—to the richness of this (oppressed) history of cultural and artistic practices by the oppressed or the appropriation of what was not originally meant for them in a resistant or revolutionary light. As such, one of the key questions in our present time likely concerns the form that this heritage should take: its balance, its achievements, its obsolescence, its neglected aspects, or its possible continuations. This requires discussing it, bringing it back into the vitality, plurality, and historicity of arguments and practices.
However, these debates must be conducted considering contemporary world transformations. Thus, in a non-exhaustive manner: the evolution of cultural industries and the art market, the status of the artist, the invention and dissemination of new artistic forms, mass cultural practices, technological innovations, ideological offensives and victories of domination, as well as the movements that resist them (feminism, anti-imperialism, etc.). Similarly, these debates must consider works that invent and reframe the sensitive question and, more broadly, the contradictions of art and culture in a neoliberal context: reception, expression, and socialization.
Several questions arise. They require attention to spatial and historical singularities as well as the diversity of forms, media, and disciplines. They benefit from the depth of a vast body of debates and experiences—an analysis of them and the relationship between Marxism and art and culture is already an object of study.

• What role does culture play in struggles and the absence of struggle, in the reproduction of domination, and in the battle for hegemony? What links can we analyse between art and ideology, art and the market, art and emancipation, and more broadly, between art and politics?
• Which works are made for which audiences? Which works come from which audiences? How can we analyse artistic and cultural practices, the relationship between art and culture, and vice versa, from a Marxist perspective?
• What are, or should be, the social functions (historical and contemporary) of the artist? How can we think about creation, the work, productions, and the labour of art?
• How does Marxism renew the history of the arts (notably the question of values and hierarchies, temporal discordances)? Who should write it, and how?
• What could be a contemporary non-dogmatic materialist art critique, nourished by the contradictory contributions of Marxism?
• What analytical tools should we develop for cultural productions? What Marxist conception can we develop of the current structuring of the art world, the evolution of cultural policies, forms of institutions, their contestation, and their margins?
• What place should be given to art, creation, and culture in the development of a strategic perspective?

Axis: Critical Geography
This axis aims to explore contemporary spatial dynamics in the production of capitalist space and class struggle. Situated within the framework of critical geography, historical-materialist geography, and the partition proposed by Henri Lefebvre, this axis seeks to analyse the new forms of appropriation and accumulation in current capitalism.

The production of space, the circulation of goods and labour, and ongoing urbanization processes across the world should be examined from the perspective of struggles that can interrupt or reverse these dynamics, reveal their internal contradictions, and open political subjectivation spaces. HM Paris 2025 takes place after waves of strikes and mobilizations that have made territories and productive networks, ecology, and property regimes a fundamental terrain for the development of class struggle.

For this axis, we are particularly interested in contributions, including case studies, on the following topics:

• The renewal or intensification of accumulation and appropriation forms; financialization, privatization of space, commodification of commons, large global events (especially the Olympics), etc.
• The renewal of centre-periphery relations (urban/rural relations, contemporary forms of imperialism).
• Struggles and mobilizations questioning land property regimes and real estate rent, the appropriation of resources or space.
• Forms and experiences of alternative organization and reappropriation.
• Urban practices of international solidarity, migrant reception, and active pacifism.