The Midlands Conference in Critical Thought will be held on 21st and 22nd May 2026 at the University of Warwick. The call for abstracts closes on 21st January. They need to be submitted via Word, should not exceed 500 words, and should be sent to midlandscritical@gmail.com
Below, you will find the details of the stream I'm convening at conference. The full draft roster of the 15 streams can be found here.
Hegemonies, Counter-Hegemonies, Anti-Hegemonies: The Theory and Politics of Social Control and Resistance
Phil Burton-Cartledge, University of Derby
In an age marked by climate breakdown, stagnating living standards, and capitalist resilience, what does philosophy and social theory have to say about social stasis and social change? Is the 19th century revolutionary project outlined by Marx and elaborated by the tradition that bears his name exhausted? Do the new social movements that emerged in the 1960s still retain their radical force? Has radical politics since been blunted/incorporated by a capitalism of total subsumption that recuperates resistance and repurposes critique as fuel for sign systems, as per the provocations of Jean Baudrillard? Do we live after critical theory, or at this moment of seeming triumph for billionaires, oligarchs, and the states and institutions that serve them, is their system brittle and at the risk of breakdown?
The nature of our conjuncture, of a world where the old are always dying and the new are struggling to be born requires us to constantly ask questions about power and resistance. Especially as our civilisation is menaced by existential risks, environmental challenges, and an oligarchical ruling class uninterested in social peace and human sustainability. If not this, then what?
MCCT 2026 offers an opportunity for activists and thinkers from an array of traditions and research interests to address the question of social change, what a better society might look like, what resources and tendencies are already present that point in this direction, and how we could get there.
This panel welcomes contributions from philosophy, social and political theory, sociology and political science, international relations and social policy, as well as reflections from outside of academia. Papers that engage with the configurations of social control, such as the operation of hegemony, the workings of ideology, the inertia of social momentum and the compulsion of “necessity”, the constitution of governance strategies, and work around social reproduction theory and radical care have a home in this stream. As do contributions on the political economy of class and capital in the age of AI hype, the changing character of party systems, the possibility of cultural and political breakthroughs, capitalist mutations and systemic adaptation, appropriations of radical energies, and engagements within and between different theoretical traditions that grapple with these questions.
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