Reassessing E. P. Thompson's Political Thought: The Case for Radical Republicanism
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
Reassessing E. P. Thompson’s Political Thought: The Case for Radical Republicanism
Julio Martínez-Cava (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Discussant: Bruno Leipold (London School of Economics)
Friday 6th June, 3.00pm, followed by a wine reception
Book here (EPThompson.eventbrite.co.uk)
E. P. Thompson is mostly known as one of the most prominent historians of the second half of the 20th century. But his work is inseparable from his activism, which ranged from his involvement in the Communist Party of Great Britain (1942–1956), the First New Left and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1956–1963), his engagement with various leftist causes in the 1960s and 1970s, and his role as chief spokesman of European Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s.
Thompson’s pacifist writings against imperialism, republican-casted critiques of authoritarianism and defence of democratic rights, and his studies on the commons and class formation processes, all contributed to a broader socialism-from-below that resonate strongly in our threatening times.
The global crisis of 2008 reignited interest in E. P. Thompson studies around the world. In the heat of this resurgence, this talk aims to shed new light on Thompson's political thought by showing how he continuously and systematically grappled with the central concepts of a tradition often overlooked or dismissed in most of the existing scholarship —namely, radical republicanism.
Speaker Dr Julio Martínez-Cava Aguilar is a lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is author of introductory studies for the Spanish re-editions of E.P. Thompson’s Customs in Common (2019) and The Poverty of Theory (2024). His research interests include radical republican thought, British postwar socialism, alternative property regimes, and contemporary historiography.
Discussant Dr Bruno Leipold (London School of Economics) works on the thought of Karl Marx, the republican political tradition, democratic theory and nineteenth-century political thought. He is the author of Citizen Marx (Princeton University Press, 2024) and the co-editor of Radical Republicanism (Oxford University Press, 2020).
For information contact Katy (k.pettit@bbk.ac.uk)
Facilitated by the Raphael Samuel History Centre
Contact name:
Katy Pettit