Central Otago-born Doug Jolly served on the front lines throughout the Spanish Civil War and in WW2, developing innovative systems for treating patients as soon as possible after they were injured. His systems were widely used by UK and US surgeons in WW2 and later wars, and their influence can be traced today in the…
The Otago Socialist Society is thrilled to be presenting this guest lecture for our October 2024 monthly event. Chris Lam is a recent graduate of the English programme at the University of Otago, having completed their master’s degree this year. Their research focuses on horror, alienation, and the weird in fiction. ———————————–Of Parasites and Plagues:…
The Canterbury Socialist Society is pleased to confirm our 2024 Fred Evans Memorial Lecture. For this lecture we invite a speaker to present on a topic related to working class politics and history in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Fred Evans was a prominent unionist during a pivotal moment in New Zealand labour history – the Waihi Miner’s…
Coming to us all the way from Chile, Pablo Abufom is the Sunday keynote speaker at the Second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference – Labour Weekend 2024. Pablo will speak to “Resisting neoliberalism in Latin America: The 2019 Chilean revolt and the struggle for constitutional reform.” Please note: the Sunday keynote is…
“Precisely the defeated man must try the outside world again” – Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope (1954). It is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism. This phrase has become something of a shibboleth for the contemporary left, a diagnosis of our present condition and a bleak indictment of our…
The Canterbury Socialist Society is thrilled to be able to host this guest lecture for our August event, 2024. Berkay Koçak is a political science doctoral researcher from Türkiye, currently based in New Zealand, specializing in political theory and Marxist political economy. Berkay completed a PhD in the Political Science and Public Policy programme at…
“The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that it has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.”― Peter Kropotkin————————————————————— Through mutual aid, we acknowledge the ways that governments have failed our…
Kia ora Neighbours – both members and supporters of the New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies. The Wellington Socialist Society is pleased to announce the second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference to be held in central Wellington (venues TBC) over Labour Weekend (26th-27th October), 2024. Registrations are open now. Please visit the…
“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” – Isaiah 2.4 “I wasn’t disturbing the peace, I was disturbing the war.” – Ammon Hennacy Sixteen years ago three Catholic Workers, Adi Leason,…
“There is today in the world a dominant discourse […] This dominating discourse often has the manic, jubilatory, and incantatory form that Freud assigned to the so-called triumphant phase of mourning work. The incantation repeats and ritualizes itself, it holds forth and holds to formulas, like any animistic magic. To the rhythm of a cadenced…