KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Julia Buxton of the Central European University, School of Public Policy has authored many books and articles on contemporary Latin America and had focused, in particular, on Venezuela under Chavez and since. With a particular focus on Venezuela during the Chavez period, Buxton has gone beyond ideological rhetoric to document empirically the human impact of rapid social change and gain a deeper appreciation of the popular experience and understanding of revolution.

Allen Ding is a Professor of Political Economy and Deputy Director of the Center for Economics of Shanghai School at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. He is Secretary General of the World Association for Political Economy and Managing Editor of the World Review of Political Economy. He is President of the Shanghai Academy of New Silk Road Economic Development (SANSRED) and Secretary General of the New Silk Road Economic Forum, both of which are to research and promote the Belt and Road Initiative and its geopolitical and economic relations with relevant countries. He is also President of the Global Initiative for A Shared Future (GISF), a think tank aimed at promoting social and economic interaction and cooperation for a better future of the world. He holds a Ph.D. of Economics, was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School during 2009-2010 and has been Research Associate at Harvard Asia Center since 2010. His field of research includes contemporary capitalism and Chinese political economy, on which he has published articles in Science & Society, Monthly Review, International Critical Thought, World Review of Political Economy, and Chinese journals and newspapers Studies on Marxism, Academic Monthly, Marxism & Reality, Contemporary World and Socialism, Economic Perspectives, Economist, People’s Daily, Guangming Daily, Economic Daily, etc.

Ruslan Dzarasov of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Department of Political Economy has written extensively, in English and his native Russian, on the Russian Revolution and its legacy, political, economic and social, for contemporary Russia as well on the distinctive form of capitalism that has emerged in post-Communist Russia, including The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism. He is almost uniquely qualified to speak about the historical significance of Russian Revolution as a defining episode in the history of capitalist modernity as well as one of the most important of modern revolutions.

Peter Kulchyski is a Professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba working at the intersection of politics, law, history and culture among indigenous peoples, especially in northern Canada. He has produced a healthy body of scholarly and popular writings on these issues, insisting on the value of a materialist approach and the necessity of attention to the revolutionary possibilities brewing in bush country. His forthcoming creative non fiction, Report on an Inquiry into an Injustice, (spring 2018) uses the situation of a small group of mountain Dene to expose the hypocrisies of the contemporary capitalist state.

Kees van der Pijl is Professor Emeritus of international relations at the University of Sussex and former director of the Centre for Global Political Economy and is currently active with the Dutch Anti Fascist Resistance, having served as its president. He is perhaps best known for his work on transnational classes, modes of foreign relations and the critical intellectual history of the international relations discipline. Given the masterly interweaving of the domestic and the international and his current work on the theme of ‘permanent counter-revolution’, van der Pijl is almost uniquely qualified to speak to the national and international dynamics of revolution and counter-revolution.