Interpreting the Conjuncture, 20th March 2026 

The Southern Question (Book Talk)

Dr. Jordan T. Camp (Trinity College, USA) and 

Shadows Without Bodies: Conjunctural Analysis from Karl Marx to Antonio Gramsci

Christina Heatherton (Trinity College, USA) 

Friday 20th March 2026

Time and Venue TBD 

Overview: 

To better understand the global flourishing of authoritarianism and fascism Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton will offer an interpretation of the conjuncture. Camp will discuss insights from his forthcoming book entitled, The Southern Question. There he “translates” Antonio Gramsci’s conjunctural analysis through a dialogue with thinkers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis, C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, Ruth First, and Stuart Hall. “In Shadows Without Bodies,” Heatherton situates Gramsci’s conjunctural analysis as a dialogue with Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and Friedrich Engels’s writing on Boulangism – or as it is more popularly understood in critical geography, revanchism. She considers conjunctural analysis as a method of political intervention against stridency and despair.

Bios

Since the 2008 economic crisis, Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton have worked with social movements to develop theoretically driven interventions in the present. Their collaborations like Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter (Verso, 2016) have addressed the conjoined crises of racism, capitalism, militarism, and policing. Their podcast and webseries series Conjuncture which they have co-hosted and co-produced since 2021, is inspired by the conjunctural analysis of Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall. Together, with Stefan Kipfer, and Ayyaz Mallick, they are co-editing a special issue of the journal Antipode on “New Directions in Gramscian Studies.” They are also co-editing a volume entitled, Conjuncture. They are founding co-directors of the Trinity Social Justice Institute at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Jordan T. Camp is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Trinity College. He is the author of Incarcerating the Crisis: Freedom Struggles and the Rise of the Neoliberal State (University of California Press, 2016); and co-editor (with Laura Pulido) of the late Clyde Woods’ book, Development Drowned and Reborn: The Blues and Bourbon Restorations in Post-Katrina New Orleans (University of Georgia Press, 2017). His newest book The Southern Question is forthcoming on the American Crossroads series of the University of California Press.

Christina Heatherton is the author of Arise! Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution (University of California Press, 2022), the Spanish translation of which will be published by La Cigarra Press (Mexico City, Mexico) in 2026. She is completing a new project about surveillance, capitalism, and abolition entitled, “Shadows Without Bodies.” She is currently the inaugural Everett and Joanne Elting Associate Professor for Human Rights and Global Citizenship and Associate Professor of American Studies and Human Rights at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

As part of "Critical Theory, Critical Practice" Seminar Series of the Power, Space, and Cultural Change (PSCC) Research Cluster