Montreal Anarchist Theatre Festival Call for Submissions

Montreal's newly created 'Anarchist Theatre Festival' is now seeking submissions of
anarchist theatre pieces to be staged May 8 & 9, 2006. This will be North America's
first ever festival of anarchist theatre.The festival is part of Montreal's annual 'Festival of Anarchy' that leads up to the city's
7th annual 'Anarchist Bookfair,' May 20 & 21st, the largest anarchist event in North America.
We are looking for theatre pieces about anarchists, anarchist ideas, history, or any subject
related to anarchism. We will consider plays or monologues that are original new work, or
that have already been performed, or that have been written by anarchists (historical or
contemporary). The pieces can be either full productions or staged readings in either French or
English.

We are looking for work that is anti-State, anti-capitalist, non-sexist,
non-homophobic, anti-Empire, anti-authoritarian, etc. We want anarchist content written by either
anarchist playwrights or writers who are sympathetic to anarchism. ( Please see the 'Principles'
section of the web site of the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair for a more detailed description of
appropriate guidelines for 'anarchist' content.

The Commons Conference

An Academic-Community Event on Privatization and the Public Domain

April 28--30, 2006

University of Victoria, BC

A committee of students, researchers, and community members are organizing an interdisciplinary conference on contemporary definitions of "the commons" to be held at UVic the weekend of April 28-30th, 2006.

The concept of the commons derives from the system of collective ownership of pastureland in England, which thrived until a series of enclosure acts divided them in the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Enclosure acts transformed society -displacing labourers, forcing peasants into the market society, providing a new economic base for trade, and ecologically disrupting a diverse arrangement of cultivation, grazing, and wild lands.

The idea of the commons was revived in the 1960s and 70s by the burgeoning environmental movement. It usefully provided a way to express awareness that nature does not respect property lines. New forms of political and economic organization were needed to address the perils of environmental destruction and social alienation. In recent years, advocates of a digital or electronic commons have taken up the term "commons," as well. For example, databases offering open access to medical or scholarly research at public institutions belong "in common" ownership to citizens. However, intellectual property erects new fences around these collective agreements.

In the paths and circuits between these commons - in physical and digital space - lie important, under-theorized ideas about the meaning of the public, collectivity, and communal life that could provide powerful antidotes to the steady encroachments of the private sector into the public domain. This conference seeks to explore these spaces.

Our keynote speaker will be Dr. George Caffentzis, Chair of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine and outspoken activist on issues of imperialism and war. Caffentzis' critical work exposes the co-optation of "commons" language and activism by those angling to replace neo-liberalism with yet another hegemonic ideology. Caffentzis submits that the critical position to taking up the commons would be that which calls into question the global circulations of capital and power. Caffentzis will be speaking on the evening of Friday, April 28th in an open event that is free to the public.