An Unconventional London Symposium on Financialization and Truth-bending
10 April 2025 at UCL’s Institute for Advanced Studies
In financialized times, the scam is normal. In this economy, driven by hype, spin, distortion and volatility, there seems to be little profit in truth. Scandals, fakes and frauds have become routine and from this peculiar world, a new cast of characters emerges: the scammer in chief, the revenge speculator, the conspiracy gamer, the crypto trickster, the real fake…
In the wake of this finance-driven fake, what’s left of politics? What does this mean for culture, meaning-making, and subjectivity? What might it mean to resist (let alone transform) such a system?
We invite expressions of interest to participate in a half-day, unconventional symposium on the broad topic of Financialization and Truth-bending, including but not limited to the rise of the fake, the fraudulent, the scam, the charlatan, the hoax, the (para)fiction, the weird, the perverse and the mythical.
We look forward to an imaginative gathering that includes not only scholars in a range of areas (literary and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, history and political economy, and much more) but also artists, activists and other interventionists.
Our key questions include:
- How does financialization bend and break reality, and what comes next?
- Is this new? Or what’s new about it?
- What is the role of financial technologies and market practices in today’s post-truth politics?
- Who suffers from these processes? Who benefits?
- What can be done? Who should do it? What role (if any) do scholars and artists play?
This event is hosted by Dr. Max Haiven and Dr. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and is supported by UCL’s Centre for Captialism Studies and RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.
We are devising a symposium format that will maximize creating space and time to meet and exchange ideas. There will be no reading of papers or presentations but, rather, curated large and small group conversations.To that end, we would be grateful if interested parties could use this form to apply to participate by supplying the following information:
- Name and affiliations
- A 250 word summary of your work or research as it relates to the topics under discussion
- Links to 2-3 of your relevant works or publications
- A 100 word biographical note
Space is limited at this symposium so that we can ensure a generative conversation. For more information, contact scams at reimaginingvalue.ca.