SILVIA FEDERICI || a public talk || S.a.L.E. DOCKS

Violence Against Women and New Forms of Primary Accumulation

public talk by Silvia Federici followed by conversation

June 9th || 2019 || h. 18,30

S.a.L.E. DOCKS, Dorsoduro 265, Venice

Silvia Federici will discuss the social and political significance of the 16th and 17th century witch-hunts in Europe and the Americas and particularly their relation to the developing capitalist organization of life, the colonization of the American populations, and the impact of witch-hunting on the social position of women in Europe and the “New World.” The historical overview will help analyze the current role of women in the social reproduction, the resurgence of witch-hunting cases globally, and will address contemporary violence against women.

The public talk of Silvia Federici, who will also be in conversation with local feminist activists of Non Una di MenoVenice and Triveneto, is part of In the Nick of Time, a series of propositions curated by Alessandra Pomarico / Free Home University within the public program of Time, Forward! by V–A–С Zattere, Venice.

The series intends to expand the temporality of an encounter in a process of re-membering, a moving forward with awareness and togetherness, questioning our personal and collective histories, and the many tempos in which generative and transformative practices can be collectively articulated, produced, enlivened.

The perspective of political theorists, artists, activists, dancers, filmmakers will be set in an ongoing conversation with the local communities and their situated knowledge. The different propositions include a variety of perspectives, from a discursive, theoretical and historical approach to a more somatic, spiritual, emotional, and convivial one; the program wish to create a space/time for a sustained intergenerational dialogue, forms of self-learning, radical care, and politics of the everyday.

In the Nick of Time is an invitation to share time, stories, dances, places, dreams, struggles, asking again and again what it means to be human, fostering the conversation around how we prepare for a radically different present and future, exploring new possibilities of becoming.

Silvia Federici is a feminist activist, teacher and writer. In the 1970s, she was one of the founders of the International Campaign for Wages for Housework. She was also one of the founders of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and the Radical Philosophers’ Anti-Death Penalty Project. She is the author of books and essays on women’s history and feminist theory, political philosophy and education. Her published works include: Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation; Revolution at Point Zero; Witches, Witch-hunting and Women, and Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the politics of the Commons. Federici is Emerita Professor at Hofstra University.

Event is produced by V-A-C within the public program related to the exhibition Time, Forward! at Palazzo delle Zattere