7th International Marxist – Feminist Conference
19 – 21 November, Athens
Feminisms beyond everything existing: Transgressing conceptual, political, and social boundaries
Call for Papers
The International Marxist-Feminist Conference is an initiative that has now been running for more than a decade. The first conference was held in Berlin in 2015, emerging from an attempt to frame the concept of Marxist feminism as articulated by Frigga Haug in the Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism. Since then, five further conferences have taken place: in Vienna, Lund, the Basque Country (held largely online due to the pandemic), Warsaw and Porto. The 7th International Marxist-Feminist Conference will take place in Athens in November 2027, in a European and political climate very different from that in which the initiative was first conceived.
Both Europe and much of the world are now on a trajectory towards rapid political authoritarianisation and the greatest redistribution of wealth towards the richest elites in approximately a century. According to economist Gabriel Zucman, the wealth of the richest 0.00001% in the United States now exceeds that of the previous historical peak, which occurred during the Gilded Age.
These two trends are also driving the militarisation of European economies and societies, in a context in which Russia’s war in Ukraine is still ongoing, while Israel’s genocide in Palestine has brought new levels of horror to geopolitical conflicts and imperialist rivalries. At a historical moment that humanity as a whole should be responding radically and immediately to the greatest threat of all –the prospect of climate collapse– the economic and political elites of the capitalist world are instead choosing to deepen the exploitation of both people and nature and to invest in the most environmentally destructive form of economic activity: war.
In pursuing this course, they are also mobilising the technological leaps of recent decades, most significantly the development of artificial intelligence technologies. These are profoundly and violently transforming the productive forces, the natural resources of our finite planet, and the anthropological question of what constitutes the human being itself.
This reality finds Marxism feminism at a moment of reflection and of searching for new ways out of this situation, while opening up new horizons towards social emancipation and liberation. Given, moreover, that militant feminism currently finds itself in a stronger historical position than the political Left, the challenge is to devise a radically transformative and unified political strategy capable of confronting the totality of exploitative conditions, rather than becoming trapped in struggles fragmented from one another which, instead of bringing political subjects together, drive them apart.
This conference represents an important opportunity and a crucial space for an honest process of theoretical, political and social inquiry, both through confrontation and through synthesis, among the multiple expressions of Marxism feminism. The conditions of late modernity have brought to the fore numerous arenas in which once-emancipatory political projects have been appropriated by neoliberal, conservative and even far-right narratives. Feminism has never been a singular political project; however, it has now also become an object of contestation by some of the most reactionary political elites and ideologies. At the same time, within both plural feminisms and plural Marxisms, there are interpretations and normative propositions that are in tension, and at times in direct conflict, with one another. We do not want to sweep these differences under the carpet, nor do we want to downplay the issues over which we disagree and struggle. We want to confront them head-on. It is in this spirit that we conceive of feminisms beyond everything existing: a call to transgress the conceptual, political, and social boundaries that still constrain our thinking and our struggles, and to imagine and build what has not yet been tried.
The 7th International Marxist-Feminist Conference is an opportunity to formulate a political agenda capable of challenging, rather than submitting to, the agenda of contemporary authoritarian capitalism. The following thematic axes and categories provide a framework for pursuing this project:
Α) Beyond the Nation-State and Borders: Countering Colonialism, Imperialism and Nationalisms
● Race, racial capitalism and feminist internationalism
● Marxist-feminist critique to nation-state
● Marxist-feminist perspectives to international law and human rights
● Feminist resistance to imperialism, militarism and genocide
● Colonialism, settler colonialism and anti-colonial feminist struggles
● Gender, nationalism and the political economy of reproduction
● Borders, bordering and citizenship
Β) Critical Intersectionality
● Critiques of production and social reproduction and the future of labour
● Perspectives on digital technologies
● Feminist methodologies and materialist epistemologies
● Intersectionality and anti-capitalist feminist praxis
● Class, race, gender and disability
● Sexuality, desire, and pleasure
C) Beyond Carceral Feminism; Perspectives on Transformative Justice
● Carceral feminism, criminalisation and the state
● Policing, prisons and punitive governance
● Redefining the concepts of security and safety
● Community care, mutual aid and non-state responses to harm
● Justice and abolitionist praxis
D) Multiple Forms of Intimacy, Relationality, Cohabitation, and Parenthood
● Intimacy, care and the political economy of everyday life
● Plural and non-normative forms of kinship
● Beyond the nuclear family – Alternative forms of collective living
● Reproductive technologies and feminist futures
E) Co-opted Feminisms
● Governance feminism, institutionalisation and NGOisation
● Femonationalism, homonationalism
● Biological essentialism and anti-gender politics
● Carceral Feminism
● Neoliberal Feminism
● Marxism, feminism, and contemporary political antagonisms
F) Ecological and Ecofeminist Horizons
● Ecological transformation beyond green capitalism
● Degrowth and eco-socialist futures
● Land and territorial struggles
● Geographies of resistance
● Human and non-human relations
G) Feminist Utopias: Anti-Racist and Anti-Capitalist Imaginaries
● Transnational feminist solidarities
● Epistemic injustice and counter-hegemonic knowledge production
● Radical democracy and collective action
● Art as political imagination
● Critical and engaged pedagogies
● Open knowledge and digital commons
We invite scholars, activists, and artists to submit their proposals for papers, panels, workshops, author-meets-critique panels, book presentations, or artistic performances and exhibitions.
Our aim is to bring together scholars, artists, and activists whose work engages with Marxist-feminist approaches across a range of disciplines and fields. The conference seeks to open a space for dialogue and exchange where participants will share perspectives and experiences and explore the possibilities of Marxist-feminist thought and practice beyond what is already there.
We invite you to contribute to the programme of the seventh edition, which will take place from 19 to 21 November 2027 at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece.
Submission of contributions:
Please submit an abstract of your proposed contribution for the upcoming conference. Include the title, author(s), and a brief bio/affiliation as a doc file (up to 500 words), audio file, or video file (preferably no longer than 5 minutes). Contributions may consist of individual papers, panel proposals, as well as literary and artistic responses, and may be submitted on behalf of individuals or collectives.
This conference aims to embrace a wide range of methodologies and formats for participation, reflecting the diversity and complexity of Marxist-feminist analyses and responses.
Please indicate the relevant axis and categories to which your proposed work aligns.
Proposals shall be written in English and/or Greek and be sent to apps@marxfemconference.com by 11 January 2027.
Participation in the International Marxist Feminist Conference is free of charge. Limited financial support for travel and accommodation may be available in exceptional cases, particularly for participants from working-class backgrounds, racialised and ethnic minority communities, countries affected by war, armed conflict, occupation or climate-related disasters, and people with significant disabilities.
Founded in 2015, the Marxist-Feminist Conference is held biennially. In 2027, it is organised and funded by Transform! europe and the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme “Gender, Society, Politics” of Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and with the support of the Iratzar Foundation.
The conference is part of the centenary celebrations of Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences.
Scientific Committee
Heidi Ambrosch, Board Member of Transform! Europe & Co-Founder of Marx-Fem Conference
Athena Athanasiou, Professor of Gender Theory, Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences
Eirini Avramopoulou, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences
Elena Beloki, Head of the International Department of Iratzar Foundation
Ankica Čakardić, Professor of Social Philosophy, University of Zagreb
Angelina Giannopoulou, PhD Candidate in Political Science, Istituto Universitario Sophia
Nelli Kambouri, Αssistant Professor of Political Science, Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences
Athena Michalakea, Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University
Gabriele Michalitsch, Lecturer in Political Science and Economy, University of Vienna
Nora Räthzel, Professor of Sociology, University of Umeå
Eleni Rethymniotaki, Associate Professor of Sociology of Law, University of Athens
Maria Tzanakopoulou, Senior Lecturer in Law, Birkbeck College University of London
Dimitra Vassiliadou, Associate Professor of Social History, University of the Aegean