Number 2, August, 2000

EDITORIAL

guest editor: Cath Ellis English Studies Program University of Wollongong

Katerina Agostino and Roland Boer	Conducting research can be an isolating experience. This is especially true for scholars and intellectuals working with Marxian theory and methodologies. After all, in many people's minds, Marxism was finally and fundamentally disproved with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. But for a hearty band of us, Marxism is not only alive and well, but is fundamentally important to our work and the way that we make sense of the world. Even so, the world has changed in fundamental ways in the last decade, and it is becoming more and more clear that Marxism as it has been understood may not be the most helpful or productive way forward. It was for these reasons that we decided to call for papers to contribute to a conference entitled Rethinking Marxism in Australia. Held over two days at the University of Wollongong in November 1999, the conference brought together a group of people from a wide range of disciplines, research interests and backgrounds. The main objective of the conference was to get some sense of where Marxism in Australia is at the end of the twentieth century and, perhaps more importantly, where it is going. To this end, we invited two internationally recognised scholars to deliver keynote addresses to the conference. Kathy Gibson, who is best known for her collaborative work with Julie Graham, delivered an opening address which was followed shortly by another delivered by Stephen Cullenberg. Both of these addresses indicated the new ways in which Marxism is being used and thought about. Judging from the respondents to these addresses, the ideas put forward in the key note addresses make quite radical departures from some of the more traditional approaches to Marxism with which many people are comfortable and familiar. As might be expected, the delegates did not agree on many, and indeed, any of the contentious ideas and issues discussed over the two days. But this is one of the very real strengths of a gathering such as this. One of the very important achievements of the conference was to bring together a collection of people from many different disciplines, to share their thinking and their work. This achievement is reflected in this special edition of JoSCCI which covers a range of disciplines but retains its focus on the points of intersection that emerge in these papers. The aim of the conference, and indeed this journal, was not to present a unified and stable sense of what Marxism means in Australia. Rather it was to highlight the importance of Marxism as a valid, viable and valuable theoretical and methodological approach to analysis in a wide range of disciplines and contexts. And to remind us that we are never working in isolation, and that there is a community of people who share a desire to challenge the inadequacies of the capitalist system.
Conference Co-convenor, Mike Donaldson (left) talking with one of the conference delegates
Richard Hanson and Carole Ferrier
Kathy Gibson	Stephen Cullenberg