A Century of Fascism

Fascism has been described as capitalism’s permament temptation. We all know that fascism served as the iron fist of capitalism in the interbellum, but far less known is the fact that the beast was likely to survive its apparent demise at the end fo World War II, as Bertolt Brecht warned. In recent years, we have been witnessing the emergence of a born-again fascism, including its most virulent variety, Nazism. How did fascism originate, and how did it survive after 1945? What are the similarities and differences with inter-war fascism? What are the implications for left strategy and action? These are the issues to be discussed by this panel.

Gabriel Rockhill is the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique, Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, and the author or editor of nine books, as well as numerous scholarly and general public articles.

Jennifer S. Ponce de León (formerly Jennifer Flores Sternad) is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on 20th and 21st century Left movements and cultural production in the Americas and Marxist, anticolonial and postcolonial thought. She works across studies of visual arts, literature, and performance; transnational Latinx and Latin American studies; and critical theory. She is also faculty in Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALS), affiliated faculty in Gender Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS) and Cinema Studies, and a member of the Graduate Group in Comparative Literature. She was the recipient of the 2020 SAS Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor. Dr. Ponce de León is Associate Director of the Critical Theory Workshop/Atelier de Théorie Critique, which holds an intensive summer research program at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris every summer, as well as symposia at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jacques R. Pauwels has taught European history at a number of universities in Ontario, including York, Waterloo and Guelph. He is the author of The Great Class War 1914–1918, Big Business and Hitler and The Myth of the Good War, revisionist histories of the rise of fascism and the World Wars. His books are read around the world and have been published in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian, Turkish and Korean. An independent scholar, Pauwels holds PhDs in history (York) as well as political science (U of T). He lives in Brantford, Ontario.

Helmut-Harry Loewen has devoted over three decades to antifascist projects, initially as chair of the Manitoba Coalition Against Racism and Apartheid, and subsequently with the Canadian Antiracism Education and Research Society, Anti-Racist Action, and Fascist Free Treaty One. His work includes monitoring and organizing against racist groups (beginning with the KKK and Aryan Nations during the 1980s and ‘90s), public education, and serving as a media commentator. Prior to his retirement in 2015, Loewen taught at the University of Winnipeg, first as a sessional lecturer in German and Philosophy, and then as a member of the Sociology Department where his teaching included courses on criminological theory, political sociology, and racism. Loewen’s current projects include (i) an analysis of ‘extremism’ frameworks in scholarly and state security discourses, (ii) research on neo-Nazi networks and the German state security apparatus, and (iii) a study tracing ‘interventionism’ in antifascist theory and practice from Benjamin and Brecht’s “eingreifendes Denken” (interventionist thinking) to Critical Theory and Antifa.

Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies. She is the Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the convenor of the International Manifesto Group. Her books include Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2023), Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2nd rev ed, 2004) and Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the Labour Party (1994), a New Statesman and Society Book of the Month.

Moderator – Alan Freeman is the co-director, with Radhika Desai, of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group (GERG) at the University of Manitoba. He was an economist at the Greater London Authority between 2000 and 2011, where he held the brief for the Creative Industries and the Living Wage. He wrote The Benn Heresy, a biography of British politician Tony Benn, and co-edited three books on value theory. He is honorary life vice-president of the UK-based Association for Heterodox Economics and a Vice-Chair of the World Association for Political Economy.