Upcoming talk at CSULB

This March 23rd I will be giving a few talks on the Caribbean's shifting political economy.  More specifically I will look at the restructuring of the cruise ship, remittance, mining, and export processing industries and how social groups have been caught up in the changes taking place. The talks will be hosted by the International Studies Program at California State University of Long Beach. 

UCSB Department of Sociology Ranked Number One

A new study by College Factual has ranked the department that I teach in as the #1 Sociology program in the country. For more information see here.

New Op-Ed in teleSUR: Jamaica & the Politics of Debt Trap

I have published here in teleSUR a new piece titled "Jamaica and the Politics of Debt Trap" that I wrote while conducting research in Kingston, Jamaica. A Spanish version of the article is available here. 

Book Reviews of my 2012 book

York University Associate Professor Justin Podur has published a review of my 2012 book in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. Read the review here.  Podur is also the author of the book Haiti's New Dictatorship (Pluto Press, 2012).

Professor Valerie Kaussen (author of Migrant Revolutions: Haitian Literature, Globalization, and U.S. Imperialism) has published a review of my 2012 book in the oldest scholarly journal on the Caribbean: the New West Indian Guide. You can read the entire review here.

A Review of Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin's book on the Political Economy of U.S. Empire

See here for a new piece that I have published in the journal Critical Sociology reviewing Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin's book The Making of Global Capitalism:  The Political Economy of American Empire (2012, Verso).

Race & Class review by Boaz Anglade

A review of my book Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti (2012, Monthly Review Press) has been published by Haitian scholar Boaz Anglade in the journal Race & Class.  The review can be read here.

Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism: The Industry's Shifting Political Economy

I published a short piece here  titled "Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism" which will be part of a forthcoming journal article and a chapter in my  forthcoming dissertation that looks at the sociological and political economy dynamics of the Caribbean's insertion into global capitalism.

Interview with Grazia Ietto-Gillies published in the journal Critical Perspectives on International Business

Published in the new special 10th anniversary issue of the journal Critical Perspectives on International Business is an interview that I conducted with political economist Grazia Ietto-Gillies. She is emeritus professor of applied economics at London South Bank University in the UK and the author of numerous works on transnational corporations (including Transnational Corporations and International Production: Concepts, Theories and Effects, which was just published in its second edition). 
My interview with her can be read here.

Co-authored letter published in the Guardian

Poll on deaths in Iraq ignored by British media

In May 2013 the reputable polling company ComRes asked a representative sample of the British public the following question: "How many Iraqis, both combatants and civilians, do you think have died as a consequence of the war that began in Iraq in 2003?"

According to 59% of the respondents, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis died as a result of the war. The results are especially shocking because respondents were not asked to limit their estimates to Iraqi civilians or to deaths caused directly by violence.

The latest scientific estimate of the death toll from the war is almost 500,000. This was published in PLOS Medicine. Two previous studies, also published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, suggest the death toll may possibly have been closer to a million. Only 6% of the respondents in the ComRes poll estimated more than 500,000 Iraqi deaths. Only 0.3% said they didn't know or declined to give an estimate.

The ComRes poll is powerful evidence that the media misled the public about the consequences of the war. The evidence is bolstered by the way the poll was ignored by the British media. Using Lexis-Nexis, the only prominent piece we could find about the poll in the British press was an op-ed by Ian Sinclair in the Morning Star, a small leftwing newspaper.

Anyone tempted to support military intervention anywhere in the world should know how effectively the most catastrophic human costs of war can be hidden from the public.
Joe Emersberger, Keane Bhatt, Noam Chomsky, David Cromwell, David Edwards, Peter Hallward, Jeb Sprague, Daniel Thornton

Book reviewed in Journal of Labor & Society

My book with Monthly Review Press was reviewed by Matthew J. Smith, senior lecturer in the Department of History and Archeology at the University of West Indies, Mona, in Jamaica, author of Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957.  You can read the review here.

Island of Hispaniola: Coalitions and cross-border solidarity

I published a new op-ed on the Pambazuka Website (with an updated/corrected version published in the hardcopy of CounterPunch Magazine). The article provides some brief remarks and ideas on the political situation and social conflict in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and the connection between the two. A version in español is published on the Rebelión website and a Français verison is published in L'Aut'Journal (Haiti Liberte weekly newspaper version pasted below). 

The Savage Wars of the Capitalist Peace: The New Geoeconomics & the Rise of China

Adelaide University's Dr. Kanishka Jayasuriya gives a keynote talk "The Savage Wars of the Capitalist Peace: The New Geoeconomics & the Rise of China". In the context of political science literature on "rising powers", he examines the weaknesses of nation-state centrism and mainstream thinking on the "rise of china", and how this ignores the more nuanced shifting socio-economic relations occurring through global capitalism and how this relates to China. To discuss this he looks in particular at the 'Asian Century White Paper Report' commissioned by the Australian government of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I recorded this talk in June of 2013 at the "Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania conference" at Griffith University in Brisbane. This was the 2nd conference of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC). For more information see:http://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com

Crisis, the Emerging New Stage of Capitalism, and the Need of a Transnational Class Strategy for Social Emancipation

Above is a talk and brief interview with Dr. George Liodakis that I recorded in September of 2011 at the first conference of Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC) in Prague, Czech Republic. His paper was titled "Crisis, the Emerging New Stage of Capitalism, and the Need of a Transnational Class Strategy for Social Emancipation." Professor Liodakis teaches at the Technical University of Crete, Greece. Among many other publications, he is the author of the book: "Totalitarian Capitalism and Beyond" (London: Ashgate, 2010).

The Political Economy Approach Versus the Network Theory Approach to Understanding Global Capitalism

Dr. Jerry Harris, political economist at DeVry University in Chicago,IL, gives a talk on transnational class formation and global capitalism. He looks in particular at the differences between the political economist approach to this topic and how network theory sociologists have looked at global capitalism and the transnational capitalist class. I recorded this talk in June of 2013 at the "Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania conference" at Griffith University in Brisbane. This was the 2nd conference of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC). For more information see: http://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com

China's Integration into Global Capitalism

Below is a video I recorded (apologies for the bad angles, as I have not figured out on my computer yet how to adjust these) of Dr. Jerry Harris, a political economist at DeVry University in Chicago. Here he discusses the integration of China into global capitalism and in particular the transnational economic and class dynamics of this process. This talk was given in June of 2013 at the "Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania conference" at Griffith University in Brisbane. Most of the Q&A's are also included toward the end of the video. This talk was given at the 2nd conference of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC). The conference was held at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and focused on "Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania". For more information see: http://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com

Finance Capital and Climate Change: The Role of Climate Interested Investors

         Below is a video I recorded of Griffith University Sociologists Dr. Georgina Murray and Dr. David Peetz examining if it is possible within the logic of finance capital to have some groups or sub-class of the transnational capitalist class that can be focused toward the longer-term, whereas the great drive in financialization over recent decades has been toward increasing emphasis on short-termism (I.E. short term profits). The research here points to the contradictions of global capitalism, emphasizing the detrimental impact it is having upon our planet.

         Once the main lecture in the video begins (after the intro) at around 2 minutes and 33 seconds, you will need to turn the volume up significantly. This talk was given in June of 2013 at the "Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania conference" at Griffith University in Brisbane. This was the 2nd conference of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC). For more information see:http://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com

Upcoming talks in June & August

If you plan to be at any of the below events or will be in the area, I've listed below the upcoming talks I have planned.

* On Thursday, June 7, at 2:45 in the St. Andrews room at the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) conference on the Caribbean island of Grenada I will be giving a talk on new research I have been doing. The talk is titled: "An Emergent Cornerstone of Global Capitalism in the Caribbean: A Case Study on Transnational Mining in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica." That same day at 6:30 Dr. Mark Schuller (author of the new book Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs (Rutgers Press, 2012)) will be presenting my book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti (Monthly Review, 2012) at the conference's author celebration meeting.
* In mid-June I will be giving a talk in Santiago, Dominican Republic, discussing my book with local grassroots organizations and educators. For various reasons the meeting is invite only. If you are interested in attending email me at: jhsprague[at]umail.ucsb.edu
* On Saturday, June 29, I will be giving a talk titled "Theorizing transnational class relations" at the Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania conference that is taking place at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and is being organized by the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. I will be giving my talk on a panel with Dr. Jerry Harris (author of The Dialectics of Globalization: Economic and Political Conflict in a Transnational World (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008))
* On Sunday, August 11, I will be giving a talk titled "Transnational Capitalism, Class, and the Caribbean Context” at the American Sociological Association that is being held in New York City.

New reviews of my book by Hyppolite Pierre and Bruce Poinsette

Read a new review here of my book by Hyppolite Pierre. He is a Political Science Adjunct Faculty at the American Military University and the author of Haiti, Rising Flames from Burning Ashes: Haiti the Phoenix.

Also read a review/interview here on my book by Bruce Poinsette of The Skanner News.

Article in ¡Presente!

The new issue of ¡Presente!, the newspaper of the movement to close the School of the Americas (SOA), includes an abridged version of my recent article on Haiti's ex-army. The article can be read here.

Interview on KPFA Radio

 See here for a new interview I did on KPFA Flashpoints Radio.