The Second International Seminar on Memories of Capitalism brings together researchers, activists, and cultural practitioners to critically examine the ways capitalism is remembered, historicized, and contested. Organized by the Laboratório de Estudos sobre os Usos Políticos do Passado (Luppa) in partnership with the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM), the event will take place from August 27 to 29, 2025, at the Centro Cultural da UFRGS, in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
This second edition expands the dialogue initiated in 2023 by exploring themes such as neoliberalism, slavery, data colonialism, environmental destruction, fascism, and historical denialism through the lens of memory. Across nine roundtables, participants will debate the ethical, political, and cultural dimensions of remembering capitalism—its crises, its victims, and the possibilities of building futures beyond its logics.
The seminar is free and open to the public. Registration opens on July 1, 2025.
Roundtable 1 | Capitalism, Memory, and Temporality
Wednesday, August 27, 2025 | 09:30 – 12:00
This roundtable explores the role of capitalism in shaping relationships with the past. The accelerated temporality of capital generates particular forms of memory and forgetting, shaped by the system’s tendencies toward abstraction, alienation, and naturalization.
Mediator:
Temístocles Cezar (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Carolina Ré (University of Buenos Aires)
- Maria da Glória de Oliveira (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro)
- Naiara Damas (Federal University of Juiz de Fora)
Roundtable 2 | Memories of Modern and Contemporary Slavery
Wednesday, August 27, 2025 | 14:00 – 16:30
This session addresses how modern and contemporary forms of slavery are remembered as part of a “memory of capitalism.” The persistence of forced labor raises urgent questions about the reenactment of colonial and imperial practices in today’s systems of exploitation and expropriation.
Mediator:
Melina Perussatto (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Fernanda Pinheiro (Conectas Human Rights)
- Gláucia Fraccaro (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
- Soraia Dornelles (Federal University of Maranhão)
Roundtable 3 | Documenting and Witnessing Capitalism
Wednesday, August 27, 2025 | 17:30 – 20:00
This roundtable examines the ethical and political challenges of documenting capitalism through archives, history, and social memory. It explores how inscription and record-making can serve as forms of resistance to silencing, while revealing the lived experiences of capitalism’s victims.
Mediator:
Nôva Marques Brando (Public Archives of the State of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Alessandra Gasparotto (Federal University of Pelotas)
- Cristina Meneguello (State University of Campinas)
- Pedro Caldas (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro)
Roundtable 4 | Memories of Colonialisms and Imperialisms
Thursday, August 28, 2025 | 09:30 – 12:00
This session reflects on how colonial and imperial practices, symbols, and material legacies are remembered within capitalist rationality. The discussion focuses on how dichotomies, territorial borders, and racial hierarchies are enduring markers of a memory of capitalism.
Mediator:
Sarah Amaral (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- David Ribeiro (Museu Paulista / University of São Paulo)
- Celeste Muñoz (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia – Madrid)
- Silvia Correia (University of Porto)
Roundtable 5 | Neoliberalism, the Capitalocene, and Its Victims
Thursday, August 28, 2025 | 14:00 – 16:30
This roundtable explores how memory is produced within neoliberal frameworks, where climate catastrophes are collectively experienced, yet individuals—shaped by abstraction and desubjectivation—struggle to recognize themselves as victims. The human attribution of responsibility for ecological disasters expands the concept of victimhood to include non-human entities, opening space for the recognition of animal and landscape rights.
Mediator:
Arthur Lima de Avila (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Mariana Silveira (Federal University of Minas Gerais)
- Taynna Mendonça Marino (Adam Mickiewicz University)
- Walter Lowande (Federal University of Alfenas)
Roundtable 6 | Post-democracy? Fascisms and Historical Denialisms
Thursday, August 28, 2025 | 17:30 – 20:00
This session examines the links between contemporary fascisms and historical denialism as indicators of a deepening crisis in liberal democracies. These phenomena contribute to a double erasure: of historical narratives and of the capitalist system that underpins them. The far right’s use of the past today combines denial and falsification with a paradoxical fusion of a relentless neoliberal present and reactionary visions of mythical, idyllic pasts.
Mediator:
Odilon Caldeira Neto (Federal University of Juiz de Fora)
Participants:
- Juliana Barreto Farias (University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony)
- Tatyana de Amaral Maia (State University of Rio de Janeiro)
- Sônia Meneses (Regional University of Cariri)
Roundtable 7 | Platform Capitalism, Data Colonialism, and Democratization in Digital Networks
Friday, August 29, 2025 | 09:30 – 12:00
This roundtable discusses emerging forms of capitalist accumulation through platform capitalism and data colonialism, and their impact on democratic practices. It considers how new technological dynamics shape the production of history and memory, creating a digital public sphere where initiatives for democratization coexist with labor exploitation and data expropriation.
Mediator:
João Ohara (São Paulo State University)
Participants:
- Ana Carolina Barbosa (Federal University of Bahia)
- Flávia Varella (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
- Walter Lippold (Postgraduate Program in History / UFRGS)
Roundtable 8 | Producing Futures, Building Utopias
Friday, August 29, 2025 | 14:00 – 16:30
This session reflects on how capitalism constrains our ability to imagine alternative futures. By recovering unrealized projects and engaging with the temporalities of Indigenous and traditional peoples, it becomes possible to craft utopias grounded in non-linear, non-progressivist conceptions of time—opening paths toward inclusive and transformative futures.
Mediator:
Caroline Pacievitch (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Felipe Tuxá (Federal University of Bahia)
- Juciene Ricarte Cardoso (Federal University of Campina Grande)
- Tanara Forte Furtado (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Roundtable 9 | (Im)possibilities of Repairing the Crimes of Capitalism
Friday, August 29, 2025 | 17:30 – 20:00
This final roundtable interrogates the limits and possibilities of recognizing and repairing the crimes of capitalism—from colonial dispossession to present-day ecocides. Demands for justice—economic, epistemic, historical, memorial, symbolic, and criminal—highlight the structural barriers imposed by institutionalized history and legal frameworks in addressing long-standing “historical debts.”
Mediator:
Fernanda Oliveira (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Participants:
- Allan Kardec Pereira (Federal University of the Southern Border)
- Gabrielle Oliveira de Abreu (Marielle Franco Institute)
- Roberta Baggio (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
Related activity
Memories of Capitalism. Online seminar (2023)