A N N O U N C E M E N T OF AN EVENT organised by the Aesthetics Laboratory of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences:
The End of Capitalism? Что делать?
EstLab in Conversation with Katarina Peović
TIME: Tuesday, 28 April 2026 at 18:30
VENUE: Room 54 on the second floor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Can we anticipate the End of Capitalism? And… can we hope that this most radical incarnation of the dominant economic and political regime in the history of class antagonism – between those who rule and those who are ruled – will one day reach its (desirable!) end?
“Capitalism does not work – yet it still rules,” reads the cover of a publication appearing before us precisely hic et nunc. Before whom? Before us, of course, who still care about a better, truer, more real, more just and, ultimately… more beautiful world. Or at least a more tolerable one, we might say with a certain cynical restraint. The subtitle of Katarina Peović’s book itself introduces a certain reservation regarding the context in which the question posed by its title appears. Namely, “While the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters” (as Antonio Gramsci wrote in his Prison Notebooks). How are we to deal with all of this while what we call the “world” plunges into the abysses of war, poverty, and hunger? All because of the unquestioned rule of the only subject-substance of the present day – Capitalism.
Katarina Peović, professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Rijeka, is perhaps the best possible interlocutor for a discussion of this topic. In addition to her academic vocation, her other Beruf is activism and an ongoing struggle for the rights of those most vulnerable in society (or what remains of it). Katarina was also a member of the Croatian Parliament from 2020 to 2024. Yet her intellectual habitus cannot be reduced to the positions she has held, but rather lies in her constant presence in public life and her continuous commitment and STRUGGLE for improvement in the society in which we live.
The End of Capitalism? While the Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born is a collection of texts published in Obzor, a supplement to Večernji list, from June 2024 to July 2025. The texts, adapted to take the form of a scholarly study, are not only intellectually stimulating reading, but much more than that. As a “fortunate” combination of journalism and theory, Katarina Peović’s book is, above all, an advocacy of emancipatory disobedience, of a spirit that refuses to submit to the prevailing order. This is how the book was described by – one of the most important guests in EstLab’s five-year history! – Viktor Ivančić.
In Croatia, things have only become worse since the last entry included in the book. Especially after the epochal(!?) turning point and the “spectacle” at the Hippodrome on 5 July 2025.
In our conversation with Katarina Peović, we seek to encourage a “call… (to) awaken from social apathy… for those who feel that the system is bursting at the seams and are looking for a clear, political… answer”: What Is to Be Done??
What can we – here and now – still do about it? Join us for a public discussion and EstLab dialogue with Katarina on 28 April 2026 at 18:30 in Room 54 at FFOS. Come, listen, ask questions… let us talk!
mk
