The Platypus Affiliated Society – Summer Reading Groups

Platypus Berlin Sommerlesekreis 2023: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie

Der Lesekreis soll einen Überblick über das vielbesprochene, aber selten wirklich gelesene Opus magnum von Marx, „das Kapital - Kritik der politischen Ökonomie“, bieten. Um ein Verständnis des Gesamtwerks zu gewinnen, werden Ausschnitte sowohl aus den Grundrissen, dem ersten, dem dritten und dem inoffiziellen vierten Band („Die Theorien über den Mehrwert“) diskutiert. Entgegen der Herangehensweise der sogenannten „Neuen Marx-Lektüre“ soll dabei das „Politische“ nicht vom „Ökonomischen“, das „Frühe“ nicht vom Späten“ und das „Logische“ nicht vom „Historischen“ getrennt werden. Ebenso wenig wollen wir Marx gegen seinen engsten Mitstreiter Friedrich Engels ausspielen. Welche Rolle also nimmt die Kritik der politischen Ökonomie in der Politik von Marx und dem Marxismus ein?

Die Texte werden im Voraus gelesen und dann zusammen diskutiert. Neueinsteiger sind herzlich willkommen und es werden keine Vorkenntnisse benötigt!

Zeit: Mittwochs, 19:00 - 22:00, 9. August - 27. September 2023

Ort: Hedwig Dohm Haus, Ziegelstr. 4, HU Berlin

Weitere Infos über Telegram und andere Kanäle

• vorausgesetzte Texte

+ zusätzlich, empfohlene Texte

Hintergrundlektüre:

+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

+ Karl Kautsky (1903): Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren gemeinverständlich dargestellt und erläutert

+ Franz Mehring (1918): Karl Marx - Geschichte seines Lebens

+ David Riazanov (1927): Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: An Introduction to Their Lives and Work

Woche 1.: Einführung | 9. August

• Karl Marx (1849): Lohnarbeit und Kapital

• Karl Marx, Die kommende Schlacht (aus Das Elend der Philosophie, 1847)

• Karl Marx, Klassenkampf und Produktionsweise (aus dem Brief an Weydemeyer, 1852)

• Wladimir Lenin (1914): Karl Marx. In: Lenin Werke Band 21, S.30-80 (Für die Diskussion vorausgesetzt wird nur das Kapitel „Die Ökonomische Lehre von Marx“)

Woche 2.: Die Grundrisse | 16. August

• Karl Marx (1857): Einleitung zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie

• Karl Marx, Auszüge aus den Grundrisse (1857–61)

Woche 3: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 1 | 23. August

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Vorwort zur ersten und Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage (1867/1873) von Das Kapital Bd. I (1867), Vor- und Nachwort zur französischen Ausgabe (1872), Erster Abschnitt Ware und Geld. Erstes Kapitel: Die Ware., Zweiter Abschnitt. Viertes Kapitel. Die Verwandlung von Geld in Kapital. Nur: Die allgemeine Formel des Kapitals

Woche 4: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 2 | 30. August

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Viertes Kapitel: Der Kauf und Verkauf der Arbeitskraft, Sechstes Kapitel: Konstantes Kapital und variables Kapital, Siebtes Kapitel: Die Rate des Mehrwerts, Achtes Kapitel: Der Arbeitstag

Woche 5: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 3 | 6. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Teil 4. Die Produktion des relativen Mehrwerts, Zehntes Kapitel: Begriff des relativen Mehrwerts, Elftes Kapitel: Kooperation, Zwölftes Kapitel: Teilung der Arbeit und Manufaktur (1-5), Dreizehntes Kapitel: Maschinerie und große Industrie (nur Teil 1 und Teil 3)

Woche 6: Das Kapital (Band 1) Teil 4 | 13. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Dreizehntes Kapitel, Teil 4: Die Fabrik, Teil 5: Der Kampf zwischen Arbeiter und Maschine, Teil 9: Fabrikgesetzgebung, Teil 10: Große Industrie und Agrikultur, Vierzehntes Kapitel: Die Produktion des absoluten und relativen Mehrwerts, Dreiundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Das allgemeine Gesetz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation Nur Teil 1, 3 und 4, Vierundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation: 1. Das Geheimnis der ursprünglichen Akkumulation, 2. Expropriation des Landvolks von Grund und Boden, 6. Genesis des industriellen Kapitalisten, 7. Geschichtliche Tendenz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation

Woche 7: Das Kapital (Band 3) Teil 1 | 20. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 1. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Vierundzwanzigstes Kapitel. Die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation: 1. Das Geheimnis der ursprünglichen Akkumulation, 2. Expropriation des Landvolks von Grund und Boden, 6. Genesis des industriellen Kapitalisten, 7. Geschichtliche Tendenz der kapitalistischen Akkumulation

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 3. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Dritter Abschnitt. Gesetz des tendenziellen Falls der Profitrate, Dreizehntes Kapitel, Vierzehntes Kapitel, Fünfzehntes Kapitel

Woche 8: Das Kapital (Band 3) Teil 2 | 27. September

• Marx: Das Kapital Band 3. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Siebenter Abschnitt. Die Revenuen und ihre Quellen. Die trinitarische Formel, 48., 49., 50. und 51. Kapitel

• Marx: Die Theorien über den Mehrwert: Kapitel 17.: Abschnitt 8., 9., 10., 11. und 14

[. . .]

Summer 2023: Marxism and Politics

( • required / + recommended readings)

Recommended background preliminary readings:
+ Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)
+ J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)

Recommended supplemental parallel readings:
+ Chris Cutrone, "The end of the Gilded Age" (2017) and "Gilded Age socialism -- historically past?" (2023)
+ Cutrone, "Lenin's liberalism" and "Lenin's politics" (2011)
+ Cutrone, "What is political party for Marxism?" (2014)
+ Cutrone, “Proletarian dictatorship and state capitalism” (2015)
+ Cutrone, “What was social democracy” (2016)
+ Cutrone, "Back to Herbert Spencer! Industrial vs. militant society" (2016) [audio]
+ Cutrone, "Horkheimer in 1943 on party and class" (2016)
+ Max Horkheimer, "On the sociology of class relations" (1943)
+ Cutrone, "Lenin today" (2020)
+ Cutrone, "The dictatorship of the proletariat and the death of the Left" (2021)
+ August Nimtz, Andrew Arato and Chris Cutrone, "Socialism, liberalism and Marxism" (January 6, 2021)

Week 1 | June 10, 2023

• August Nimtz, Marxism versus Liberalism (2019) 1. Introduction; and Chapters 2–3 on Marx and Engels versus Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill

Week 2 | June 17, 2023

• Nimtz, Marxism versus Liberalism (2019) Chapters 4–5 on Lenin versus Weber and Woodrow Wilson; and 6. Conclusion

Week 3 | June 24, 2023

• Robert Michels, Political Parties (1915) (especially Preface, Ch. 1-2, Part 1 and Parts 3 and 4)

Week 4 | July 1, 2023

• Max Weber, "Socialism" (1918); and "Politics as a vocation" and "Science as a vocation" (1919)
+ Weber, "Structures of power; Class, status, party; Bureaucracy"

Week 5 | July 8, 2023

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
• Otto Kircheimer, "Changes in the structure of political compromise" (1941)
• Herbert Marcuse, "The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state" (1934) in Negations
+ Franz Neumann, "The change in the function of law in modern society" (1937)
• Sigmund Neumann, “The party of democratic integration” (1956); and Kirchheimer, "The catch-all party" (1966)

Week 6 | July 15, 2023

• Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband, debate on capitalism and the state (1972)
+ Michael Harrington, "Marxism and Democracy" (1981)
• Mike Macnair, Revolutionary Strategy (2009)
+ Cutrone, "Lenin today" (2020)

Week 7 | July 22, 2023

• Benjamin Studebaker, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut (2023)
+ Studebaker, “The Heart of Isonomia: Equality of Political Participation versus Equality of Political Capabilities: A Fundamental Dilemma at the Heart of Democratic Theory” (2023)

[. . .]

Summer 2022: What is society?

**Opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, 2008.**

“Society is a reality sui generis; it has its own characteristics that are either not found in the rest of the universe or are not found there in the same form."
"Society is a sui generis being with its own special nature, distinct from that of its members, and a personality of its own different from individual personalities."
-- Emile Durkheim

"Society is a concept of the Third Estate."
-- Adorno

( • required / + recommended readings)

Required background reading:
• Chris Cutrone, "Back to Herbert Spencer! Industrial vs. militant society" (2016) [audio]

Recommended supplemental parallel reading:
+ Adorno, "Static and Dynamic as Sociological Categories" (1961)
+ Adorno, Introduction to Sociology 1962 lectures
+ Adorno, Philosophical Elements of a Theory of Society 1964 lectures
+ Adorno, Philosophy and Sociology 1960 lectures

Preliminary readings:
• Adorno, “Society” (1965)
• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

Charts of terms:
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms

Week 1: June 4, 2022

• Adorno, “Society” (1965)
+ Chris Cutrone, "Gillian Rose's 'Hegelian' critique of Marxism" (2010)
• Gillian Rose, Hegel Contra Sociology (1981/95) selections: Preface for 1995 reprint, 1. The Antinomies of Sociological Reason, 7. With What Must the Science End?

Week 2: June 11, 2022

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
• Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) selections: Author's Introduction, Part I Chapters 1-3, Part II (+ Chapter 4,) Chapter 5

Week 3: June 18, 2022

• Auguste Comte, Introduction to Positive Philosophy (1830-42) I. The nature and importance of the positive philosophy; The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte vol. III Bk. VI. Social Physics pp. 1-11, 199-216, 277-344 [PDF Positive Philosophy of Comte selections]; A General View of Positivism Ch. II. The Social Aspect of Positivism pp. 63-78, Ch. VI. The Religion of Humanity pp. 340-426 [PDF General View of Positivism selections]
+ Chris Cutrone, "Ends of philosophy" (2018)

Week 4: June 25, 2022

+ Chris Cutrone, "Back to Herbert Spencer! Industrial vs. militant society" (2016) [audio]
• Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology Vol. I Part I The Data of Sociology Ch. I-IV pp. 3-40 [PDF] and Part II The Inductions of Sociology Ch. I-II pp. 447-462 [PDF]; On Social Evolution (Univ. Chicago selections): IV 15–16 Societal Typologies, Militancy and Industrialism and V 18–19 Ceremonial and Political Institutions; The Man Versus the State VI The Great Political Superstition [PDF selection]

Week 5: July 2, 2022

• Emile Durkheim, Chapter 3. "The principles of 1789 and sociology" (1890); Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) Introduction, selections V Social Creativity Ch. 11-12, in On Morality and Society

Week 6: July 9, 2022

• Durkheim, Chapter 10. "The dualism of human nature and its social conditions" (1914), Ch. 4. "Individualism and the intellectuals" (1898); The Division of Labor in Society (1893) Author's Preface to the 1st Edition and Introduction (pp. xxv-xxx and 1-10), selection IV The Evolution of Morality Ch. 6, in On Morality and Society

Week 7: July 16, 2022

• Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1893) selections IV. The Evolution of Morality Chapters 7-9, in On Morality and Society; Author's Preface to the 2nd Edition (pp. xxxi-lix)

Week 8: July 23, 2022

• Frankfurt School, Aspects of Sociology (1956) selections: Preface by Horkheimer and Adorno, Chapters I-VI, XII
• Adorno, “Society” (1965)
+ Adorno, "Static and Dynamic as Sociological Categories" (1961)

[. . .]

Summer 2021: The Black Question and the Left from 1776 to BLM

Jeff Wall, “After *Invisible Man* by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue” (1999–2000)

Tuesdays, June 15 – August 3, 2021

8:00PM CEST / 7:00PM BST / 2:00PM EST / 1:00PM CST / 11:00AM PDT

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/TvSfPAgl

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/96837479077?pwd=clJWREt5UkdxNTJWRkZzUXNDSXdwQT09

All readings are either available via links on this syllabus or in the Black Question google folder

• required readings / + supplemental readings

Week 1 | June 15, 2021: From the Colonial Era to the Age of Revolutions

• New York Times, “Introduction to the 1619 Project”

• John Locke, “Of Property,” Ch. 5 of the Second Treatise of Government, pp. 285–302. [Kindle chapter]

• Barbara J. Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America” New Left Review 181 (May/June 1990), 95–118.

• Abbé Raynal, Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies (1770) (extract 3pp.)

• Thomas Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence

• “Natural and Inalienable Right to Freedom”: Slaves’ Petition for Freedom to the Massachusetts Legislature, 17 January 1777 (2 pp.)

• Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1782) (extract 3pp. pdf)

• Decree of the French National Convention of 4 February 1794, Abolishing Slavery in all the Colonies (1p.)

• Thomas Jefferson to Henri Gregoire, February 25, 1809 (1p.)

• Thomas Jefferson to John Lynch, January 21, 1811 (2pp.)

• Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820 (1pp.)

• Thomas Jefferson to Frances Wright, August 7, 1825 (1p.)

+ J. Vaughn, “The Legacy of the American Revolution 1: (English) Colonial America” (06/12/20) and “The Legacy of the American Revolution 2: The American Revolution” (06/19/20) in the Legacy of the American Revolution, Platypus lecture series.

+ C. Cutrone, “The Jeffersonian Revolution” (06/26/2020) for the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series.

+ D.L. Jacobs and L. Bronder-Giroux, “An interview with Gerald Horne” in The Platypus Review 129, September 2020

+ K. Brooks, ”Would slavery have ended sooner if the British had defeated the Colonists’ bid for independence?” The Platypus Review 109, September 2018.

Films:

• Jefferson in Paris (1995)

• Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000)

Week 2 | June 22, 2021: The Slaveholders’ Rebellion: The American Civil War

Frederick Douglas’s What is the Fourth of July for the Negro? Speech Text 1852

[Video] Frederick Douglas’s What is the Fourth of July for the Negro? 1852

Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address Text 1860
Video: Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address Video 1860

Wendell Phillips’s Criticism of Lincoln and the Union War Effort Summer 1862

Lincoln’s Address to Congress text 1862

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Text 1863

[Audio] Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Video 1863

Karl Marx, First International Address on Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (Written by Karl Marx) 1864

+ Lincoln’s Letter on Thomas Jefferson 1859

+ Pamela Nogales, “Jacksonian Democracy” (7/3/20) in the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZz0th8Pgzw&t=2724s

+ Spencer Leonard, “The Civil War and Failed Reconstruction” (7/10/20) in the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series

+ Spencer Leonard, “For liberty and union: An interview with James McPherson” in The Platypus Review 53, February 2013.

Films:

• Glory (1989)

• Lincoln (2012)

Week 3 | June 29, 2021: Early Twentieth Century Debates: Separatists, Communists, and Socialists

• W.E.B. Dubois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” in The Soul of Black Folk (pp. 33–44)

• Eugene V. Debs, The Negro in the Class Struggle (1903) (4pp)

• Eugene V. Debs, The Negro and His Nemesis (1904) (8 pp.)

• Hubert Harrison, “Socialism and the Negro” (1912) (5pp. pdf)

• Claude McKay, “Socialism and the Negro” (1920) (4pp. pdf)

• John Reed, “The Negro Question in America” Speech at the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, Moscow, July 26, 1920 (6pp. pdf)

• Cyril Briggs, “The African Blood Brotherhood” (June 1920) (3 pp.)

• Cyril Briggs, “The Negro Convention” (Oct. 1, 1921) (2 pp.)

+ Tim Barker, “Book Review: Jeffrey B. Perry, Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1882–1918 (2008)” in The Platypus Review 19 January 2010.

+ Benjamin Blumberg, “An Unmet Challenge: Race and the Left in America” in The Platypus Review 19, January 2010.

+ Greg Gabrellas, “Book Review: Michael Rudolph West: The Education of Booker T. Washington: American Democracy and the Idea of Race Relations (2006)” in The Platypus Review 15, September 2009.

+ Sunit Singh, "Imperialism and the Left" in Platypus Review 128 (July 2020)

+ “Report on the Black Question” (1922) in J. Riddell (ed.), Toward the United Front (2012), pp. 800-811.

+ “Theses on the Black Question” (1922) [Final Text] in J. Riddell (ed.), ibid, pp. 947–951.

+ Trotsky, “A Letter to Comrade McKay,” (13 March 1923) in Trotsky, First Five Years of the Communist International, (1977) v. 2, pp. 476-479.

Film:

• Rosewood (1997)

Week 4 | July 6, 2021: The Old Left and the Black Question

• Harry Haywood, “The Negro Problem and the Tasks of the Communist Party of the United States” (1928) (7 pp. pdf)

• Max Shachtman, Communism and the Negro (Race and Revolution) (1933) (100 pp.)

+ Harvey Klehr & William Tompson (1989) “Self-determination in the Black Belt: Origins of a Communist Policy,” Labor History, 30:3, 354-366.

Week 5 | July 13, 2021: Frantz Fanon

• Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952) (Introduction & Chs. 5–8 in pdf)

• Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (1961) Ch 6: Conclusion

• Sunit Singh, “Book Review: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks” The Platypus Review 21, March 2010.

+ [Audio] Spencer Leonard, Platypus Teach-in: "A Black Man Speaks of Marx": The Sartre-Fanon Dialogues of the 1940s and 1950s (November 2010)

Film:

• Isaac Julien, Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1995)
Note: Free on Kanopy (sign in with Uni ID), also available on Amazon streaming (U.S.)

Week 6 | July 20, 2021: The New Left and the Black Question, pt. 1

• Richard Fraser, “For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Struggle” (1955) (28 pp.)

• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism” (1963) (9 pp.)

• Bayard Rustin, "From protest to politics" (1965) (7pp.)

• Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966) (15 pp.)

• Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967), (selections part 1, 3–10 and 11–63)

+ Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)

+ [Video] Martin Luther King, "The Other America" (1967) (48 mins)

+ Coleman Hughes and Jim Creegan, “Bayard Rustin: Black Liberation and Socialism” The Platypus Review 131, November 2020

Films:

• Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003)
• All the Way (2016)

Week 7 | July 27, 2021: The New Left and the Black Question, pt. 2: The Black Power Turn

• Stokley Carmichael, Black Power Speech (1966) [Audio]
Edited transcription of speech
Note: Audio silence from 29:02–30:05, but picks up where it left off.

• Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967) (part 2, 451–475 and 544–565)

• Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970) (9 pp.)

• Bayard Rustin, "The blacks and the unions" (1971) (6 pp.)

• Spartacist League, "Soul power or workers' power: The rise and fall of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers" (1974) (18 pp.)

• Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979) (23 pp.)

+ Malcolm X., “And I Don’t Mean Bananas” (1964) (16 pp.)

+ Black Panther Party, “Ten-Point Program” (1966)

+ Chris Cutrone, "When was the crisis of capitalism? Moishe Postone and the legacy of the 1960s New Left" in the Platypus Review 70 (October 2014)

+ Audrey Crescenti, “The Black Panther Party and community organizing: An interview with Bobby Seale” in The Platypus Review 113, February 2019

+ Sophia Freeman, “The Black Panther Party, Malcolm X, and the question of revolutionary politics today: An interview with Kathleen Cleaver” in The Platypus Review 113, February 2019

Films:

• Finally Got the News (1970)

• Newsreel films on the Black Panthers, “Off the Pig” (Newsreel #19) (1967) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U2ApK2nAO8
Note: “Off the Pig” contains interviews with Party leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton describing why the Party was formed and its goals. The film is not available streaming online but many university libraries have a copy. Info: http://www.newsreel.us/DVD/information.htm

Week 8 | August 3, 2021: Platypus Hosts the Conversation: From Obama to #BLM

• “Progress or regress? The future of the Left under Obama” (2009)
Panelists: Chris Cutrone, Platypus; Stephen Duncombe, NYU, author of Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (2007); Pat Korte, new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Charles Post, Solidarity; and Paul Street, author of Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2008).

• Platypus Public Panel Series: “Black Politics and State Violence” (2015)

• School of Visual Arts (03/11/15) [Audio]
Panelists: Ben Blumberg (Platypus), Dread Scott (Artist), Eljeer Hawkins (Socialist Alternative/CWI)

• UC Santa Cruz (03/27/2015) [Video]
Panelists: Boots Riley of the hip-hop group “The Coup,” Clarence Thomas former Secretary-Treasurer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and Nancy Kato from the People of Color caucus of the Freedom Socialist Party.

• Police Brutality and the Left (July 11, 2020)
Panelists: Gerald Smith (Oscar Grant Committee), Larry Holmes (Workers World Party), Andrea Pritchett (Berkeley Copwatch), and Conrad Cartmell (DSA, Class Unity Caucus).

• "The Fate of the American Revolution," in the Platypus Review 130, October 2020

+ Platypus at Left Forum NYC 2010: The American Left and the "black question:" from politics to protest to the post-political (2010) [Audio] Panelists: Tim Barker, Columbia U.; Benjamin Blumberg, Platypus; Pamela Nogales, Platypus; Chris Cutrone, Platypus

+ “Black Politics in the Age of Obama” (Chicago, 2013)
Panelists: Cedric Johnson, author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) and The Neoliberal Deluge (2011); and Mel Rothenberg, veteran of the Sojourner Truth Organization and coauthor of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn (1980).

+ Platypus Public Panel Series: “Black Politics and State Violence” (2015) University of Chicago (03/20/15) [Audio] Panelists: Michael Dawson and Mel Rothenberg

+ Platypus Public Panel: “The American left and the ‘Black Question’: From politics to protest to the post-political” (Chicago, 2015) Panelists: Toby Chow, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and The People’s Lobby; Brandon Johnson, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU); August Nimtz, author of Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917 (2014); and Adolph Reed, Jr., author of Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era (1999).

[. . .]

Summer 2021: Hegel and Marxism

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2270631923069652

Primary sources:
• G.W.F. Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline. Part I: Science of Logic, trans. Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom
• Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. H.B. Nisbett
• Theodor W. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen
• Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (2nd Edition, 1978)

Week 1 | June 6, 2021

• G.W.F. Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences: The Science of Logic (Encyclopedia Logic) (1830), Preface to first, second, and third editions; Introduction; and Preliminary Conception