A roundtable discussion hosted by Platypus NYU with speakers: Kenyon Farrow, Queers for Economic Justice Greg Gabrellas, Platypus Gary Mucciaroni, Political Science, Temple University Sherry Wolf, International Socialist Organization This event was hosted by Platypus NYU on Monday, November 8th, 2010 http://newyork.platypus1917.org http://www.archive.org/details/WhichWayForwardForSexualLiberationARoundtableHostedByPlatypusNyu With roots in earlier radical traditions, movements that sought to radically redefine [...]
November 8th, 2010 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "emancipation"
Book review: Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy
Chris Cutrone
KARL KORSCH’S SEMINAL ESSAY on “Marxism and Philosophy” (1923) is a historical treatment of the problem from Marx and Engels’s time through the 2nd International to the crisis of Marxism and the revolutions of 1917–19 in Russia, Germany and beyond. More specifically, Korsch took up the development and vicissitudes of the relation between theory and practice in the history of Marxism, which he considered the “philosophical” problem of Marxism. Korsch, like Georg Lukács and the thinkers in Frankfurt School critical theory, was inspired by the “subjective” aspect of Marxism exemplified by Lenin’s irreducible role in the October Revolution. Korsch was subsequently denounced as a “professor” in the Communist International and quit the movement, embracing council communism and shunning Marxian theory, writing an “Anti-Critique” in 1930 that critiqued Marxism as such, and by 1950 actively seeking to liquidate the difference between Marxian and anarchist approaches. In so doing, Korsch succumbed to what Adorno termed “identity thinking.” By assuming the identity of theory and practice, or of social being and consciousness in the workers’ movement, Korsch abandoned his prior discernment and critical grasp of their persistent antagonism in any purported politics of emancipation.
September 3rd, 2009 | admin | 10 comments | Continued
notes to Rousseau
The reading group schedule with links to the readings for the summer has been posted at: http://platypus1917.org/2009/06/21/platypus-chicago-summer-2009-radical-bourgeois-philosophy/ Platypus Marxist reading group summer 2009, June 28 – August 16 Radical bourgeois philosophy: Kant-Hegel-Nietzsche We will address the greater context for Marx and Marxism through the issue of bourgeois radicalism in philosophy in the 18th and 19th [...]
June 30th, 2009 | Chris Cutrone | 0 comments | Continued
Platypus NYC summer 2009: Theory post-revolution — Georg Lukács
Platypus NYC summer 2009 readings
Theory post revolution: Georg Lukács
Saturdays, 1:00pm to 4:00pm
July 11th to August 29th
Puck Building, NYU (4th floor)
295 Lafayette St
excerpt from Trotsky
From Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Results and Prospects (1906), VII. The Pre-Requisites of Socialism: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp07.htm “Undoubtedly, the concentration of production, the development of technique and the growth of consciousness among the masses are essential pre-requisites for socialism. But these processes take place simultaneously, and not only give an impetus to each other, but also retard and [...]
March 16th, 2009 | Chris Cutrone | 0 comments | Continued
Platypus NYC Marxist reading group
Platypus NYC meets Sundays 2-4PM
New York University
295 Lafayette St. 4th floor
contact: pam.nogales@gmail.com
note on recent readings: Slaughter, Nettl, Luxemburg
After the recent discussion of Luxemburg’s pamphlet on Reform or Revolution? (1900/08), there might be some confusion regarding the relationship between Luxemburg’s formulations and the raison d’etre of Platypus as an organized project today. — What is the point of reading Luxemburg today? Whereas Luxemburg was critiquing Eduard Bernstein and other “revisionists’” arguments that the [...]
February 10th, 2009 | Chris Cutrone | 1 comment | Continued
Heidegger’s conservative-reactionary misunderstanding of freedom
“. . . [M]odern man finds his own ‘essence’ in his greatest discovery, namely, that the most important thing is to turn ‘life’ into a ‘lived experience’ and to make all possibilities of lived-experience accessible generally to all in an equal manner so that through this universality of ‘lived experience’ ‘life’ may prove and actualize [...]
February 5th, 2009 | Chris Cutrone | 0 comments | Continued
Platypus NYC screening: Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
A Film by Margarethe von Trotta
A political biography of one of the leading figures in the history of the Left
Friday, January 30th, 2009
6:30pm
295 Lafayette st. 4th FL New York, NY 10012
Platypus NYC screening: The Handsmaid’s Tale (1990)
Friday, January 23rd, 2009
6:30pm
New York University Sociology Department
Puck Building
295 Lafayette st. 4th FL
New York, NY 10012