Summer 2024 readings: The Right for the Left

( • required / + recommended readings)

Recommended background reading:
+ J.P. Nettl, "The SPD 1890-1914 as political model" (1965)

Week 1 | June 8, 2024

• Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1908/19)
[Priority readings: Letter to Daniel Halevy; Introduction; Chapters 2, 4, 5 (complete); final section of Chapter 6 (section IV); final section of Chapter 7 (section V); Appendix III: In Defense of Lenin]
+ Sorel, "The decomposition of Marxism" [pp. 211-254] (1908)

Week 2 | June 15, 2024

• Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1932) including + "The age of neutralizations and depoliticizations" (1929)
+ Schmitt, "Political theology" Chapter 3 of Political Theology (1922/34)
+ Schmitt, Chapters 3-6 of Dictatorship (1921)
+ Schmitt, "Dictatorship in Marxist thought" Chapter 3 of The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1923/26)
(+ Walter Benjamin, "Critique of violence" [updated translation from Selected Writings], 1921)

Week 3 | June 22, 2024

• James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (1941)
[Priority readings: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 pp. 99-109, Chapter 9 pp. 119-126, 135-138, Chapter 10 pp. 143-151, Chapter 11 pp. 160-171, Chapter 13]

Week 4 | June 29, 2024

• Burnham, The Machiavellians (1943)
[Priority readings: Part I Section 3, Parts II, III, VI, VII]

Week 5 | July 6, 2024

• Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (1963)
[Priority readings: Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, 4, 6]

Week 6 | July 13, 2024

• Arendt, On Violence (1969)
+ Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), Prologue, Part I. The Human Condition
+ Arendt, selections from Origins of Totalitarianism (1951/58): Prefaces to First and Second Enlarged Editions; Part Two: Imperialism Chapters 5 and 9; Part Three: Totalitarianism Chapters 10-14 (including Epilogue: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution)

Week 7 | July 20, 2024

• Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985)