Platypus Sommerkurs: Was ist Gesellschaft?
Zeit: vom 18.8.-6.10.2022 immer Donnerstag 19Uhr
Ort: Laika NeukĂślln, Emser StraĂe 131, 12051 Berlin
Platypus Berlin English Marxist Reading Group Fall 2020 â Winter 2021
Saturday 28 March - Saturday 6 June, 2020
Time: Mar 28, 2020 11:00 AM EST / 04:00 PM CET (BERLIN)
Time, thereafter: 11:00 AM EST / 05:00 PM CET (BERLIN)
Location: ZOOM
Contact Laurie Rojas <laurie.rojas[at]gmail.com> if interested in joining.
Art and politics
⢠required / + recommended reading
Week 1. Art and politics after postmodernism | March 28, 2020
â[Artists'] work is to sustain the critical moment of aesthetic experience. [Critics' work] is to recognize it.â
-- Susan Buck-Morss, response to Visual culture questionnaire (1996)
⢠Susan Buck-Morss, response to Visual culture questionnaire (1996)
⢠Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic torso of Apollo"Â (1908)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms [PNG]
⢠Chris Cutrone, "The relevance of Critical Theory to art today" (2011) [PDF]
⢠Cutrone, "An incomplete project? Art and politics after postmodernism" (2010) [PDF]
No meeting on April 4, 2020 (Platypus International Convention)
Week 2. The meaning of art | April 11, 2020
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms [PNG]
+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms
⢠Immanuel Kant, Preface and Introduction, Critique of Judgment (1790) [full book PDF]
Week 3. Art and humanity | April 18, 2020
+ Schiller on aesthetic education (and Nietzsche on art) chart of terms [PNG]
⢠Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
Week 4. Modern aesthetics of art | April 25, 2020
⢠G.W.F. Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (Introduction): [PDF]
1 Prefatory Remarks
2 Limitation and Defence of Aesthetics
3 Refutation of Objections
4 Scientific Ways of Treating Beauty and Art
5 Concept of the Beauty of Art
6 Common Ideas of Art
(i) The Work of Art as a Product of Human Activity
(ii) The Work of Art, as being for Apprehension by Manâs Senses, is drawn from the Sensuous Sphere
(iii) The Aim of Art
Week 5. Modernity and modernism | May 2, 2020
⢠Heinrich Heine, excerpts from Salon of 1831 (1831)
⢠Heine, excerpts from Salon of 1843 (1843)
+ Baudelaire on the modern / modernity / modernism chart of terms [PNG]
⢠Charles Baudelaire, excerpts from Paris Spleen (1867)
⢠Baudelaire, excerpts from Salon of 1846 (1846)
⢠Baudelaire, excerpts from The Painter of Modern Life (1863)
Week 6. Art as justification for life? | May 9, 2020
⢠Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872, including 1886 "Attempt at self-criticism")
+ Schiller on aesthetic education (and Nietzsche on art) chart of terms [PNG]
Week 7. Art and revolution | May 16, 2020
â[A] protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious, active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of a really creative piece of work. Every new tendency in art has begun with rebellion.â
â Trotsky, âArt and politics in our epochâ (1938)
⢠Walter Benjamin, "On the mimetic faculty" (1934)
⢠Cutrone, "Trotsky, Benjamin, Adorno and Greenberg's critique of 'revolutionary art' " (2020) [PDF]
⢠Leon Trotsky, "Art and politics in our epoch" (1938)
⢠Clement Greenberg, "Avant-garde and kitsch" (1939)
Week 8. Revolutionary art? | May 23, 2020
⢠Walter Benjamin, "Experience and poverty" (1934)
⢠Benjamin, "The author as producer" (1934)
⢠Jßrgen Habermas, "Modernity: an incomplete project" (1981)
Week 9. Art and capitalism | May 30, 2020
⢠Benjamin, "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" (1936)
⢠Theodor Adorno, letter to Benjamin (1936)
+ Siegfried Kracauer, "Photography" (1927)
+ Benjamin, "Little history of photography" (1931)
Week 10. Art's necessity and impossibility | June 6, 2020
⢠Adorno, "Those Twenties" (1962)
⢠Adorno, "Art's self-evidence lost" and "Society", Aesthetic Theory (1970)
⢠Stewart Martin, âCritique of relational aestheticsâ (2007)
⢠Stewart Martin, âThe absolute artwork meets the absolute commodityâ (2007)
Winterlesekreis 2019: 30 Jahre 1989 - Was war der Stalinismus als Staatsmacht?
âDie Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne derLebendenâ- Karl Marx
- vorausgesetzte / + empfohlene Texte
Woche 1, 23. Abril, Revolutionary Leadership
- Luxemburg, âDie âJunius-BroschĂźreâ / Krise der Sozialdemokratieâ Teil I. (1917)
- J.P. Nettl, âThe German Social Democratic Party 1890-1914 as a Political Modelâ (1965)
- Cliff Slaughter, âWhat is revolutionary leadership?â (1960)
Woche 2, 30. Abril, â¨Reform oder Revolution:
- Rosa Luxemburg, "Sozialreform oder Revolution" (1899)
Woche 3, 7. Maiâ¨, Lenin und die Avantgarde
- Spartakist-BroschĂźre, âLenin und die Avantgardeparteiâ (1978)
Woche 4, 14. Mai, â¨Was tun?
- W.I. Lenin, "Was tun?" (1902)
+ Richard Appignanesi und Oscar Zarate / A&Z, "Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners" (1977)
Woche 5: 21. Mai⨠Massenstreik und Sozialdemokratie
- Rosa Luxemburg, âMassenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaftenâ (1906)
- Rosa Luxemburg, âBlanquismus und Sozialdemokratie" (1906)
Woche 6, 28. Maiâ¨, Permanente Revolution
- Leo Trotzki, "Ergebnisse und Perspektiven" (1906)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, "Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners" (1980)
Woche 7, 4. Juni, â¨Staat und Revolution
- W.I. Lenin, "Staat und Revolution" (1917)
Woche 8, 11. Juniâ¨, Imperialismus
- W.I. Lenin â "Der Imperialismus als hĂśchstes Stadium des Kapitalismus" (1916)
Woche 9, 18. Juni, â¨Das Scheitern der Revolution
- Rosa Luxemburg, "Was will der Spartakusbund?" (1918)
- Rosa Luxemburg, "Unser Programm und die politische Situation" (1918)
+ Luxemburg, "Die Sozialisierung der Gesellschaft" (1918)
+ Luxemburg, "Die Ordnung herrscht in Berlin" (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, "Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19" (1968)
Woche 10, 25. Juni, â¨RĂźckzug nach der Revolution
- W.I. Lenin, "Der âLinke Radikalismusâ, die Kinderkrankheit im Kommunismus" (1920)
+ Lenin, "Notizen eines Publizisten" (1922/24)
Woche 11, 2. Juliâ¨, Dialektik der Verdinglichung
- LukĂĄcs, âDer Standpunkt des Proletariatsâ (= Teil III. des Kapitels âDie Verdinglichung und das BewuĂtsein des Proletariatsâ) In: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923)
Woche 12, 9. Juliâ¨, Lehren des Oktobers
- Leo Trotzki, 1917 â "Die Lehren des Oktobers" (1924)
+Trotzki, "Bolschewismus und Stalinismus" (1937)
Woche 13, 16. Juliâ¨, Trotzkismus
- Leo Trotzki, "Der Todeskampf des Kapitalismus und die Aufgaben der 4. Internationale" (Das Ăbergangsprogramm) (1938)
Woche 14, 23. Juliâ¨, Der Begriff der Geschichte
- epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) "on the modern concept of history"
- Walter Benjamin, "Ăber den Begriff der Geschichte" (1940)
- Benjamin, "Paralipomena zu den Thesen Ăber den Begriff der Geschichte" (In: GS I) (1940)
+ Bertolt Brecht, "An die Nachgeborenen" (1939)
+ Benjamin, "Erfahrung und Armut" (1933)
+ Benjamin, "Theologisch-
+ Benjamin, "Zum Planetarium" (aus: EinbahnstraĂe, 1928)
Woche 15, 30. Juli, Reflexionen auf den Marxismus
- Theodor Adorno, "Reflexionen zur Klassentheorie" (1942)
- Adorno, "Ausschweifung" (Anhang Minima Moralia) (1944â47)
+ Adorno, Adorno, "Zueignung", "Vor MiĂbrauch wird gewarnt" und "Zum Ende", aus Minima Moralia (1944-47)
+ Horkheimer und Adorno, Diskussion Ăźber Theorie und Praxis (1956)
Woche 16. 6. Augustâ¨, Theorie und Praxis:
- Adorno, âMarginalien zu Theorie und Praxisâ (1969)
- Adorno, âResignationâ (1969)
+ Adorno, "Zu Subjekt und Objekt" (1969)
+ Adorno, "Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?" (1968) [Audio] [Text]
+ Adorno und Marcuse, "Correspondence on the German New Left" (1969)
+ Esther Leslie, "Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence" (1999)