Autumn/Winter 2018

Tuesdays 6pm-9pm, London School of Economics,

Room KSW1.01
20 Kingsway, London WC2A 2AE

check platypus1917.org/london for details, or facebook.com/platypusLSE

• required/ + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Week A. Introduction to Platypus | Oct. 2, 2018 | **Knights Templar 6-8pm**

• Max Horkheimer, “The little man and the philosophy of freedom” (1926–31)
  • Louis Menand, on Marx and Engels as philosophes of a Second Enlightenment
• Peter Preuss, on Nietzsche
• Karl Marx, on “becoming” (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
  • Platypus foundational documents - https://platypus1917.org/about/

Week B. Hegel: Freedom in History | Oct. 9, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML]

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in History | Oct. 16, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
  • Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist persective) today”

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)
+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" (2007)

Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 23, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)
  • Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
  • Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
  • Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11
  • Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15
  + Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | October 30, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts(1844), pp. 70–101

+ Commodity form chart of terms

• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selectionsfrom the Manifesto of the Communist Party(1848), pp. 469-500
• Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League(1850), pp. 501–511

Week 4. Break [ LSE Reading Week ] | Nov. 6, 2017

Week 5. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 13, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Engels, The tactics of social democracy(Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573
• Marx, selectionsfrom The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593
• Marx, selectionsfrom The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617
• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847) and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218-220

Week 6. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 20, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)

• Marx, Inaugural address to the First International(1864), pp. 512–519
• Marx, selectionsfrom The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels's 1891 Introduction), pp. 618–652

+ Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541
• Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier(1880)

Week 7. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 27, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

+ Commodity form chart of terms

• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse(1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 ME Reader pp. 276-281
• Marx, CapitalVol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329

Week 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 4, 2018 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Georg Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification”(Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 11, 2018 | KSW1.01

• Lukács, Original Preface(1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), “Class Consciousness” (1920), History and Class Consciousness (1923)

+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition(1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

Winter break readings

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)

+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History(1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners(1980)

+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)   

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 15, 2019 | KSW1.01 | 6-9pm

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy”(1923)

+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

1. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism – Spring/Summer 2019

Jan 23 – June 6, 2018

[including texts by Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno]

all readings are available online: http://platypus1917.org/pedagogy