Immigration and the Left:
A Public Interview with Jane Guskin and David Wilson, authors of The Politics of Immigration
Tuesday 19 april
7:30 pm
NYU
Silver 621
The corner of washington pl. and washington square park east
Mass marches on May Day 2006 in the US, banning of minarets in Switzerland, pogroms in Libya against blacks from Central Africa feared to be mercenaries: Immigration is a central issue faced by the contemporary Left. But as mobilization has waxed and waned, the question of what constitutes an emancipatory response to the problems of immigration in modern society, too often remains unaddressed. This event will consider the limits and potentials of current immigration politics on the Left today, in America and globally. What is the future of internationalism?
An evening in conversation with Jane Guskin and David L. Wilson, authors of The Politics of Immigration. Moderated by Laurie Rojas, assistant editor of the Platypus Review.
A public interview with author David Wilson, led by Platypus member Jeremy Cohan on April 19 at NYU.
Transcript in Platypus Review #39 (Click below):
Mass marches on May Day 2006 in the US, banning of minarets in Switzerland, pogroms in Libya against blacks from Central Africa feared to be mercenaries: Immigration is a central issue faced by the contemporary Left. But as mobilization has waxed and waned, the question of what constitutes an emancipatory response to the problems of immigration in modern society, too often remains unaddressed. This event will consider the limits and potentials of current immigration politics on the Left today, in America and globally. What is the future of internationalism?
U.S. Empire
Islamic Fundamentalism
Both Deadly.
Is There Another Way?
Wednesday, April 27 6:30 pm
Tishman Auditorium, The New School, 66 W. 12th Street, New York City
A diverse group of artists, scholars, and political thinkers including Wafaa Bilal, Laura Lee Schmidt and Sunsara Taylor will engage the question:
“If you are troubled about the state and direction of the world…if you are repelled by both the arrogant assertion of empire by the government and leaders of the U.S. and the fanatical backwardness of Islamic fundamentalism, what should you be doing?”
Uprisings in the Middle East have given renewed hope to many. But the U. S. continues to rain down death on the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan and occupy Iraq, seeking, with its European allies, to dominate Libya through military intervention. Islamic fundamentalism, presenting itself as an “alternative” to Western domination, puts a brake on the radical aspirations of people, especially women.
Come and be part of the conversation about alternatives to these two unacceptable options – in a world crying out for fundamental change.
Sponsored by:
The Platypus Affiliated Society:
The Platypus Affiliated Society, established in December 2006, organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
Participant biographies:
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal, an Assistant Arts Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, is known internationally for his on-line performative and interactive works provoking dialogue about international politics and internal dynamics. Bilal's work is constantly informed by the experience of fleeing his homeland and existing simultaneously in two worlds – his home in the "comfort zone" of the U.S. and his consciousness of the "conflict zone" in Iraq.
Laura Lee Schmidt is the East Coast Assistant Regional Coordinator for the Platypus Affiliated Society and an editor of the Platypus Review. She gained her master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture and will continue her graduate work as a PhD student in Harvard's History of Science program.
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper, a host of WBAI's Equal Time for Freethought, and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can't Wait. She has written on the rise of theocracy, wars and repression in the U.S., led in building resistance to these crimes, and takes as her foundation the new synthesis on revolution and communism developed by Bob Avakian.
A teach-in by Platypus member Chris Cutrone held on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Alain Badiou’s recent book (2010) is titled with the phrase promoted by his and Slavoj Zizek’s work for the last few years, “the communist hypothesis.” Zizek has spoken of “the Badiou event” as opening new horizons for both philosophy and communism. Badiou and Zizek share a background in Lacanian and Althusserian “post-structuralist” French thought, in common with other prominent post-New Left thinkers — and former students of Louis Althusser — such as Etienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière. Althusser found, in the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, a salutary challenge to the notion of the Hegelian “logic of history,” that revolutionary change could and indeed did happen as a matter of contingency. For Badiou, this means that emancipation must be conceived of as an “event,” which involves a fundamental reconsideration of ontology.
Reading List:
Cutrone, “The Marxist Hypothesis: A Response to Badiou’s ‘Communist Hypothesis’” (2010)
Badiou, “The Communist Hypothesis” (2008)
Cutrone, “Chinoiserie: A Critique of the RCP, USA on Badiou” (2010)
Badiou, “Tunisia, Egypt: The Universal Reach of Popular Uprisings” (2011)
Wal Suchting, “Althusser’s Late Thinking about Materialism” (2004)
A Teach-in on the Communist Manifesto
by the Platypus Affiliated Society
Thursday, 31 March, 2011 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Washington Square South, New York University – Kimmel Center Room 603
In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a 'specter' was haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is 'Marxism' itself that haunts us.
In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. But Marx critically intervened in his own moment and emboldened leftists to challenge society; is the Left not tasked with this today? Has the Left resolved the problems posed by Marx, and thus moved on?
