Benj Gerdes
Matthew Jesse Jackson
Ruslana Lichtzier
Platypus London: Goldsmiths College: Intro Reading Group, Autumn 2014
Mondays 7pm, Room TBC – check facebook for details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/londonplatypus
Week 1 (29 Sep 2014)
- Cutrone, “Symptomology: Historical transformations in social-political context”
- Cutrone, “Capital in history: The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left”
Week 2 (6 Oct 2014)
- Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left”
- Adorno, “Imaginative excesses”
Week 3 (13 Oct 2014)
- Blumberg, Cutrone, Khan, Leonard, and Rubin, Forum: The decline of the Left in the 20th century
Week 4 (20 Oct 2014)
- Anderson, Cutrone, Kreitman, Postel, and Turl, Forum: Imperialism: What is it, why should we be against it?
- Albert, Cutrone, Duncombe, and Holmes, Forum: The 3 Rs: reform, revolution and “resistance:” The problematic forms of “anti-capitalism” today
Week 5 (27 Oct 2014)
- Brennan, Davis, Hendricks, Mujica, and Rubin, Forum: What is a movement?
- Hendricks, Hughes, Mwaura, and Thindwa, Forum: Left behind: The working class in the crisis
[3 Nov 2014 – No meeting – Goldsmiths’ reading week]
Week 6 (10 Nov 2014)
- Platypus Historians Group, Catastrophe, historical memory, and the Left: 60 years of Israel-Palestine
- Ibish, Kovel, and Rubin, Forum: Which way forward for Palestinian liberation?
- Goodman and Rubin, Forum: Marxism and Israel
Week 7 (17 Nov 2014)
- Farrow, Gabrellas, Mucciaroni, and Wolf, Forum: Which way forward for sexual liberation?
- Nogales, Pereira Di Salvo, and Rojas, Forum: Politics of the contemporary student Left
- Brennan, Klatt, Petcov, and Weger, Forum: Ideology and the student Left
Week 8 (24 Nov 2014)
- Bernstein, Cutrone, Goehr, and Horowitz, Forum: The relevance of Critical Theory to art today
- Cutrone, Feenberg, Westerman, and Brown, Platypus convention plenary: The politics of Critical Theory
Week 9 (1 Dec 2014)
- Horkheimer and Adorno, “Discussion about Theory and Praxis” (AKA “Towards a New Manifesto?”)[Deutsch] (1956)
- Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung
- Adorno, “Resignation”
- Cutrone, “The Marxist hypothesis”
- Cutrone, “The Left is dead! — Long live the Left!” Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and the possibilities for emancipatory social politics today
Week 10 (8 Dec 2014)
- Cutrone, Morrison, and Rubin, Platypus convention plenary: The Platypus synthesis: History, theory, and practice
What is the Left? What is Marxism?
Platypus primary Marxist reading group
Room 318 Student Union Building, Dalhousie University
Tuesdays 6–8PM
contact: dalhousie@platypus1917.org
• required / + recommended reading
Week A. Sep. 9, 2014 | 1960s New Left: Neo-Marxism
Ÿ Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx” (1968)
Ÿ Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)
Week B. Sep. 16, 2014 | 1960s New Left: Gender and Sexuality
Ÿ Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest revolution” (1966)
Ÿ Clara Zetkin and Lenin, “The woman question” (1920)
Ÿ Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual taboos and law today” (1963)
Ÿ John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)
Week C. Sep. 23, 2014 | Frankfurt School Precursors
Ÿ Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)
Ÿ Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” and “Photography” (1927)
Week 1. Sep. 30, 2014 | What is the Left? Â Capital in History
Ÿ Chris Cutrone, “Capital in history” (2008)
Ÿ Cutrone, “The Marxist hypothesis” (2010)
Week 2. Oct. 7, 2014 | What is the Left? Bourgeois Society
Ÿ Immanuel Kant, “Idea for universal history from cosmo-politan point of view” and “What is Enlightenment?” (1784)
Ÿ Benjamin Constant, “The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns” (1819)
Week 3. Oct. 14, 2014 | Thanksgiving break
Week 4. Oct. 21, 2014 | What is the Left? Failure of Marxism
Ÿ Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)
Week 5. Oct. 28, 2014 | What is the Left? Utopia and Critique
Ÿ Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
Ÿ Karl Marx, To make the world philosophical (1839–41)
Âź Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (1843)
Week 6. Nov. 4, 2014 | What is Marxism? Socialism
Âź Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844)
Âź Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Week 7. Nov. 11, 2014 | What is Marxism? Revolution in 1848 (off campus session)
Ÿ• Engels, The tactics of social democracy (Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573
• Marx, selections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593
• Marx, selections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617
Week 8. Nov. 18, 2014 | What is Marxism? Bonapartism
+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)
• Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519
• Marx, selections from 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 9. Nov. 25, 2015 | What is Marxism? Political Economy
+ Commodity form chart of terms
• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 282–294
• Marx, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329
Week 10. Dec. 2, 2015 | What is Marxism? Reification
• 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
Winter Break
Week 11. Jan. 6, 2015 | What is Marxism? Class Consciousness
Ÿ • 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
Week 12. Jan. 13, 2015 | What is Marxism? Ends of Philosophy
• 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
Introducing Platypus:
Marxism and the History of the Left
Alternate Fridays, 11 AM at Northwest Café, Harvard Northwest Labs.
Week 1 — September 26, 2014.Â
- Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
- Karl Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843)
Art and Politics: Frankfurt
Vorausgesetzte LektĂĽre
• Chris Cutrone et al., "The relevance of Critical Theory to art today" (2011)
Woche 1. Die Bedeutung von Kunst | 29. August 2014
[Artists'] work is to sustain the critical moment of aesthetic experience. [Critics' work] is to recognize it.
– Susan Buck-Morss, response to Visual culture questionnaire (1996)
• Susan Buck-Morss, Antworten zum "Visual culture questionnaire" (1996)
• Immanuel Kant, Vorwort und Einleitung zur Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790)
http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Kant%2c+Immanuel/Kritik+der+Urteilskraft
Woche 2. Moderne Ă„sthetik der Kunst | 5. September 2014
• G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, Erster Abschnitt: "Einleitung" bis (inklusive) “III.3.Zweck der Kunst”
Woche 3. Kunst und Politik in unserer Epoche | 12. September 2014
• Leo Trotzki, "Kunst und Revolution” (1938)
• Clement Greenberg, "Avantgarde und Kitsch" (1939)
Woche 4. Revolutionäre Kunst? | 19. September
• Walter Benjamin, "Erfahrung und Armut" (1934)
• Benjamin, "Der Autor als Produzent" (1934)
• Jürgen Habermas, "Die Moderne - ein unvollendetes Projekt" (1981)
Woche 5. Kunst und Warenform | 26. September
• Stewart Martin, “Critique of relational aesthetics” (2007)
• Stewart Martin, “The absolute artwork meets the absolute commodity” (2007)
• Theodor Adorno, Ästhetische Theorie (1970): Selbstverständlichkeit von Kunst verloren (S. 9 - 11), Gesellschaft (S. 334 - 389)