New York
Wednesdays at 6:30pm beginning June 15
School of Visual Arts
380 2nd Ave, Room 804B
Chicago
School of the Art Institute, Chicago
Mondays 6pm
112 S Michigan Ave, Room 919
Houston
Sundays at 3:00 pm (ongoing)
University of Houston
MD Anderson Library (meet in the lobby)
London
Mondays at 6pm
Goldsmiths College, Richard Hoggart Building, Room 257
• required / + recommended reading
Marx readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)
Recommended background readings
+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. 12–16 (from "Marx and Engels go back to writing history" to "Karl Marx dies at his desk")
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
Week 1
+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)
• Karl Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519
• Ferdinand Lassalle, Open letter to the German workers’ movement (1863)
• Mikhail Bakunin, A Critique of the German Social-Democratic Program (1870)
• Bakunin, Marxism, Freedom and the State (1872)
Week 2
+ 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)
• Karl Kautsky, The Class Struggle (1892)
Week 3
• Kautsky,The Social Revolution (1902)
Week 4
• Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, especially Chapters 3, 11 and 12 (1906)
• Kropotkin, Anarchist Communism (1909)
Week 5
• Kautsky, The Road to Power (1909)
80 Years of Environmental Politics - Left and Right
Lindsey French (SAIC)
Joy Holowicki (Rising Tide)
Peter Hudis (International Marxist-Humanist Organization)
The focus of this panel is to consider what remains unchanged by the climate crisis. For there seems to be a continued problem of how discontents under capitalism become readily integrated into new forms of capitalism; a process whereby we unwittingly contribute to the perpetuation of capitalism without intending to. We ask panelists to consider how we might arrive at a post-carbon future from the Left (i.e., in a manner that generates greater consciousness of what capitalism is and how to potentially overcome it). What would a Left response to climate change look like? How does this differ from the Right?
A teach-in on the revolutions of 1848 and the development of Marxism
Presented by the Platypus Affiliated Society at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 3 October 2015
Richard Rubin of the Platypus Affiliated Society discusses issues of historiography of the Great French Revolution and the Left at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In the Fall of semester of 2015 we are now meeting at three locations, on three different days of the week!
SATURDAYS | 1 PM - 4 PM
[Beginning in October/2nd session]
University of Chicago (UC)
Room TBD
TUESDAYS | 7 PM - 9:30 PM
Loyola University (LU)
Damen Student Center
1032 W Sheridan Rd
Room 122
WEDNESDAYS | 6 PM - 9 PM
School of the Art Institute (SAIC)
MacClean Center
112 S Michigan Ave
Room 818
Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Sept 29 (LU), Sept 30 (SAIC) 2015
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels) and Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation
• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
Week 2. What is the Left? II. Bourgeois society | Oct 3 (UC), Oct 6 (LUC), Oct 7 (SAIC) 2015
• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and"What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns"(1819)
+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)
+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)
Week 3. What is the Left? III. Failure of Marxism | Oct 10 (UC), Oct 13 (LU), Oct 14 (SAIC) 2015
• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
Week 4. What is the Left? IV. Utopia and critique | Oct 17 (UC), Oct 20 (LU), Oct 21 (SAIC) 2015
• 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
Week 5. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct 24 (UC), Oct 27 (LU), Oct 28 (SAIC) 2015
• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101
+ Commodity form chart of terms
• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from 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 6. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Oct 31 (UC), Nov 3 (LU), Nov 4 (SAIC) 2015
• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847) and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218-220
• 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 7. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov 7 (UC), Nov 10 (LU), Nov 11 (SAIC) 2015
+ 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 8. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov 14 (UC), Nov 17 (LU), Nov 20 (SAIC) 2015
+ 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, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329
Week 9. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Nov 21 (UC), Nov 24 (LU), Nov 25 (SAIC) 2015
• 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 10. Nov 28-Dec 1, 2015 U.S. Thanksgiving break
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 11. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec 8 (LU), Dec 9 (SAIC) 2015 / Jan 9 (UC) 2016
• 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. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec 15 (LU), Dec 16 (SAIC) 2015 / Jan 16 (UC) 2016
• 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