Join Platypus for a teach-in and group discussion on the historical character of sexual identity and the character of freedom that capitalism presents.

Thursday, October 21 at 6pm

Harper Library, University of Chicago, 1116 E. 59th St.

Suggested Reading: John D'Emilio, "Capitalism and Gay Identity"

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The Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion on the Politics of the Contemporary Student Left at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit on June 26, 2010. Moderated by Laurie Rojas, assistant editor for the Platypus Review, the panel consisted of Will Klatt, member of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and organizer for Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Luis Brennan, a student organizer at University of Chicago and former member of the new SDS; Aaron Petcov, formerly of the new SDS and currently a member of the Organization for a Free Society (OFS); and Ashley Weger, an organizer for Platypus and a former organizer for UNITE HERE.

Transcript in Platypus Review #27 (Click below):

Platypus presents:

Tuesday, May 18th 8:00 PM
5710 S. Woodlawn

Featuring a presentation by Chris Cutrone on Juliet Mitchell’s “Women: The longest revolution” (1966)

Join us for dinner and discussion

“Socialism will be a process of change, of becoming. A fixed image of the future is in the worst sense ahistorical. . . . As Marx wrote: ‘What is progress if not the absolute elaboration of humanity’s creative dispositions . . . unmeasured by any previously established yardstick[,] an end in itself . . . the absolute movement of becoming?’ . . . The liberation of women under socialism will [be] . . . a human achievement, in the long passage from Nature to Culture which is the definition of history and society.”

-- Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell’s groundbreaking essay, “Women: The longest revolution” (1966), brilliantly anticipated the feminist critique of Marxian socialism. But Mitchell found feminism, too to be lacking. Far from dismissing Marxism as a retrograde, patriarchal theory, Mitchell embarked on an effort to reconstruct Marxism as a philosophy of freedom that could orient political activists' efforts to overturn male dominance and establish the equality of the sexes. Unfortunately, feminism after Mitchell's essay failed to heed her call to attend critically to history to help get a better grasp and clarity about the pursuit of gender and sexual liberation, and abandoned the utopian possibilities of socialism in favor of the politics of established social identities. Join us to reconsider the paths not taken out of 1960s radicalism, and work towards reformulating a theory of sexual freedom that answers the needs of the present.

Reading:

Juliet Mitchell Women: The Longest Revolution (1966)

The Platypus Affiliated Society at Woodlawn Collaborative present...
When:Saturday, May 8 1:30pm - 3:00pm.
Where: Woodlawn Collaborative 6400 S. Kimbark Ave., John Knox Hall.

The German Marxist critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69) is known, along with his friend and mentor Walter Benjamin, for the critique of mid-20th century art and culture. What is less well understood is the specific character of Adorno’s Marxism, how his political perspective related to his philosophical concerns. This workshop will address several aspects of Adorno’s Marxism that relate to his critique of Leftist politics, in both periods of his early and late life, in the Old Left (1920s-40s) and New Left (1960s), and how Adorno remains relevant to issues and problems of Leftist politics today.

Recommended background readings:

Max Horkheimer, “The Little Man and the Philosophy of Freedom” (1926)

Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944)

Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)

Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)

Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)

On Thursday March 11, 2010, Platypus Review Editor-in-Chief Spencer A. Leonard interviewed the prominent 1960s radical and last National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Mark Rudd, to discuss his recently published political memoir, Underground. In April, Leonard’s interview with Rudd, prepared in conjunction with Atiya Khan, was broadcast in two parts on “Radical Minds” on WHPK-FM 88.5 Chicago.

Transcript in Platypus Review #24 (Click below):

Audio Recordings:
Part One:
[audio:/wp-content/uploads/audio/Radical%20Minds%20-%20Mark%20Rudd%20podcast%201.mp3]

Part Two:
[audio:/wp-content/uploads/audio/Radical%20Minds%20-%20Mark%20Rudd%20podcast%202.mp3]