+++ Nächste Woche, am 8.3. um 18.30 findet der LK im Raum tba des Grimmzentrums statt +++
Die historischen Wurzeln der Linken und des Marxismus liegen in den bürgerlichen Revolutionen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts und deren Krise im 19. Jahrhundert. Der Lesekreis versucht diesen geschichtlichen Hintergrund durch die Lektüre von Texten von Marx und der radikalen bürgerlichen Philosophie der Aufklärung herauszuarbeiten. Durch Texte von Autoren wie Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch und Leszek Kołakowski versuchen wir, das Problem des politischen Bewusstseins der Linken im 20. Jahrhundert, das bis heute prägend bleibt, zu beleuchten.
Zeit: mittwochs, 18:30–21:30 Uhr
Ort: Seminarraum +++siehe oben+++, im Hauptgebäude der Humboldt Universität, Unter den Linden 6
FĂĽr aktuelle Informationen:
Die Texte werden im Voraus gelesen und dann zusammen diskutiert. Neueinsteiger/innen sind herzlich willkommen. Vorkenntnisse werden keine benötigt.
Leseliste
- vorausgesetzte / + empfohlene Texte
1. Woche | Was ist die Linke? – Das Kapital in der Geschichte | 19.10.2022
â—Ź Max Horkheimer, Der kleine Mann und die Philosophie der Freiheit (1926-31)
● Epigraphe über moderne Geschichte und Freiheit von Louis Menand (über Marx und Engels), Karl Marx, über das „Werden“ (aus Grundrisse, 1857-58) und Peter Preuss (über Geschichte)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
â—Ź Chris Cutrone, Das Kapital in der Geschichte (2008)
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Capital in History Teach In [Video] (2011)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
● Cutrone, “Die Marxistische Hypothese” (2010)
â—Ź Cutrone, Klassenbewusstsein (aus einer marxistischen Perspektive) heute
+ G.M. Tamas, Telling the Truth About Class [HTML] (2007)
+ Robert Pippin, On Critical Theory (2004)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, ArchaĂŻscher Torso Apollos (1908)
2. Woche | 1960er Neue Linke I. : Neo-Marxismus | 25.10.2022
● Martin Nicolaus, “Der unbekannte Marx” (1968)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms
● Theodor W. Adorno, “Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?“ (1968) [AUDIO]
● Moishe Postone, “Necessity, Labor and, Time” (1978)
+ Postone, “Marx after Marxism” [Interview] (2008)
+ Postone, “Geschichte und Ohnmacht: Massenmobilisierung und aktuelle Formen des Antikapitalismus” (2006)
+ Postone, “Theorien der heutigen Welt: Robert Brenner, Giovanni Arrighi, David Harvey” (2006)
3. Woche | 1960er Neue Linke II. : Geschlecht und Sexualität | 02.11.2022
The situation of women is different from that of any other social group. This is because they are not one of a number of isolable units, but half a totality: the human species. Women are essential and irreplaceable; they cannot therefore be exploited in the same way as other social groups can. They are fundamental to the human condition, yet in their economic, social and political roles, they are marginal. It is precisely this combination — fundamental and marginal at one and the same time — that has been fatal to them.
Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The Longest Revolution" (1966)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
● Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest Revolution” (1966)
â—Ź Clara Zetkin, Auszug aus "Erinnerungen an Lenin" (1925)
● Adorno, “Sexualtabu und Recht heute” (1963)
● John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)
4. Woche | 1960er Neue Linke III. : Anti-Schwarzer Rassismus in den USA | 09.11.2022
As a social party we receive the Negro and all other races upon absolutely equal terms. We are the party of the working class, the whole working class, and we will not suffer ourselves to be divided by any specious appeal to race prejudice; and if we should be coaxed or driven from the straight road we will be lost in the wilderness and ought to perish there, for we shall no longer be a Socialist party.
Eugene Debs, "The Negro and the Class Struggle" (1903)
+ Eugene Debs, “The Negro and the Class Struggle” (1903)
+ Debs, “The Negro and his Nemesis” (1904)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
● Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)
+ Fraser, “For the materialist conception of the Negro Struggle”
● James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism” (1963)
+ Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)
+ Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970)
● Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979)
+ Reed, “Paths to Critical Theory” (1984)
5. Woche | I. Bürgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Rousseau – Gesellschaft am Scheideweg | 16.11.2022
Radikal sein ist die Sache an der Wurzel fassen. Die Wurzel fĂĽr den Menschen ist aber der Mensch selbst.
Karl Marx: “Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie” (1843-44)
Wer den Mut besitzt, einem Volke Einrichtungen zu geben, muß sich imstande fühlen, gleichsam die menschliche Natur umzuwandeln, jedes Individuum, das für sich ein vollendetes und einzeln bestehendes Ganze ist, zu einem Teile eines größeren Ganzen umzuschaffen, aus dem dieses Individuum gewissermaßen erst Leben und Wesen erhält; die Beschaffenheit des Menschen zu seiner eigenen Kräftigung zu verändern und an die Stelle des leiblichen und unabhängigen Daseins, das wir alle von der Natur empfangen haben, ein nur teilweises und geistiges Dasein zu setzen. Kurz, er muß dem Menschen die ihm eigentümlichen Kräfte nehmen, um ihn mit anderen auszustatten, die seiner Natur fremd sind und die er ohne den Beistand anderer nicht zu benutzen versteht.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Der Gesellschaftsvertrag” (1762)
● Jean-Jacques Rousseau, „Abhandlung über den Ursprung und die Grundlagen der Ungleichheit unter den Menschen“ (1754)
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
â—Ź Rousseau, AuszĂĽge aus Der Gesellschaftsvertrag (1762)
+ Max Horkheimer: “Der kleine Mann und die Philosophie der Freiheit” (1926–31)
+ Epigraphe über moderne Geschichte und Freiheit von James Miller (über Rousseau), Menand (über Marx und Engels), Marx, über das „Werden“ (Aus den Grundrissen, 1857-58) und Preuss (über Geschichte)
+ Rilke, ArchaĂŻscher Torso Apollos (1908)
+ Robert Pippin “On Critical Theory” (2004)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
6. Woche | II. BĂĽrgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Adam Smith (Teil 1) | 23.11.2022
â—Ź Adam Smith, AuszĂĽge aus Der Wohlstand der Nationen (aus Buch 1 und 3) (1776)
7. Woche | III. BĂĽrgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Adam Smith (Teil 2) | 30.11.2022
â—Ź Smith, AuszĂĽge aus Der Wohlstand der Nationen (aus Buch 4 und 5) (1776)
8. Woche | IV. BĂĽrgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Was ist der Dritte Stand? | 07.12.2022
● Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, Auszug aus Was ist der dritte Stand? (1789)
+ Bernard Mandeville, Die Bienenfabel (1732)
9. Woche | V. Bürgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Kant und Constant – Bürgerliche Gesellschaft | 14.12.2022
â—Ź Immanuel Kant, Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbĂĽrgerlicher Absicht (1784)
● Kant, Was ist Aufklärung? (1784)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
+ Kant's 3 Critiques and philosophy charts of terms [PNG]
â—Ź Benjamin Constant, Von der Freiheit des Altertums, verglichen mit der Freiheit der Gegenwart (1819)
+ Rousseau, Abhandlung ĂĽber den Ursprung und die Grundlagen der Ungleichheit unter den Menschen (1754)
+ Rousseau, AuszĂĽge aus Der Gesellschaftsvertrag (1762)
HintergrundlektĂĽre fĂĽr die Weihnachtspause
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Lenin für Anfänger (1977)
+ Sebastian Haffner, „Die deutsche Revolution 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, „Trotzki für Anfänger“ (1980)
+ James Joll, „The Second International 1889–1914“ (1966)
10. Woche | VI. Bürgerlich-Radikale Philosophie: Hegel – Freiheit in der Geschichte | 11.01.2023
â—Ź G.W.F. Hegel, Einleitung aus: Vorlesungen ĂĽber die Philosophie der Geschichte (1831)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
11. Woche | Was ist die Linke? – Utopie und Kritik | 18.01.2023
● Horkheimer, Auszüge aus Dämmerung (1926–31)
● Adorno, Ausschweifung aus Minima Moralia (1944–47)
● Leszek Kołakowski, Der Sinn des Begriffes ›Linke‹ (1968)
â—Ź Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
â—Ź Marx, AuszĂĽge aus seiner Doktordissertation (1839-41)
â—Ź Marx, Brief an Arnold Ruge (September 1843)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
12. Woche | I. Was ist Marxismus? – Sozialismus | 25.01.2023
â—Ź Marx, AuszĂĽge aus Ă–konomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (1844)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
â—Ź Marx und Friedrich Engels, AuszĂĽge aus dem Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848)
â—Ź Marx, Die kommende Schlacht (aus Das Elend der Philosophie, 1847)
13. Woche | II. Was ist Marxismus? – Die Revolution von 1848 | 01.02.2023
● Marx, Ansprache der Zentralbehörde an den Bund vom März 1850 und Klassenkampf und Produktionsweise (aus dem Brief an Weydemeyer, 1852)
● Engels, Zur Taktik der Sozialdemokratie (Einleitung zu Marx’ Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850, 1895)
● Marx, Auszüge aus Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850 (1850)
â—Ź Marx, AuszĂĽge aus Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (1852)
14. Woche | III. Was ist Marxismus? – Bonapartismus | 08.02.2023
+ Karl Korsch, Der Marxismus der Ersten Internationale (1924)
â—Ź Marx, Inauguraladresse der Internationalen Arbeiter-Assoziation (1864)
â—Ź Marx, AuszĂĽge aus Der BĂĽrgerkrieg in Frankreich (Teil III und IV, 1871) inklusive Engels' Einleitung (1891)
+ Korsch, Einleitung zu Marx' Kritik des Gothaer Programms (1922)
â—Ź Marx, Kritik des Gothaer Programms (1875)
● Marx, Einleitung zum Programm der französischen Arbeiterpartei (1880)
15. Woche | IV. Was ist Marxismus? – Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie | 15.02.2023
Der Fetischcharakter der Ware ist keine Tatsache des Bewußtseins sondern dialektisch in dem emminenten Sinne, daß er Bewußtsein produziert. […] [D]ie Vollendung des Warencharakters in einem Hegelschen Selbstbewußtsein [inauguriert] die Sprengung der Phantasmagorie.
Theodor W. Adorno, in einem Brief an Walter Benjamin, 2.-4. August 1935
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms
● Marx, Auszüge aus Grundrisse (1857–61)
â—Ź Marx, Der Fetischcharakter der Ware und sein Geheimnis aus Das Kapital Bd. I (1867)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
16. Woche | V. Was ist Marxismus? – Verdinglichung | 22.02.2023
● Georg Lukács, Das Phänomen der Verdinglichung (Teil I des Kapitels Die Verdinglichung und das Bewusstsein des Proletariats, in: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein, 1923)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
17. Woche | VI. Was ist Marxismus? – Klassenbewusstsein | 01.03.2023
● Lukács, Auszüge aus Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923): Vorwort (1922), Klassenbewusstsein (1920), Was ist orthodoxer Marxismus? (1919)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, A Note on Dialectic (1960)
+ Marx, Vorwort zur ersten und Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage (1867/1873) von Das Kapital Bd. I (1867)
18. Woche | VII. Was ist Marxismus? – Das Telos der Philosophie | 08.03.2023
â—Ź Korsch, Marxismus und Philosophie (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Marcuse, A Note on Dialectic (1960)
+ Marx, AuszĂĽge aus seiner Doktordissertation (1839-41)
+ Marx, Brief an Arnold Ruge (September 1843)
+ Marx, Thesen ĂĽber Feuerbach (1845)
19. Woche | Vorläufer der Frankfurter Schule | 15.03.2023
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
● Wilhelm Reich: “Ideologie als materielle Gewalt”, aus: Massenpsychologie und Faschismus (1933)
● Siegfried Kracauer: “Das Ornament der Masse” (1927)
+ Kracauer: “Die Photographie” (1927)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Empfohlene Hintergrundlektüre für die zweite Hälfte (Sommersemester 2023) des Lesekreises: „Was ist revolutionärer Marxismus?“
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Lenin für Anfänger (1977)
+ Sebastian Haffner, „Die deutsche Revolution 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, „Trotzki für Anfänger“ (1980)
+ James Joll, „The Second International 1889–1914“ (1966)
When? Thursdays 7.30 pm
Where? Laidak, Boddinstraße 42, Berlin - Neukölln
Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 8, 2022
To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself.
— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)
• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)
+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
• Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762) [on freedom and alienation]
Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 15, 2022
• Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations
Volume I [PDF]
Introduction and Plan of the Work
Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement…
I.1. Of the Division of Labor
I.2. Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
I.3. That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market
I.4. Of the Origin and Use of Money
I.5 Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
I.6. Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
I.7. Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities
I.8. Of the Wages of Labour
I.9. Of the Profits of Stock
Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
III.1. Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
III.2. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.3. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.4. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country
Week H. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 22, 2022
• Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations
Volume II [PDF]
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth Article 2d and 3d and Part IV
Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 29, 2022
• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) [full text]
+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)
Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 6, 2022
• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms
• 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 K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 13, 2022
"When we look at this drama of human passions, and observe the consequences of their violence and of the unreason that is linked not only to them but also (and especially) to good intentions and rightful aims; when we see arising from them all the evil, the wickedness, the decline of the most flourishing nations mankind has produced, we can only be filled with grief for all that has come to nothing. And since this decline and fall is not merely the work of nature but of the will of men, we might well end with moral outrage over such a drama, and with a revolt of our good spirit (if there is a spirit of goodness in us). Without rhetorical exaggeration, we could paint the most fearful picture of the misfortunes suffered by the noblest of nations and states as well as by private virtues — and with that picture we could arouse feelings of the deepest and most helpless sadness, not to be outweighed by any consoling outcome. We can strengthen ourselves against this, or escape it, only by thinking that, well, so it was at one time; it is fate; there is nothing to be done about it now. And finally — in order to cast off the tediousness that this reflection of sadness could produce in us and to return to involvement in our own life, to the present of our own aims and interests — we return to the selfishness of standing on a quiet shore where we can be secure in enjoying the distant sight of confusion and wreckage… But as we contemplate history as this slaughter-bench, upon which the happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals were sacrificed, the question necessarily comes to mind: What was the ultimate goal for which these monstrous sacrifices were made?… World history is the progress in the consciousness of freedom — a progress that we must come to know in its necessity… The Orientals knew only that one person is free; the Greeks and Romans that some are free; while we [moderns] know that all humans are implicitly free, qua human… The final goal of the world, we said, is Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualization of that very freedom… It is this final goal — freedom — toward which all the world’s history has been working. It is this goal to which all the sacrifices have been brought upon the broad altar of the earth in the long flow of time."
— Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History
• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 20, 2022
• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)
+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)
+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)
Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 27, 2022
• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1958)
• Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
• 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
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Nov. 3, 2022
• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469–500
• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), pp. 218–19
Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 10, 2022
• Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511 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 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 17, 2022
+ 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 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy |
The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . [P]erfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.
— Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value 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
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week 6. Nov. 24, 2022 U.S. Thanksgiving break
Week 7. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 1, 2022
• 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
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 8, 2022
• Lukács, “Class Consciousness” (1920), Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302
Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 15, 2022
• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ 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
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)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ 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
Welches sind die ererbten Probleme und Aufgaben der Alten und Neuen Linken, die zur GrĂĽndung der Partei DIE LINKE fĂĽhrten? Welche Bedeutung hat DIE LINKE im Kampf fĂĽr den Sozialismus und was sind die Lehren der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte fĂĽr eine neue Generation von Sozialisten?
Die umstrittenste Annahme des Marxismus ist die Diktatur des Proletariats. Und in der Tat bildet sie das, wodurch sich der Marxismus politisch, ideologisch und theoretisch, intellektuell, praktisch und organisatorisch auszeichnet. Der Tod der Linken misst sich an der Abkehr von dieser These.
Platypus Sommerkurs: Was ist Gesellschaft?
Zeit: vom 18.8.-6.10.2022 immer Donnerstag 19Uhr
Ort: Laika Neukölln, Emser Straße 131, 12051 Berlin