Teach-In by Eduardo Silveyra for Platypus Affiliated Society (University of Houston), October 4, 2019
Teach-in hosted by Platypus at London School of Economics introducing the Platypus project: "On Surviving the Extinction of the Left".
On September 27, 2019, at the University of Houston, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a teach-in led by Platypus member Michael Woodson on capital in history.
What is the development of freedom in human history from the Platypus perspective?
In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed that a "specter was haunting Europe: the specter of Communism". 170 years later, it is Marxism itself that haunts us, while capitalism remains.
What does it mean that Marx and Marxism still appeal, while political movements for socialism are weak or non-existent? What were Marxism's original points concerning radical possibilities for freedom that might still speak to the present?
Is Marxism still relevant?
On 2 September 2019, Stanley Sharpey and Efraim Carlebach interviewed David McLellan in Canterbury for The Platypus Review. David McLellan (born 1940) is an English scholar of Karl Marx and Marxism. McLellan is currently visiting Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths' College, University of London.
On this episode, Rose and Pamela C. are joined by Allison Hewitt-Ward, a New York Platypus member and art critic. They discuss the recent crack-up at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the relationship between art and political protest. In the second segment, Sophia and Pam interview Goldsmiths University’s graduating Masters art students, Alexander Pierce, Lydia Blakeley, Fred Bungay, Paula Pinho Martins Nacif and Sara Rodrigues, about the relationship between art and freedom and if the censorship of art is ever justified.
Feedback, criticism, and questions are always welcome. Drop us an e-mail at shitplatypussays@gmail.com.
Links:
“Art and the Commodity Form”, a Platypus panel at Goldsmiths, University of London (October 11, 2016). The panel brought together Rex Dunn, independent Marxist and writer; Zhoe Granger, a director of the gallery, project space, and art publisher, Arcadia Missa; and Peter Osborne, editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University. Sophia of Platypus moderated the panel.
platypus1917.org/2016/12/21/art-commodity-form-3/
"A Whitney Museum Vice Chairman Owns a Manufacturer Supplying Tear Gas at the Border" (November 27, 2018)
hyperallergic.com/472964/a-whitney…s-at-the-border/
"The Tear Gas Biennial" (July 17, 2019) A statement from Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett
www.artforum.com/slant/a-statemen…y-biennial-80328
"What Warren Kanders’s Defeat at the Whitney Teaches Us About How Protest Works Now" by Ben Davis (July 26, 2019)
news.artnet.com/opinion/kanders-r…n-whitney-1580551
Spencer Leonard (Platypus) on Adam Smith, an interview with Douglas Lain for Zero Squared
youtu.be/cApVoE_A-JM
Book
Review: Ben Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art and Class (Chicago: Haymarket
Books, 2013) by Robin Treadwell in Platypus Review 63 (February 2014)
platypus1917.org/2014/02/01/the-artist-at-work/
Pictured: Sara Rodrigues, "Degrees of Abstraction" (2019), performance & installation. Clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o2FztlYeMA
