On May 9, 2018, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed Gregory Claeys, historian of socialism and author of Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815â1860 (1987), Imperial Sceptics: British Critics of Empire, 1850â1920 (2010), Marx and Marxism (2018), among others. The day after recording the interview it was broadcast on âRadical Mindsâ on WHPKâFM (88.5 FM) in Chicago. What follows is an edited version of the interview.
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Presented at the Left Forum 2018 on the panel âHas âthe Leftâ Accommodated Trump (and Putin)? A Debate,â with Ravi Bali, Brendan Cooney, Anne Jaclard, Daphne Lawless and Bill Weinberg, organized by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative at John Jay College in NYC on June 2, 2018.
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On April 6, 2018, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion, Fifty Years of 1968, as the opening plenary of its 10th International Convention, 1918â2018: A Century of Counterrevolution, held in Chicago. Speaking at the event were Abdul Alkalimat, professor of African-American studies at the University of Illinois at UrbanaâChampagne, and author of numerous books, including Malcolm X for Beginners; Joseph Estes, a member of Platypus and of the Campaign for a Socialist Party; Johnny Mercer, a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and an artist working in Chicago; and Mitchel Cohen, pamphleteer, poet, and founder of the Red Balloon Collective at SUNY Stony Brook in 1969. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation.
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On February 17, 2018, at the 4th Platypus European Conference, the following panel discussion was held at Goldsmiths University London, with Simon Elmer (Architects for Social Housing), Matthew Lee (Stop the Elephant Development; University College London Cut the Rent) and Austin Williams (Future Cities Project; author, China's Urban Revolution).
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On February 17, 2018, the white-nationalist Traditionalist Workersâ Party (TWP) held a rally on the campus of the University of Tennessee. The rally was led by Matthew Heimbach, a central organizer of the Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 in opposition to the planned removal of a public statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The TWPâs February 2018 rally on the University of Tennessee (UT) campus drew about 45 white nationalists, about 250 protesters, and about 200 law enforcement officers. In light of these events, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a conversation about the Leftâs relation to racism and fascism on campus and in society at large. Speakers included Jordan Rogers, President of the UT chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA); Dr. Raja Swamy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UT; and Chris Irwin of the Appalachian Anti-Racist Action Tea Party.
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