Latest Issue of the Platypus Review: - platypus1917.org/platypus-review/
SPS on the DSA: - Platypus-affiliated-society – Ep22 - Platypus-affiliated-society – Ep8 - and on the DSA & Seth Ackerman: Platypus-affiliated-society – Ep3
Platypus Panels: - Panel Series “What does Climate Change?": platypus1917.org/international-se…-climate-change/ - Die Linke Panel (in German): platypus1917.org/2021/06/02/podium-linkspartei/ - Greens Panel (in German): platypus1917.org/panel-gruene/
Platypus on the Death of the Millennial Left: - Chris Cutrone article from 2017, platypus1917.org/2017/10/01/millennial-left-dead/ - Public Panel on “What was the Millennial Left?" during the Platypus 2021 International Convention: tinyurl.com/5a5uktsf - Chris Cutrone teach-in on the death of the millennial left from 2018: tinyurl.com/3sftxpfn
Hosted by Rose F., Pamela N. and Andreas W., with original tracks by Tamas Vilaghy, and editing assistance by Michael Woodson and Tamas Vilaghy. To learn more about Platypus, go to Platypus1917.org.
Every Saturday morning 11am
Caffe Nero on High Holborn
Unit 1A, 100-110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6QL
Everybody welcome!
London Platypus facebook | Platypus at UCL facebook | Platypus LSE facebook
• required / + recommended reading
Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)
Remaining sessions of Radical Bourgeois Philosophy
Week 1. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 2, 2021
• 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 2. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 9, 2021
• 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
What is the Left?
Week 3. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 16, 2021
• 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 persective) 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 4. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 23, 2021
• 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
What is Marxism?
Week 5. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 30, 2021
• 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 6. LSE Reading Week break | Nov. 6, 2021
Week 7. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 13, 2021
• 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 8. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 20, 2021
+ 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 9. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 27, 2021
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 10. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 4, 2021
• 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 11. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 11, 2021
• 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. 18, 2021
• 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
Some suggested 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
On this episode of SPS, Pamela and Rose discuss the Biden bungle of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the responses by the “Left,” including Tariq Ali for the New Left Review and Branko Marcetic for Jacobin. SPS European Correspondent Andreas interviews Eduardo Maura, from the Spanish party Podemos, and asks him to reflect on his political trajectory, from his work in the Indignados -- the Spanish anti-austerity movement -- to Podemos in government, to the party’s recent electoral defeats. In the last segment, Platypus president Efraim interviews Mike Watson, a UK born art & media theorist, and author of The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What To Do About It, released by Zero Books in 2021. They discuss the different responses to the New Left by Adorno and Marcuse and the conditions of possibility for political consciousness in an administered society.
Links:
Chris Cutrone, “Afghanistan: After 20 and 40 years” in Platypus Review 139 (September 2021)
platypus1917.org/2021/09/02/afgha…20-and-40-years/
Tariq Ali, “Debacle in Afghanistan” New Left Review: Sidecar (16 August 2021)
newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/de…e-in-afghanistan
Branko Marcetic, “Joe Biden Was Right to Pull Out of Afghanistan” Jacobin (24 August 2021)
jacobin-v2.positiondevapp.com/2021/08/jo…cy-pullout
Tariq Ali Interviewed by Chris Cutrone, on Iraq, the anti-war movement, and the state of the Left conducted on October 15, 2007 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
platypus1917.org/2007/10/15/tariq…y-chris-cutrone/
“Imperialism: What is it—Why should we be Against it?” On January 30th, 2007, Platypus hosted its first public forum. It features Adam Turl of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Kevin Anderson of the Marxist-Humanist group News and Letters, Nick Kreitman of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Danny Postel of Open Democracy, and Chris Cutrone of Platypus.
platypus1917.org/2010/07/09/imper…e-be-against-it/
“¿Más allá de la izquierda y la derecha? (Beyond left and right?): An Interview with Eduardo Maura of Podemos” by Lucy Parker and David Mountain with Nikos Manousakis in Platypus Review 72 (December 2014 – January 2015)
platypus1917.org/2014/12/01/mas-a…da-y-la-derecha/
Mike Watson, The Memeing Of Mark Fisher: How The Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism And What To Do About It (2021)
www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/…mark-fisher
Efraim Carlebach, “Forgetting Mark Fisher” in Platypus Review 115 (April 2019)
platypus1917.org/2019/04/01/forge…ing-mark-fisher/
Hosted by Rose F., Pamela N. and Andreas W., with original tracks by Tamas Vilaghy, and editing assistance by Michael Woodson. To learn more about Platypus, go to Platypus1917.org.
Mondays at 6pm on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81062045963
Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/1TRK16DKi
Everybody welcome! No prior experience required.
• required / + recommended reading
Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)
Week A. Introduction: Capital in history | Aug. 9, 2021
• 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 persective) 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 B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 16, 2021
• Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown 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, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
• Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)
+ Postone, “Interview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)
+ Postone, “History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)
+ Postone, “Theorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)
Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and sexuality | Aug. 23, 2021
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)
• Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin, “An interview on the woman question” (1920)
• Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual taboos and the law today” (1963)
• John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)
Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Aug. 30, 2021
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 in the class struggle" (1903)
+ Eugene Debs, "The Negro in 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" (1955)
• 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)
Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Sept. 6, 2021
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)
• Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” (1927)
+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 13, 2021
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)
Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 20, 2021
• 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. 27, 2021
• 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? | Oct. 4, 2021
• 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. 11, 2021
• 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. 18, 2021
• 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
Tuesdays, June 15 – August 3, 2021
8:00PM CEST / 7:00PM BST / 2:00PM EST / 1:00PM CST / 11:00AM PDT
Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/TvSfPAgl
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/96837479077?pwd=clJWREt5UkdxNTJWRkZzUXNDSXdwQT09
All readings are either available via links on this syllabus or in the Black Question google folder
• required readings / + supplemental readings
Week 1 | June 15, 2021: From the Colonial Era to the Age of Revolutions
• New York Times, “Introduction to the 1619 Project”
• John Locke, “Of Property,” Ch. 5 of the Second Treatise of Government, pp. 285–302. [Kindle chapter]
• Barbara J. Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America” New Left Review 181 (May/June 1990), 95–118.
• Abbé Raynal, Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies (1770) (extract 3pp.)
• Thomas Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence
• “Natural and Inalienable Right to Freedom”: Slaves’ Petition for Freedom to the Massachusetts Legislature, 17 January 1777 (2 pp.)
• Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1782) (extract 3pp. pdf)
• Decree of the French National Convention of 4 February 1794, Abolishing Slavery in all the Colonies (1p.)
• Thomas Jefferson to Henri Gregoire, February 25, 1809 (1p.)
• Thomas Jefferson to John Lynch, January 21, 1811 (2pp.)
• Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820 (1pp.)
• Thomas Jefferson to Frances Wright, August 7, 1825 (1p.)
+ J. Vaughn, “The Legacy of the American Revolution 1: (English) Colonial America” (06/12/20) and “The Legacy of the American Revolution 2: The American Revolution” (06/19/20) in the Legacy of the American Revolution, Platypus lecture series.
+ C. Cutrone, “The Jeffersonian Revolution” (06/26/2020) for the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series.
+ D.L. Jacobs and L. Bronder-Giroux, “An interview with Gerald Horne” in The Platypus Review 129, September 2020
+ K. Brooks, ”Would slavery have ended sooner if the British had defeated the Colonists’ bid for independence?” The Platypus Review 109, September 2018.
Films:
• Jefferson in Paris (1995)
• Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000)
Week 2 | June 22, 2021: The Slaveholders’ Rebellion: The American Civil War
Frederick Douglas’s What is the Fourth of July for the Negro? Speech Text 1852
[Video] Frederick Douglas’s What is the Fourth of July for the Negro? 1852Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address Text 1860
Video: Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address Video 1860
Wendell Phillips’s Criticism of Lincoln and the Union War Effort Summer 1862
Lincoln’s Address to Congress text 1862
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Text 1863
[Audio] Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Video 1863Karl Marx, First International Address on Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (Written by Karl Marx) 1864
+ Lincoln’s Letter on Thomas Jefferson 1859
+ Pamela Nogales, “Jacksonian Democracy” (7/3/20) in the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZz0th8Pgzw&t=2724s
+ Spencer Leonard, “The Civil War and Failed Reconstruction” (7/10/20) in the Platypus Legacy of the American Revolution lecture series
+ Spencer Leonard, “For liberty and union: An interview with James McPherson” in The Platypus Review 53, February 2013.
Films:
• Glory (1989)
• Lincoln (2012)
Week 3 | June 29, 2021: Early Twentieth Century Debates: Separatists, Communists, and Socialists
• W.E.B. Dubois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” in The Soul of Black Folk (pp. 33–44)
• Eugene V. Debs, The Negro in the Class Struggle (1903) (4pp)
• Eugene V. Debs, The Negro and His Nemesis (1904) (8 pp.)
• Hubert Harrison, “Socialism and the Negro” (1912) (5pp. pdf)
• Claude McKay, “Socialism and the Negro” (1920) (4pp. pdf)
• John Reed, “The Negro Question in America” Speech at the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, Moscow, July 26, 1920 (6pp. pdf)
• Cyril Briggs, “The African Blood Brotherhood” (June 1920) (3 pp.)
• Cyril Briggs, “The Negro Convention” (Oct. 1, 1921) (2 pp.)
+ Tim Barker, “Book Review: Jeffrey B. Perry, Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1882–1918 (2008)” in The Platypus Review 19 January 2010.
+ Benjamin Blumberg, “An Unmet Challenge: Race and the Left in America” in The Platypus Review 19, January 2010.
+ Greg Gabrellas, “Book Review: Michael Rudolph West: The Education of Booker T. Washington: American Democracy and the Idea of Race Relations (2006)” in The Platypus Review 15, September 2009.
+ Sunit Singh, "Imperialism and the Left" in Platypus Review 128 (July 2020)
+ “Report on the Black Question” (1922) in J. Riddell (ed.), Toward the United Front (2012), pp. 800-811.
+ “Theses on the Black Question” (1922) [Final Text] in J. Riddell (ed.), ibid, pp. 947–951.
+ Trotsky, “A Letter to Comrade McKay,” (13 March 1923) in Trotsky, First Five Years of the Communist International, (1977) v. 2, pp. 476-479.
Film:
• Rosewood (1997)
Week 4 | July 6, 2021: The Old Left and the Black Question
• Harry Haywood, “The Negro Problem and the Tasks of the Communist Party of the United States” (1928) (7 pp. pdf)
• Max Shachtman, Communism and the Negro (Race and Revolution) (1933) (100 pp.)
+ Harvey Klehr & William Tompson (1989) “Self-determination in the Black Belt: Origins of a Communist Policy,” Labor History, 30:3, 354-366.
Week 5 | July 13, 2021: Frantz Fanon
• Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952) (Introduction & Chs. 5–8 in pdf)
• Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (1961) Ch 6: Conclusion
• Sunit Singh, “Book Review: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks” The Platypus Review 21, March 2010.
+ [Audio] Spencer Leonard, Platypus Teach-in: "A Black Man Speaks of Marx": The Sartre-Fanon Dialogues of the 1940s and 1950s (November 2010)
Film:
• Isaac Julien, Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1995)
Note: Free on Kanopy (sign in with Uni ID), also available on Amazon streaming (U.S.)
Week 6 | July 20, 2021: The New Left and the Black Question, pt. 1
• Richard Fraser, “For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Struggle” (1955) (28 pp.)
• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism” (1963) (9 pp.)
• Bayard Rustin, "From protest to politics" (1965) (7pp.)
• Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966) (15 pp.)
• Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967), (selections part 1, 3–10 and 11–63)
+ Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)
+ [Video] Martin Luther King, "The Other America" (1967) (48 mins)
+ Coleman Hughes and Jim Creegan, “Bayard Rustin: Black Liberation and Socialism” The Platypus Review 131, November 2020
Films:
• Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003)
• All the Way (2016)
Week 7 | July 27, 2021: The New Left and the Black Question, pt. 2: The Black Power Turn
• Stokley Carmichael, Black Power Speech (1966) [Audio]
Edited transcription of speech
Note: Audio silence from 29:02–30:05, but picks up where it left off.
• Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967) (part 2, 451–475 and 544–565)
• Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970) (9 pp.)
• Bayard Rustin, "The blacks and the unions" (1971) (6 pp.)
• Spartacist League, "Soul power or workers' power: The rise and fall of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers" (1974) (18 pp.)
• Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979) (23 pp.)
+ Malcolm X., “And I Don’t Mean Bananas” (1964) (16 pp.)
+ Black Panther Party, “Ten-Point Program” (1966)
+ Chris Cutrone, "When was the crisis of capitalism? Moishe Postone and the legacy of the 1960s New Left" in the Platypus Review 70 (October 2014)
+ Audrey Crescenti, “The Black Panther Party and community organizing: An interview with Bobby Seale” in The Platypus Review 113, February 2019
+ Sophia Freeman, “The Black Panther Party, Malcolm X, and the question of revolutionary politics today: An interview with Kathleen Cleaver” in The Platypus Review 113, February 2019
Films:
• Finally Got the News (1970)
• Newsreel films on the Black Panthers, “Off the Pig” (Newsreel #19) (1967) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U2ApK2nAO8
Note: “Off the Pig” contains interviews with Party leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton describing why the Party was formed and its goals. The film is not available streaming online but many university libraries have a copy. Info: http://www.newsreel.us/DVD/information.htm
Week 8 | August 3, 2021: Platypus Hosts the Conversation: From Obama to #BLM
• “Progress or regress? The future of the Left under Obama” (2009)
Panelists: Chris Cutrone, Platypus; Stephen Duncombe, NYU, author of Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (2007); Pat Korte, new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Charles Post, Solidarity; and Paul Street, author of Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2008).
• Platypus Public Panel Series: “Black Politics and State Violence” (2015)
• School of Visual Arts (03/11/15) [Audio]
Panelists: Ben Blumberg (Platypus), Dread Scott (Artist), Eljeer Hawkins (Socialist Alternative/CWI)
• UC Santa Cruz (03/27/2015) [Video]
Panelists: Boots Riley of the hip-hop group “The Coup,” Clarence Thomas former Secretary-Treasurer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and Nancy Kato from the People of Color caucus of the Freedom Socialist Party.
• Police Brutality and the Left (July 11, 2020)
Panelists: Gerald Smith (Oscar Grant Committee), Larry Holmes (Workers World Party), Andrea Pritchett (Berkeley Copwatch), and Conrad Cartmell (DSA, Class Unity Caucus).
• "The Fate of the American Revolution," in the Platypus Review 130, October 2020
+ Platypus at Left Forum NYC 2010: The American Left and the "black question:" from politics to protest to the post-political (2010) [Audio] Panelists: Tim Barker, Columbia U.; Benjamin Blumberg, Platypus; Pamela Nogales, Platypus; Chris Cutrone, Platypus
+ “Black Politics in the Age of Obama” (Chicago, 2013)
Panelists: Cedric Johnson, author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) and The Neoliberal Deluge (2011); and Mel Rothenberg, veteran of the Sojourner Truth Organization and coauthor of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn (1980).
+ Platypus Public Panel Series: “Black Politics and State Violence” (2015) University of Chicago (03/20/15) [Audio] Panelists: Michael Dawson and Mel Rothenberg
+ Platypus Public Panel: “The American left and the ‘Black Question’: From politics to protest to the post-political” (Chicago, 2015) Panelists: Toby Chow, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and The People’s Lobby; Brandon Johnson, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU); August Nimtz, author of Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917 (2014); and Adolph Reed, Jr., author of Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era (1999).
