Animals and Capitalism:
 Reading and Reflecting on ‘Porkopolis’

Convened by Terike Haapoja and Fred Murphy

A discussion and reading group on the central role of nonhuman animals in the capitalist economy, both historically and today. We will explore the potential and limits of Marxist theory for addressing the roles and fates of nonhuman animals, as well as ways to connect anticapitalist struggles to animal liberation and environmental justice.

The main reading will be Alex Blanchette’s Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm, with supplemental texts on nonhuman animal work in the history of capitalism, Marxism and animal liberation, biological reproduction in animal agriculture, and related topics. Through these readings we will explore how exploitation of animal bodies and the labor of nonhuman animals is bound up in the exploitation of human workers and the overall development of capitalism. Author Alex Blanchette will be joining us on March 9 to introduce his book.

Terike Haapoja is a visual artist based in New York. Her interdisciplinary practice includes installations, videos, writings and collaborative projects that explore our relationship with the more-than-human world; mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion; and the possibility of political multispecies alliances. She is an adjunct professor at Parsons Fine Arts and New York University.

Fred Murphy has led numerous study groups on ecosocialism, science and technology, the history of capitalism, and Latin American politics at the Marxist Education Project since 2015. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research.

Six more sessions remain