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CREATED:20210123T032014Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220512T144231Z
UID:10006178-1653264000-1653348600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:4 Month Pass Offering Through September 30\, 2022
DESCRIPTION:Support the MEP and save $ for yourself. Four month pass now $50 less than new six month pass!\nFor a one-time sliding scale fee of $100\, $150\, or $200 attend any and all classes and events of The Marxist Education Project. For $60 more bring a guest as often as you would like to the classes and events between now and September 30\, 2022. The way the calendar works within our WordPress based site may make this confusing. It is a one-time payment good from now through September 30\, 2022\, giving an extra month if you purchase during this January. You may also use this course as a contribution button to help The MEP get through this challenging Covid-19 period where much of our constituency have lost income and will during the next months lose unemployment compensation without a lengthy extension.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-4-month-pass-offering-through-may-31/2022-05-23/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,China,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Gender,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes,Revolutions Study Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Bolsheviks_1921_Site.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220516T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220516T183000
DTSTAMP:20220503T033939Z
CREATED:20220331T174324Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220503T033939Z
UID:10007113-1652720400-1652725800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:From Science Fiction to Visionary Fiction: Learning from Octavia Butler
DESCRIPTION:“All organizing is science fiction. Organizers and activists dedicate their lives to creating and envisioning another world\, or many other worlds—so what better venue for organizers to explore their work than science fiction stories? ” from Walidah Imarisha’s Introduction to Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. \nThis reading group\, centered on Octavia Butler\, begins 15 years after her passing. Appropriately\, her influence continues to grow. Her writing and her life has nurtured a rising generation of social-justice oriented authors of color\, particularly women. When looking at the  wider culture\, it is apparent that at least five films and series based on her novels have hit or may soon be widely available. \nWriting in the years of momentous change from 1971 to 2006\, Octavia Butler embodied the emergence of “visionary fiction” as a new way to write\, read and draw inspiration from science fiction. This spring\, the Marxist Education Project’s first literature reading group devoted to science fiction will read Kindred (1979) and Parable of the Sower (1993)\, both now graphic novels and soon film and streaming series. Fifteen years on since her passing\, Butler’s influence continues to grow. We will also read NK Jemisin’s Fifth Season (2015) and  Martha Wells’ All Systems Red (2017) to explore some of Butler’s lasting legacy. We will also make room to explore related short stories\, graphic novels\, essays\, films\, and more. \nFor a taste\, check out “To Build a Future Without Police and Prisons\, We Have to Imagine It\,” by Walidah Imarisha. embed the url: https://onezero.medium.com/black-lives-matter-is-science-fiction-how-envisioning-a-better-future-makes-it-possible-5e14d35154e3
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/from-science-fiction-to-visionary-fiction-learning-from-octavia-butler/2022-05-16/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:Anti-capitalist Literature,Classes/Events,Dystopian literature,Literary Studies,Science Fiction,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/OctaviaBanner.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220509T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220509T183000
DTSTAMP:20220503T033939Z
CREATED:20220331T174324Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220503T033939Z
UID:10007112-1652115600-1652121000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:From Science Fiction to Visionary Fiction: Learning from Octavia Butler
DESCRIPTION:“All organizing is science fiction. Organizers and activists dedicate their lives to creating and envisioning another world\, or many other worlds—so what better venue for organizers to explore their work than science fiction stories? ” from Walidah Imarisha’s Introduction to Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. \nThis reading group\, centered on Octavia Butler\, begins 15 years after her passing. Appropriately\, her influence continues to grow. Her writing and her life has nurtured a rising generation of social-justice oriented authors of color\, particularly women. When looking at the  wider culture\, it is apparent that at least five films and series based on her novels have hit or may soon be widely available. \nWriting in the years of momentous change from 1971 to 2006\, Octavia Butler embodied the emergence of “visionary fiction” as a new way to write\, read and draw inspiration from science fiction. This spring\, the Marxist Education Project’s first literature reading group devoted to science fiction will read Kindred (1979) and Parable of the Sower (1993)\, both now graphic novels and soon film and streaming series. Fifteen years on since her passing\, Butler’s influence continues to grow. We will also read NK Jemisin’s Fifth Season (2015) and  Martha Wells’ All Systems Red (2017) to explore some of Butler’s lasting legacy. We will also make room to explore related short stories\, graphic novels\, essays\, films\, and more. \nFor a taste\, check out “To Build a Future Without Police and Prisons\, We Have to Imagine It\,” by Walidah Imarisha. embed the url: https://onezero.medium.com/black-lives-matter-is-science-fiction-how-envisioning-a-better-future-makes-it-possible-5e14d35154e3
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/from-science-fiction-to-visionary-fiction-learning-from-octavia-butler/2022-05-09/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:Anti-capitalist Literature,Classes/Events,Dystopian literature,Literary Studies,Science Fiction,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/OctaviaBanner.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220421T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220421T210000
DTSTAMP:20220318T234224Z
CREATED:20220129T034642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T234224Z
UID:10007055-1650567600-1650574800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict\, Resistance and Resilience
DESCRIPTION:with The MEP Literature Studies Group (five more weeks)\n“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people\, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things\, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman \nThe Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment. \n  \nColonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac (originally published in 1832)\nOne of the shorter\, but also prescient novels of Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” (La Comédie Humaine)\, Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system\, founded on honor and military valor and that of the Restoration\, through the story of a returning soldier who is literally dead to the world. The discussion of this has concluded. \nAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018)\nAlfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who\, never before having left his village\, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War One. Peppered with bullets and magic\, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of the “Great War’\, as WWI was known until the next world war. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty\, day-to-day\, journalistic horror of life in the trenches\, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a descent into complete madness The discussion of this has concluded. \nThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue (2020)\nDublin\, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work\, risk\, death and unlooked-for love. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease\, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center—the ward where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined. \nConquered City by Victor Serge (1932)\n1919-1920: St. Petersburg\, city of the czars\, has fallen to the Revolution. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red\, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power—police\, guns\, jails\, spies\, treachery—in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously\, they can put an end to the need for terror\, perhaps forever. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. \nSlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)\nSlaughterhouse Five follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim\, from his early years\, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II\, to the post-war years\, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The time travel returns to the fire-bombing of Dresden\, which was a firebombing by the British and Americans incinerating about 25\,000. Vonnegut’s novel has been called an example of “unmatched moral clarity” and “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”. Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden during this bombing. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/never-ending-war-novels-on-conflict-resistance-and-resilience/2022-04-21/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Anti-capitalist art,Art and politics,Classes/Events,Cultural Resistance,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction,War Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BombFactory.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220414T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220414T210000
DTSTAMP:20220318T234224Z
CREATED:20220129T034642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T234224Z
UID:10007054-1649962800-1649970000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict\, Resistance and Resilience
DESCRIPTION:with The MEP Literature Studies Group (five more weeks)\n“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people\, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things\, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman \nThe Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment. \n  \nColonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac (originally published in 1832)\nOne of the shorter\, but also prescient novels of Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” (La Comédie Humaine)\, Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system\, founded on honor and military valor and that of the Restoration\, through the story of a returning soldier who is literally dead to the world. The discussion of this has concluded. \nAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018)\nAlfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who\, never before having left his village\, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War One. Peppered with bullets and magic\, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of the “Great War’\, as WWI was known until the next world war. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty\, day-to-day\, journalistic horror of life in the trenches\, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a descent into complete madness The discussion of this has concluded. \nThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue (2020)\nDublin\, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work\, risk\, death and unlooked-for love. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease\, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center—the ward where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined. \nConquered City by Victor Serge (1932)\n1919-1920: St. Petersburg\, city of the czars\, has fallen to the Revolution. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red\, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power—police\, guns\, jails\, spies\, treachery—in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously\, they can put an end to the need for terror\, perhaps forever. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. \nSlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)\nSlaughterhouse Five follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim\, from his early years\, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II\, to the post-war years\, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The time travel returns to the fire-bombing of Dresden\, which was a firebombing by the British and Americans incinerating about 25\,000. Vonnegut’s novel has been called an example of “unmatched moral clarity” and “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”. Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden during this bombing. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/never-ending-war-novels-on-conflict-resistance-and-resilience/2022-04-14/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Anti-capitalist art,Art and politics,Classes/Events,Cultural Resistance,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction,War Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BombFactory.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220407T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220407T210000
DTSTAMP:20220318T234224Z
CREATED:20220129T034642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T234224Z
UID:10007053-1649358000-1649365200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict\, Resistance and Resilience
DESCRIPTION:with The MEP Literature Studies Group (five more weeks)\n“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people\, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things\, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman \nThe Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment. \n  \nColonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac (originally published in 1832)\nOne of the shorter\, but also prescient novels of Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” (La Comédie Humaine)\, Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system\, founded on honor and military valor and that of the Restoration\, through the story of a returning soldier who is literally dead to the world. The discussion of this has concluded. \nAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018)\nAlfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who\, never before having left his village\, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War One. Peppered with bullets and magic\, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of the “Great War’\, as WWI was known until the next world war. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty\, day-to-day\, journalistic horror of life in the trenches\, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a descent into complete madness The discussion of this has concluded. \nThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue (2020)\nDublin\, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work\, risk\, death and unlooked-for love. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease\, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center—the ward where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined. \nConquered City by Victor Serge (1932)\n1919-1920: St. Petersburg\, city of the czars\, has fallen to the Revolution. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red\, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power—police\, guns\, jails\, spies\, treachery—in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously\, they can put an end to the need for terror\, perhaps forever. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. \nSlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)\nSlaughterhouse Five follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim\, from his early years\, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II\, to the post-war years\, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The time travel returns to the fire-bombing of Dresden\, which was a firebombing by the British and Americans incinerating about 25\,000. Vonnegut’s novel has been called an example of “unmatched moral clarity” and “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”. Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden during this bombing. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/never-ending-war-novels-on-conflict-resistance-and-resilience/2022-04-07/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Anti-capitalist art,Art and politics,Classes/Events,Cultural Resistance,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction,War Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BombFactory.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220331T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220331T210000
DTSTAMP:20220318T234224Z
CREATED:20220129T034642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T234224Z
UID:10007052-1648753200-1648760400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict\, Resistance and Resilience
DESCRIPTION:with The MEP Literature Studies Group (five more weeks)\n“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people\, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things\, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman \nThe Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment. \n  \nColonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac (originally published in 1832)\nOne of the shorter\, but also prescient novels of Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” (La Comédie Humaine)\, Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system\, founded on honor and military valor and that of the Restoration\, through the story of a returning soldier who is literally dead to the world. The discussion of this has concluded. \nAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018)\nAlfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who\, never before having left his village\, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War One. Peppered with bullets and magic\, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of the “Great War’\, as WWI was known until the next world war. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty\, day-to-day\, journalistic horror of life in the trenches\, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a descent into complete madness The discussion of this has concluded. \nThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue (2020)\nDublin\, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work\, risk\, death and unlooked-for love. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease\, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center—the ward where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined. \nConquered City by Victor Serge (1932)\n1919-1920: St. Petersburg\, city of the czars\, has fallen to the Revolution. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red\, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power—police\, guns\, jails\, spies\, treachery—in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously\, they can put an end to the need for terror\, perhaps forever. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. \nSlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)\nSlaughterhouse Five follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim\, from his early years\, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II\, to the post-war years\, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The time travel returns to the fire-bombing of Dresden\, which was a firebombing by the British and Americans incinerating about 25\,000. Vonnegut’s novel has been called an example of “unmatched moral clarity” and “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”. Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden during this bombing. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/never-ending-war-novels-on-conflict-resistance-and-resilience/2022-03-31/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Anti-capitalist art,Art and politics,Classes/Events,Cultural Resistance,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction,War Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BombFactory.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220324T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220324T210000
DTSTAMP:20220318T234224Z
CREATED:20220129T034642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T234224Z
UID:10007051-1648148400-1648155600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict\, Resistance and Resilience
DESCRIPTION:with The MEP Literature Studies Group (five more weeks)\n“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people\, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things\, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman \nThe Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment. \n  \nColonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac (originally published in 1832)\nOne of the shorter\, but also prescient novels of Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” (La Comédie Humaine)\, Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system\, founded on honor and military valor and that of the Restoration\, through the story of a returning soldier who is literally dead to the world. The discussion of this has concluded. \nAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018)\nAlfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who\, never before having left his village\, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War One. Peppered with bullets and magic\, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of the “Great War’\, as WWI was known until the next world war. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty\, day-to-day\, journalistic horror of life in the trenches\, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a descent into complete madness The discussion of this has concluded. \nThe Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue (2020)\nDublin\, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work\, risk\, death and unlooked-for love. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease\, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center—the ward where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined. \nConquered City by Victor Serge (1932)\n1919-1920: St. Petersburg\, city of the czars\, has fallen to the Revolution. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red\, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power—police\, guns\, jails\, spies\, treachery—in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously\, they can put an end to the need for terror\, perhaps forever. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. \nSlaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)\nSlaughterhouse Five follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim\, from his early years\, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II\, to the post-war years\, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The time travel returns to the fire-bombing of Dresden\, which was a firebombing by the British and Americans incinerating about 25\,000. Vonnegut’s novel has been called an example of “unmatched moral clarity” and “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”. Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden during this bombing. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/never-ending-war-novels-on-conflict-resistance-and-resilience/2022-03-24/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Anti-capitalist art,Art and politics,Classes/Events,Cultural Resistance,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction,War Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BombFactory.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20220312T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20220312T160000
DTSTAMP:20220208T050236Z
CREATED:20220124T033558Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220208T050236Z
UID:10007049-1647093600-1647100800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Insurrecto with author Gina Apostol in conversation with Patricia McManus
DESCRIPTION:“Of course\, as opposed to the colonizer\, the world of the colonized is visibly and thus irreparably multiple – because included in the world of the colonized is the world of the colonizer.”. —How Do We Know the Things That Make Us?\, An essay from Gina Apostol \nGina Apostol’s Insurrecto is a harrowing depiction of the nearly 125-year history of U.S. intervention\, occupation\, and domination in the Philippines. Through a compelling historical\, cultural\, post-modernist journey\, the author recounts the U.S. hold on the Philippines\, as told by Magsalin\, a Filipina translator and screenwriter\, and Chiara\, an American filmmaker. The U.S.-made merry-go-round of dictators has circled around Manila and the 7\,000-plus islands of the Philippines since the 1901 massacre at Balangiga—the slaughter of more than 2\,500 Filipinos in retaliation for 40 American soldiers killed in a raid by local national liberationists. When President Theodore Roosevelt issued a command to pacify the Philippines after the raid was reported to him\, the local U.S. general issued the following command:  “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn\, the better it will please me… The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness.” From that point on he was known as “Howling Wilderness” Smith. Insurrecto spans the decades from the moment of the massacre to the current Duterte regime\, with much between—a fractured story of torture and misrepresentation over many years of U.S. and western hegemony. \nPlease join Gina Apostol and  Patricia McManus for an evening of discovery as they discuss the inspiration\, writing\, and more of this astonishing novel (published by Soho Press). \nGINA APOSTOL’s third book\, Gun Dealers’ Daughter\, won the2013 PEN/Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize. Her first two novels\, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata\, both won the Juan Laya Prize for the Novel (Philippine National Book Award). She was a fellow at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria\, Italy\, among other fellowships. Her essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times\, Los Angeles Review of Books\, Foreign Policy\, Gettysburg Review\, Massachusetts Review\, and others. She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts and grew up in Tacloban\, Philippines. She teaches at the Fieldston School in New York City. \nPATRICIA McMANUS is a Senior Lecturer\, School of Humanities at University of Brighton. She is the founder of the Dystopia Project. Her research interests are the novel—in particular the problems involved in understanding genre as a productive force in literary history—and Marxism as a methodology for utopianism.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/insurrecto/
LOCATION:United States
CATEGORIES:American Imperialism,American Literature,Anti-fascism,Asia,Classes/Events,Colonialism,Critical Theory,Cultural Resistance,Globalization,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/InsurrectoBanner.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211216T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211216T210000
DTSTAMP:20211217T004137Z
CREATED:20210815T181117Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211217T004137Z
UID:10006992-1639681200-1639688400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write on the Verge of Historical Change: Last session
DESCRIPTION:convened with the Literature Group of The MEP \nLast session with Insurrecto by Gina Apostol\nHistorical change\, not historical fiction! We believe that reading well-wrought literature allows us to understand the undercurrents of history in unique and challenging ways. During this term\, the MEP Literature Studies Group will read novels by women writers which explore the intersections of life in their communities\, both at home and in the metropoles of Europe\, India and the Philippines. These stories will take us to places and introduce us to people facing many of the dilemmas posed during late-stage capitalism\, when the looming tipping points begin to collide. Reading and discussing these important writers could very well bring us to a broader sense of time and place. \nTHE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING • Beryl Bainbridge • 1973 / As dark and doomful as it is hilarious\, Beryl Bainbridge’s Booker Prize-nominated novel follows Freda and Brenda\, two unlucky-in-love bedsit-mates working in a wine-bottling factory in London\, who find that their lives change forever after a team outing. Bainbridge based the novel on a miserable warehouse job she held in the late fifties\, which came with the added ‘perk’ of an unlimited wine allowance. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nTHE INHERITANCE OF LOSS • Kiran Desai • 2006 / The main themes are migration\, living between two worlds\, as well as living between the past and present. The story centers around the lives of Biju and Sai. Biju is an Indian living in the United States illegally\, son of a cook who works for Sai’s grandfather. Sai is an orphan living in mountainous Kalimpong with her maternal grandfather Jemubhai Patel; the cook; and a dog named Mutt. Biju\, the other character is an illegal alien residing in the United States\, trying to make a new life for himself\, and contrasts this with the experiences of Sai\, an anglicized Indian girl living with her grandfather in India. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nHAPPINESS • Aminatta Forna • 2018 / Waterloo Bridge\, London. Two strangers collide. Attila\, a Ghanaian psychiatrist\, and Jean\, an American studying the habits of urban foxes. From this chance encounter in the midst of the rush of a great city\, numerous moments of connections span out and interweave\, bringing disparate lives together. Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma and to check up on the daughter of friends\, his ‘niece\,’ Ama\, who hasn’t called home in a while. It soon emerges that she has been swept up in an immigration crackdown—and now her young son Tano is missing. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nINSURRECTO • Gina Apostol • 2018 / This novel’s structure reflects how history comes at us in scattered shards\, the way voices are amplified or silenced\, story lines invented or forgotten. “We enter others’ lives through two mediums\, words and time\, both faulty\,” one character observes. But a third medium — image — is a powerful recurring motif. Apostol is obsessed with the lens\, the gaze\, the way victim and victor\, good and evil are identified based on who holds the camera and who consumes its product. Apostol pushes up against the limits of fiction in order to recover the atrocity in Balangiga\, and in so doing\, she shows us the dark heart of an untold and forgotten war that would shape the next century of the Philippines and in the United States. \nInspired by a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States – and her recommendation we also read Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead – The MEP LITERATURE GROUP  has been meeting since the first days of The Marxist Education Project in 2014. Each session\, the Literature Group takes a thematic\, historical\, and political approach to the selections\, which have included in-depth reading of Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings\, Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years\, followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow\, as well as groups focused on World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, novels on migration\, border politics\, and labor organizing\, Brecht plays\, African novels from the continent\, and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism. The group is now completing a fifth summer immersed in noir fiction\, which will resume with a sixth summer noir series next year.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-on-the-verge-of-historical-change/2021-12-16/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Anti-colonialism,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,historical materialism,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WomenEmergeAndVerge_PortraitsSM.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211212T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211212T123000
DTSTAMP:20211129T201315Z
CREATED:20211128T163815Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211129T201315Z
UID:10007024-1639305000-1639312200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Disputing the Deluge with Darko Suvin joined by Editor Hugh O’Connell and special guests
DESCRIPTION:Collected 21st-Century Writings on Utopia\, Narration\, and Survival by DARKO SUVIN\nwith Editor HUGH O’CONNELL\nwith guests Marc Angenot\, Gerry Canavan\, Patricia McManus\, & Eric D. Smith\n“Everything in here is of note\, from the essays early in this century on fascism and on fantasy to the most recent pieces on the enduring importance of communism; the growing danger of anti-utopian discourse; and especially the totalizing environmental\, economic\, political\, and cultural terror and destruction brought on by the systemic operations of the Capitalocene.” —Tom Moylan\, Glucksman Professor Emeritus at the University of Limerick\, Ireland\, and author of Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation (Bloomsbury\, 2020) \nFor over 50 years\, Darko Suvin has set the agenda for science fiction studies through his innovative linking of science fiction to utopian studies\, formalist and leftist critical theory\, and his broader engagement with what he terms “political epistemology.” Disputing the Deluge joins a rapidly growing renewal of critical interest in Suvin’s work on science fiction and utopianism by bringing together in a single volume 29 of Suvin’s most significant interventions in the field from the 21st century\, with an Introduction by editor Hugh O’Connell and a new preface by the author. \nBeginning with writings from the early 2000s that investigate the function of literary genres and reconsider the relationship between science fiction and fantasy\, the essays collected here—each a brilliant example of engaged thought—highlight the value of science fiction for grappling with the key events and transformations of recent years. Suvin’s interrogations show how speculative fiction has responded to 9/11\, the global war on terror\, the 2008economic collapse\, and the rise of conservative populism\, along with contemporary critical utopian analyses of the Capitalocene\, the climate crisis\,COVID19\, and the decline of democracy. By bringing together Suvin’s essays  all in one place\, this collection allows new generations of students and scholars to engage directly with his work and its continuing importance and timeliness. \nDarko Suvin is Emeritus Professor of English at McGill University\, Canada\, and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada\, Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences\, since 1986. Darko has authored 25 books\, including the foundational study in science fiction Metamorphoses  of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre(1979\, 2016)\, Victorian Science Fiction in the U. K.: The Discourses of Knowledge and of Power (1983)\, Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction (1988)\, and In Leviathan’s Belly: Essays for a Counter-Revolutionary Time (2012). \nHugh C. O’Connell is Assistant Professor of English at University of Massachusetts-Boston\, USA. He is editor of Legacies of Blade Runner\, special issue of Science Fiction Film and Television (2020; with Sarah Hamblin); Speculative Finance/Speculative Fiction\, and a special issue of CR: The New Centennial Review (2019; with David M. Higgins). \nMarc Angenot\, FRSC\, a professor in McGill’s French Language and Literature Department for over forty years\, has been awarded the Prix du Québec Léon-Gérin for his outstanding contributions to the social sciences. He is world-renowned for his research and is widely considered the founder of Social Discourse Theory. His vast body of work encompasses intellectual history\, linguistics\, politics\, semiotics\, rhetoric and informal logic\, as well as literary theory. Among his critically acclaimed works are Le Marxisme dans les grands récits (Paris\, 2005) and Dialogues de sourds (Paris\, 2008). In 2004\, The Yale Journal of Criticism published a special issue titled “Marc Angenot and the Scandals of History”.  Gerry Canavan is co-editor of special issues of American Literature and Polygraph on “speculative fiction” and “ecology and ideology\,” respectively and has edited (with Kim Stanley Robinson) the critical anthology\, Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction\, 2014 and The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction (co-edited with Eric Carl Link\, 2015. Dr\, Patricia McManus is a senior lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Brighton. She is the founder of the Dystopia Project. Her research interests are the novel —in particular the problems involved in understanding genre as a productive force in literary history — and Marxism as a methodology for utopianism. Eric D. Smith. is professor of modern and contemporary British and Anglophone literature at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is the author of Globalization\, Utopia\, and Postcolonial Science Fiction: New Maps of Hope (Pagrave\, 2012) and editor of Darko Suvin’s career-spanning collection Parables of Freedom and Narrative Logics: Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction and Utopianism in the Ralahine Utopian Studies Series (Peter Lang\, 2021).
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/disputing-the-deluge-with-darko-suvin-joined-by-editor-hugh-oconnell-and-special-guests/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Art and politics,Capital Studies,Classes/Events,Climate Change,Critical Theory,Emancipation,Fantasy Fiction,Food and politics,Literary Studies,Marx,Media Criticism,Modernity,Pandemics and Capital,Science and Technology,Science Fiction,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DisputingImageForDec12.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211209T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211209T210000
DTSTAMP:20211217T004137Z
CREATED:20210815T181117Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211217T004137Z
UID:10006991-1639076400-1639083600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write on the Verge of Historical Change: Last session
DESCRIPTION:convened with the Literature Group of The MEP \nLast session with Insurrecto by Gina Apostol\nHistorical change\, not historical fiction! We believe that reading well-wrought literature allows us to understand the undercurrents of history in unique and challenging ways. During this term\, the MEP Literature Studies Group will read novels by women writers which explore the intersections of life in their communities\, both at home and in the metropoles of Europe\, India and the Philippines. These stories will take us to places and introduce us to people facing many of the dilemmas posed during late-stage capitalism\, when the looming tipping points begin to collide. Reading and discussing these important writers could very well bring us to a broader sense of time and place. \nTHE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING • Beryl Bainbridge • 1973 / As dark and doomful as it is hilarious\, Beryl Bainbridge’s Booker Prize-nominated novel follows Freda and Brenda\, two unlucky-in-love bedsit-mates working in a wine-bottling factory in London\, who find that their lives change forever after a team outing. Bainbridge based the novel on a miserable warehouse job she held in the late fifties\, which came with the added ‘perk’ of an unlimited wine allowance. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nTHE INHERITANCE OF LOSS • Kiran Desai • 2006 / The main themes are migration\, living between two worlds\, as well as living between the past and present. The story centers around the lives of Biju and Sai. Biju is an Indian living in the United States illegally\, son of a cook who works for Sai’s grandfather. Sai is an orphan living in mountainous Kalimpong with her maternal grandfather Jemubhai Patel; the cook; and a dog named Mutt. Biju\, the other character is an illegal alien residing in the United States\, trying to make a new life for himself\, and contrasts this with the experiences of Sai\, an anglicized Indian girl living with her grandfather in India. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nHAPPINESS • Aminatta Forna • 2018 / Waterloo Bridge\, London. Two strangers collide. Attila\, a Ghanaian psychiatrist\, and Jean\, an American studying the habits of urban foxes. From this chance encounter in the midst of the rush of a great city\, numerous moments of connections span out and interweave\, bringing disparate lives together. Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma and to check up on the daughter of friends\, his ‘niece\,’ Ama\, who hasn’t called home in a while. It soon emerges that she has been swept up in an immigration crackdown—and now her young son Tano is missing. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nINSURRECTO • Gina Apostol • 2018 / This novel’s structure reflects how history comes at us in scattered shards\, the way voices are amplified or silenced\, story lines invented or forgotten. “We enter others’ lives through two mediums\, words and time\, both faulty\,” one character observes. But a third medium — image — is a powerful recurring motif. Apostol is obsessed with the lens\, the gaze\, the way victim and victor\, good and evil are identified based on who holds the camera and who consumes its product. Apostol pushes up against the limits of fiction in order to recover the atrocity in Balangiga\, and in so doing\, she shows us the dark heart of an untold and forgotten war that would shape the next century of the Philippines and in the United States. \nInspired by a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States – and her recommendation we also read Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead – The MEP LITERATURE GROUP  has been meeting since the first days of The Marxist Education Project in 2014. Each session\, the Literature Group takes a thematic\, historical\, and political approach to the selections\, which have included in-depth reading of Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings\, Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years\, followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow\, as well as groups focused on World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, novels on migration\, border politics\, and labor organizing\, Brecht plays\, African novels from the continent\, and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism. The group is now completing a fifth summer immersed in noir fiction\, which will resume with a sixth summer noir series next year.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-on-the-verge-of-historical-change/2021-12-09/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Anti-colonialism,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,historical materialism,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WomenEmergeAndVerge_PortraitsSM.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211202T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211202T210000
DTSTAMP:20211217T004137Z
CREATED:20210815T181117Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211217T004137Z
UID:10006990-1638471600-1638478800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write on the Verge of Historical Change: Last session
DESCRIPTION:convened with the Literature Group of The MEP \nLast session with Insurrecto by Gina Apostol\nHistorical change\, not historical fiction! We believe that reading well-wrought literature allows us to understand the undercurrents of history in unique and challenging ways. During this term\, the MEP Literature Studies Group will read novels by women writers which explore the intersections of life in their communities\, both at home and in the metropoles of Europe\, India and the Philippines. These stories will take us to places and introduce us to people facing many of the dilemmas posed during late-stage capitalism\, when the looming tipping points begin to collide. Reading and discussing these important writers could very well bring us to a broader sense of time and place. \nTHE BOTTLE FACTORY OUTING • Beryl Bainbridge • 1973 / As dark and doomful as it is hilarious\, Beryl Bainbridge’s Booker Prize-nominated novel follows Freda and Brenda\, two unlucky-in-love bedsit-mates working in a wine-bottling factory in London\, who find that their lives change forever after a team outing. Bainbridge based the novel on a miserable warehouse job she held in the late fifties\, which came with the added ‘perk’ of an unlimited wine allowance. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nTHE INHERITANCE OF LOSS • Kiran Desai • 2006 / The main themes are migration\, living between two worlds\, as well as living between the past and present. The story centers around the lives of Biju and Sai. Biju is an Indian living in the United States illegally\, son of a cook who works for Sai’s grandfather. Sai is an orphan living in mountainous Kalimpong with her maternal grandfather Jemubhai Patel; the cook; and a dog named Mutt. Biju\, the other character is an illegal alien residing in the United States\, trying to make a new life for himself\, and contrasts this with the experiences of Sai\, an anglicized Indian girl living with her grandfather in India. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nHAPPINESS • Aminatta Forna • 2018 / Waterloo Bridge\, London. Two strangers collide. Attila\, a Ghanaian psychiatrist\, and Jean\, an American studying the habits of urban foxes. From this chance encounter in the midst of the rush of a great city\, numerous moments of connections span out and interweave\, bringing disparate lives together. Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma and to check up on the daughter of friends\, his ‘niece\,’ Ama\, who hasn’t called home in a while. It soon emerges that she has been swept up in an immigration crackdown—and now her young son Tano is missing. We have completed our discussion of this book. \nINSURRECTO • Gina Apostol • 2018 / This novel’s structure reflects how history comes at us in scattered shards\, the way voices are amplified or silenced\, story lines invented or forgotten. “We enter others’ lives through two mediums\, words and time\, both faulty\,” one character observes. But a third medium — image — is a powerful recurring motif. Apostol is obsessed with the lens\, the gaze\, the way victim and victor\, good and evil are identified based on who holds the camera and who consumes its product. Apostol pushes up against the limits of fiction in order to recover the atrocity in Balangiga\, and in so doing\, she shows us the dark heart of an untold and forgotten war that would shape the next century of the Philippines and in the United States. \nInspired by a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States – and her recommendation we also read Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead – The MEP LITERATURE GROUP  has been meeting since the first days of The Marxist Education Project in 2014. Each session\, the Literature Group takes a thematic\, historical\, and political approach to the selections\, which have included in-depth reading of Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings\, Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years\, followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow\, as well as groups focused on World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, novels on migration\, border politics\, and labor organizing\, Brecht plays\, African novels from the continent\, and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism. The group is now completing a fifth summer immersed in noir fiction\, which will resume with a sixth summer noir series next year.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-on-the-verge-of-historical-change/2021-12-02/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Anti-colonialism,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,historical materialism,Literary Studies,Radical Literature,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WomenEmergeAndVerge_PortraitsSM.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211126T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211126T123000
DTSTAMP:20211114T003916Z
CREATED:20211114T003856Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211114T003916Z
UID:10007020-1637922600-1637929800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Brecht’s Communist Manifesto Today!
DESCRIPTION:Poetry\, Utopia\, Doctrine\n \nDarko Suvin with Pratyush Chandra\, Bill Henning\, Javeed Malik & Neeraj Malick\, and Christopher Winks\n“Poetry and communism: forms for emancipatory egalitarian longing. As vectors of desire\, they intertwine frustration and hope\, utopia and organization\, bread and roses. They call us to attend to the past\, not just to survive\, but to establish again the revolutionary horizon we need to live. Communism and poetry: Darko Suvin shows us how they are the same.”     —Jodi Dean\, author of Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging \nA POEM • WHAT EXISTENTIAL ANTI-UTOPIA MEANS FOR US • BERTOLT BRECHT: (THE MANIFESTO) •  COMMENTS ON BRECHT’S MANIFESTO •  WHAT IS TO BE DONE? \nIn place of the old bourgeois society\, with its classes and class antagonisms\, we shall have an association\, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” —1848 Communist Manifesto\, Marx and Engels.\nCome join in a celebration and reclamation of the challenge Marx and Engels gave humanity in the original 1848 Communist Manifesto\, reclaimed and rewritten anew in poetry by Bertolt Brecht in the 20th century. Thanks to Darko Suvin\, poet and revolutionary intellectual\, Brecht’s unpublished work has been translated into English and is here\, ready to be appropriated by us of the 21st century. The Marxist Education Project is proud to present a reading and discussion of Brecht’s work and its meaning for us at a time when all of humanity\, our earth\, and all life as we know it is threatened by the moribund laws of self-seeking capitalist private property. Brecht premises his poem on the practical reality\, only fully in place after WWII\, of a globalized capitalized world. Marx understood that capitalist relations would globalize our societies and earth and saw this taking place\, but during his lifetime this had not yet been fully achieved. Now\, having occupied our earth\, today\, the Bezos and company are exploring the possibilities of extending their private interests into our universe all for their personal aggrandizement and under the dictates of money making more money\, accumulation for the sake of accumulation. Our guest speakers and discussants will explore the relations of poetry\, the meaning of utopia and anti-utopia\, and doctrine as we re-envision the emancipatory project and the necessity of self-consciously identifying the difficult tasks of transitioning specific to our particular country’s development while always in relation to and for the mutual development of each and all. Interestingly\, Brecht closes his Manifesto replying to Marx and Engels closing line in their Manifesto\, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win\,” by answering\, “How may the workers break their own class chains? Only by breaking everybody’s chains.” Marx once said that there are historical moments when the working class must gain class-consciousness and become historical subjects. We are at just such a historical moment. \nAre we up to the task? \n  \n  \nThis event is sliding scale: $23 for those who can afford front row orchestra seating / $3 General Admission a / $0 General Admission b \nWith registration a link for the event will be provided in time for attending this event.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/brechts-communist-manifesto-today/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Art and politics,Capital Studies,Capital vs. Labor,Classes/Events,Covid and Capital,Emancipation,Globalization,historical materialism,Literary Studies,Marx,Marx's Capital,Marxist Method,Revolutions Study Group,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DasManifestTriptych.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="The Revolutions Study Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211116T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211116T193000
DTSTAMP:20211112T023155Z
CREATED:20210812T210619Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211112T023155Z
UID:10006989-1637083800-1637091000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity\, Fall session
DESCRIPTION:An eight week series featuring visual and oral presentations along with discussions each week. Please note that this will be on Tuesdays\, not Fridays. TWO MORE WEEKS \nConvened by Thomas Wensing\nIn the year 1877\, the signals were given for the rest of the century; the black would be put back; the strikes of white workers would not be tolerated; the industrial and political elites of North and South would take hold of the country and organize the greatest march of economic growth in human history. They would do it with the aid of\, and at the expense of\, black labor\, white labor\, Chinese labor\, European immigrant labor\, female labor\, rewarding them differently by race\, sex\, national origin\, and social class\, in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression – a skillful terracing to stabilize the pyramid of wealth”[1] \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. In the previous course we saw how the idea of modernity originated in eighteenth-century Western Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. In this course we explore how modernity is not only an expression of the constellation of forces that builds modern societies\, but from the onset has been an exclusionary project along racial\, gender and class lines. \nEurope produced\, in the words of Stuart Hall\, a cultural identity which portrayed Europe as a distinct\, unique and triumphant civilization[2]. The construction of otherness within the dominant European culture itself\, and in relation to the exploration and conquest of the Americas\, formed the pretext for native displacement and genocide\, environmental exploitation and extractivism\, oppression and slavery. These discourses of “self” and “otherness” are\, of course\, inextricably interwoven with the history of New York City\, and have always been contested. \nThis semester turns to the late 19th and 20th century and focuses on the way in which the building of New York City took place in an arena of contesting political\, cultural and economic forces; that of the dominant\, patriarchal\, Anglo-Saxon\, male\, capitalist culture on one side\, and that of the excluded social groups on the other. We will look at various groups\, whether it be socialist\, communist\, feminist\, black\, or queer\, which questioned the ‘centeredness’ of the West\, – and the structures of oppression it built -\, and which thus argued for the project of Reason and liberal democracy to be expanded and fulfil its promise. \nWriters and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at these groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends. [3] The participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, – either historical\, architectural\, sociological\, or drawn from literary studies -\, and one from fiction or biography. Two points of view are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. \nWeekly Lectures and Bibliography: \nEach week consists of readings\, one lecture class and one group discussion\, preceded by a 20-minute introduction on the topic. \n[1] Zinn\, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present. New York\, NY: HarperCollins\, 2008\, p.253. \n[2] Hall\, Stuart. “Introduction.” Essay. In Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies\, edited by Stuart Hall\, David Held\, Don Hubert\, and Kenneth Thompson\, 7. Malden\, Mass: Blackwell\, 2011. \n[3] I refer here to Berman\, Marshall\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \n  \nEach week consists of readings\, one lecture class and one group discussion\, preceded by a 20-minute introduction on the topic. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-fall-session/2021-11-16/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Financialization,Hegemony,historical materialism,Housing,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Migration,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks,Working Class History
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/JohnVachon_Harlem1949.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210909T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210909T210000
DTSTAMP:20210904T213943Z
CREATED:20210520T055647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210904T213943Z
UID:10006948-1631214000-1631221200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Fifth Summer of Noir: Last session this week (Derek Raymond and Denise Mina)
DESCRIPTION:with The Marxist Education Project Literature Studies Group\n“As Georges Bataille tells us\, there is a profound link between literature and evil. If writing and reading are transgressive acts\, or crimes\, which unmask deep philosophical truths about us and our world\, then what does crime fiction — a genre focused on those transgressions — reveal? Scholars from Dennis Porter to Ernest Mandel argue that the crime genre is also distinctly social\, even political\, and revealing about mainstream ideology\, power\, and control.”           —Russell Williams\, “The Serie Noire and Social Intervention”\, LA Review of Books\, July 27\, 2015 \nFor the last four summers\, the MEP Literature Studies Group has delved into a wealth of noir fiction. This year our six selections will take us deep into the underbelly of capitalism – good for reading at the beach\, on the subway\, a train\, boat or plane\, or in your favorite reading chair safely at home. \nWe have completed our discussions of Drive\, Clark Gifford’s Body\, Dread Journey\, Black Wings Has My Angel and How the Dead Live. \n \nSEPTEMBER 9 • THE LESS DEAD by DENISE MINA\nA story of daughters and mothers\, secrets and choices\, and how the search for the truth—and a long-hidden killer—will lead one woman to find herself. 336 pages \nDenise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia “Paddy” Meehan\, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir\, she has also dabbled in comic book writing\, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer. \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/pandemic-summer-noir/2021-09-09/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Radical Literature,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SummerNoirStopsign2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210902T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210902T210000
DTSTAMP:20210904T213943Z
CREATED:20210520T055647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210904T213943Z
UID:10006947-1630609200-1630616400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Fifth Summer of Noir: Last session this week (Derek Raymond and Denise Mina)
DESCRIPTION:with The Marxist Education Project Literature Studies Group\n“As Georges Bataille tells us\, there is a profound link between literature and evil. If writing and reading are transgressive acts\, or crimes\, which unmask deep philosophical truths about us and our world\, then what does crime fiction — a genre focused on those transgressions — reveal? Scholars from Dennis Porter to Ernest Mandel argue that the crime genre is also distinctly social\, even political\, and revealing about mainstream ideology\, power\, and control.”           —Russell Williams\, “The Serie Noire and Social Intervention”\, LA Review of Books\, July 27\, 2015 \nFor the last four summers\, the MEP Literature Studies Group has delved into a wealth of noir fiction. This year our six selections will take us deep into the underbelly of capitalism – good for reading at the beach\, on the subway\, a train\, boat or plane\, or in your favorite reading chair safely at home. \nWe have completed our discussions of Drive\, Clark Gifford’s Body\, Dread Journey\, Black Wings Has My Angel and How the Dead Live. \n \nSEPTEMBER 9 • THE LESS DEAD by DENISE MINA\nA story of daughters and mothers\, secrets and choices\, and how the search for the truth—and a long-hidden killer—will lead one woman to find herself. 336 pages \nDenise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia “Paddy” Meehan\, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir\, she has also dabbled in comic book writing\, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer. \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/pandemic-summer-noir/2021-09-02/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Radical Literature,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SummerNoirStopsign2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210826T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210826T210000
DTSTAMP:20210904T213943Z
CREATED:20210520T055647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210904T213943Z
UID:10006946-1630004400-1630011600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Fifth Summer of Noir: Last session this week (Derek Raymond and Denise Mina)
DESCRIPTION:with The Marxist Education Project Literature Studies Group\n“As Georges Bataille tells us\, there is a profound link between literature and evil. If writing and reading are transgressive acts\, or crimes\, which unmask deep philosophical truths about us and our world\, then what does crime fiction — a genre focused on those transgressions — reveal? Scholars from Dennis Porter to Ernest Mandel argue that the crime genre is also distinctly social\, even political\, and revealing about mainstream ideology\, power\, and control.”           —Russell Williams\, “The Serie Noire and Social Intervention”\, LA Review of Books\, July 27\, 2015 \nFor the last four summers\, the MEP Literature Studies Group has delved into a wealth of noir fiction. This year our six selections will take us deep into the underbelly of capitalism – good for reading at the beach\, on the subway\, a train\, boat or plane\, or in your favorite reading chair safely at home. \nWe have completed our discussions of Drive\, Clark Gifford’s Body\, Dread Journey\, Black Wings Has My Angel and How the Dead Live. \n \nSEPTEMBER 9 • THE LESS DEAD by DENISE MINA\nA story of daughters and mothers\, secrets and choices\, and how the search for the truth—and a long-hidden killer—will lead one woman to find herself. 336 pages \nDenise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia “Paddy” Meehan\, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir\, she has also dabbled in comic book writing\, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer. \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/pandemic-summer-noir/2021-08-26/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Radical Literature,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SummerNoirStopsign2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210819T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210819T210000
DTSTAMP:20210904T213943Z
CREATED:20210520T055647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210904T213943Z
UID:10006945-1629399600-1629406800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Fifth Summer of Noir: Last session this week (Derek Raymond and Denise Mina)
DESCRIPTION:with The Marxist Education Project Literature Studies Group\n“As Georges Bataille tells us\, there is a profound link between literature and evil. If writing and reading are transgressive acts\, or crimes\, which unmask deep philosophical truths about us and our world\, then what does crime fiction — a genre focused on those transgressions — reveal? Scholars from Dennis Porter to Ernest Mandel argue that the crime genre is also distinctly social\, even political\, and revealing about mainstream ideology\, power\, and control.”           —Russell Williams\, “The Serie Noire and Social Intervention”\, LA Review of Books\, July 27\, 2015 \nFor the last four summers\, the MEP Literature Studies Group has delved into a wealth of noir fiction. This year our six selections will take us deep into the underbelly of capitalism – good for reading at the beach\, on the subway\, a train\, boat or plane\, or in your favorite reading chair safely at home. \nWe have completed our discussions of Drive\, Clark Gifford’s Body\, Dread Journey\, Black Wings Has My Angel and How the Dead Live. \n \nSEPTEMBER 9 • THE LESS DEAD by DENISE MINA\nA story of daughters and mothers\, secrets and choices\, and how the search for the truth—and a long-hidden killer—will lead one woman to find herself. 336 pages \nDenise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia “Paddy” Meehan\, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir\, she has also dabbled in comic book writing\, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer. \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/pandemic-summer-noir/2021-08-19/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Radical Literature,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SummerNoirStopsign2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210718T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210718T190000
DTSTAMP:20210626T155826Z
CREATED:20210626T155826Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210626T155826Z
UID:10006975-1626627600-1626634800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Darko Suvin: Communism\, Poetry\, Comradeship—a celebratory reading and discussion
DESCRIPTION:Come to celebrate the beginning of Darko Suvin’s 91st year of comradeship. \nA poem from 1993—one of many you can find with much more of Darko’s writing along with many decades of many poems per decade at darkosuvin.com \nSummer\, On a Hill\nFor Marc\nI took the best roads I could\nThe choices got funnelled ever tighter\nFinally I’m here\, this heavy Summer\nNo other paths led to wider horizons\nSo much is clear now to the future historians\nI pick up the sutras & Sam of the Stoa\nAlas! we’re back at where they speak to us:\nwith regret I reread the clarions of Karl & bearings of Bert\nThey sound like beautiful childhood tales of Tahiti\nA mantis the hue of withered grass for haying\nSwings its sickles\, maybe for me.\n1993 \nDarko Suvin will appear on the eve of his 91st birthday via an international video conference presented by The Marxist Education Project\, in celebration of a life of communism\, poetry\, comradeship and all that goes into a life well-known for commitment to all of this and more. \nReadings and discussion: A selection of poems from Darko’s more than 40 years of writing   poetry along with sharing memoirs of many more years of vigorous engagement while active in the multiple forms of struggle for communism from continents the world over that Darko has called home\, will all be part of this mid-summer celebration a life of comradeship. \nDarko’s website (listed above) has many levels\, from which a rich biography will emerge. \nAll events are sliding scale. No one is denied admission for inability to pay. Please write to info@marxedproject.org for obtaining a zoom url for participating on July 18. \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/darko-suvin-communism-poetry-comradeship-a-celebratory-reading-and-discussion/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class,Classes/Events,Climate Change,Ecosocialism,historical materialism,Insurgency,Literary Studies,Marx,Marxisms,Poetry,Political Economy,Seminars and Talks,Socialism,Solidarity,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/BannerDark_July18.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210617T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210617T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006901-1623956400-1623963600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Matters of State: Literature & Espionage
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Reading Group takes on three more spy novels\n \nWhy Spy Novels? \nSpy novels emerged as a distinct genre around the time of World War I\, coinciding with the creation of formal intelligence agencies in many countries. This was a period characterized by heightened concern on the part of rulers about national security\, imperial strength\, and the impending conflict of the Great War. Spy novels from the early twentieth century reflect these concerns\, and generally feature secret agents and seemingly realistic tales of international intrigue. With the rise of fascism\, spy novels shifted their focus to examine the dynamics of political movements within individual states\, assessing their threats to the stability of the international political order. In these stories\, the anxiety over the powerlessness of the individual is assuaged by the resourcefulness and ultimate success of exceptional or lucky individuals in confronting such harrowing problems as war\, nuclear proliferation\, and terrorism. The verisimilitude of spy novels written in the twentieth century is an integral part of the genre’s popularity; the genre often reflects political\, economic\, and cultural anxieties as well as showcasing advances in surveillance technology. You will see reference to The Human Factor by Graham Greene below. The group has read and discussed this novel during April. \nTHE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) • GRAHAM GREENE Greene aimed with this book to write a novel of espionage free from the violence that is more typical of the genre. Another theme Greene explored was  Western capital’s hypocritical relations with South Africa under apartheid. He thought that even though some Western capitalists would often publicly oppose apartheid\, those same holders of capital “simply could not let South Africa succumb to black power and (or) communism.” \nA MAP OF BETRAYAL (2014) • HA JIN The protagonists of this novel occupy the “treacherous territory” of margins. Jin’s master spy is no 007 or George Smiley. What distinguishes Gary is his ordinariness\, “his simple\, casual fashion of conducting espionage.” A spare\, haunting tale of conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. \nTHE SYMPATHIZER (2015) • VIET THANH NGUYEN The anonymous narrator has an “acrobatic ability” that guides the reader through the contradictions of the Vietnam War and American identity. Set as a flashback in the coerced confession of a double agent\, the book’s half-Vietnamese\, half-French narrator recounts the fall of the US-allied South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events as its top officials flee to American exile in Los Angeles. \nAMERICAN SPY (2018) • LAUREN WILKINSON It’s 1986\, the tail end of the Cold War\, and Marie Mitchell has been tasked by the FBI with undermining Thomas Sankara\, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose communism has made him an American intervention target. The CIA wants Marie to ascertain how much Sankara knows about America’s involvement in his opposition\, and possibly seduce him — Marie has misgivings\, doubting the CIA’s motives\, but accepts the job anyway. She doesn’t expect\, however\, to be won over by the revolutionary politician: “The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was even more perfect than the version you saw of yourself.” \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/matters-of-state-literature-espionage/2021-06-17/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,China,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Radical Literature
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LockNKey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210611T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210611T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006933-1623432600-1623439800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity
DESCRIPTION:with Thomas Wensing\n2 MORE SESSIONS\nMr. Perry flicked at the burdock leaves with his cane. The real-estate agent was pleading in a singsong voice:\n“I dont mind telling you\, Mr. Perry\, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. […] In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value.”\n— Dos Passos\, John; Manhattan Transfer\, Penguin Books\, Inc New York\, 1925\, first penguin books edition 1946\, p.11-12 \n \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. \nModernity is a historical force. It is messy. In architecture history modernity is usually narrated as an interplay between the combined forces of the Industrial Revolution and capital\, with social upheaval\, explosive population growth and immigration as its result. The invention of new materials and new technologies stimulated new forms\, structures\, typologies\, and — in the most optimistic accounts — new forms of living. In this formal reading the historian looks at the artefacts produced by these forces as cultural evidence: railway stations\, factories\, powerplants and switching stations\, dams\, canals and railway lines\, skyscrapers\, tenements\, and department stores\, are all comparatively assessed\, but rarely is the subjective experience of these spaces and landscapes considered. \nThe United States traditionally has had a fraught relationship with its cities in both a positive and a negative sense. Urban areas were\, and are\, pictured as alleged dens of vice\, disease\, and social corruption\, while others project utopian aspirations onto the city which are hard to fulfil in the best of circumstances. Even social science\, which intends to accurately describe the effects of economic change on the social fabric\, lacks by nature the discursive framework to communicate the emotive impact of these processes on individual subjects.\n—Walter Siebel; Die Kultur der Stadt\, Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin\, 2015\, 2nd print\, 2016\, p.39-40 Walter Siebel sees literary studies as a necessary complement to the social sciences\, to offer necessary detail to the abstraction of numbers. \nIn this semester the course participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, and one from fiction or biography. Two datasets are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. Writers and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends.\n—Marshall Berman\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \nEach week will consist of a visual presentation\, a related lecture with group discussion. \nThomas Wensing is a Dutch architect who teaches architecture and architectural history at Kean University in NJ. He writes regularly on the intersection of architecture and politics. \n5:30 to 7:30 pm US DST • 10:30 pm to 12:30 am (GMT)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-8-week-session/2021-06-11/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Globalization,historical materialism,Housing,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Modernity,Political Economy,Race and Class,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Modernity3b_Bing.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210610T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210610T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006900-1623351600-1623358800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Matters of State: Literature & Espionage
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Reading Group takes on three more spy novels\n \nWhy Spy Novels? \nSpy novels emerged as a distinct genre around the time of World War I\, coinciding with the creation of formal intelligence agencies in many countries. This was a period characterized by heightened concern on the part of rulers about national security\, imperial strength\, and the impending conflict of the Great War. Spy novels from the early twentieth century reflect these concerns\, and generally feature secret agents and seemingly realistic tales of international intrigue. With the rise of fascism\, spy novels shifted their focus to examine the dynamics of political movements within individual states\, assessing their threats to the stability of the international political order. In these stories\, the anxiety over the powerlessness of the individual is assuaged by the resourcefulness and ultimate success of exceptional or lucky individuals in confronting such harrowing problems as war\, nuclear proliferation\, and terrorism. The verisimilitude of spy novels written in the twentieth century is an integral part of the genre’s popularity; the genre often reflects political\, economic\, and cultural anxieties as well as showcasing advances in surveillance technology. You will see reference to The Human Factor by Graham Greene below. The group has read and discussed this novel during April. \nTHE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) • GRAHAM GREENE Greene aimed with this book to write a novel of espionage free from the violence that is more typical of the genre. Another theme Greene explored was  Western capital’s hypocritical relations with South Africa under apartheid. He thought that even though some Western capitalists would often publicly oppose apartheid\, those same holders of capital “simply could not let South Africa succumb to black power and (or) communism.” \nA MAP OF BETRAYAL (2014) • HA JIN The protagonists of this novel occupy the “treacherous territory” of margins. Jin’s master spy is no 007 or George Smiley. What distinguishes Gary is his ordinariness\, “his simple\, casual fashion of conducting espionage.” A spare\, haunting tale of conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. \nTHE SYMPATHIZER (2015) • VIET THANH NGUYEN The anonymous narrator has an “acrobatic ability” that guides the reader through the contradictions of the Vietnam War and American identity. Set as a flashback in the coerced confession of a double agent\, the book’s half-Vietnamese\, half-French narrator recounts the fall of the US-allied South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events as its top officials flee to American exile in Los Angeles. \nAMERICAN SPY (2018) • LAUREN WILKINSON It’s 1986\, the tail end of the Cold War\, and Marie Mitchell has been tasked by the FBI with undermining Thomas Sankara\, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose communism has made him an American intervention target. The CIA wants Marie to ascertain how much Sankara knows about America’s involvement in his opposition\, and possibly seduce him — Marie has misgivings\, doubting the CIA’s motives\, but accepts the job anyway. She doesn’t expect\, however\, to be won over by the revolutionary politician: “The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was even more perfect than the version you saw of yourself.” \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/matters-of-state-literature-espionage/2021-06-10/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,China,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Radical Literature
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LockNKey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210604T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210604T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006932-1622827800-1622835000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity
DESCRIPTION:with Thomas Wensing\n2 MORE SESSIONS\nMr. Perry flicked at the burdock leaves with his cane. The real-estate agent was pleading in a singsong voice:\n“I dont mind telling you\, Mr. Perry\, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. […] In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value.”\n— Dos Passos\, John; Manhattan Transfer\, Penguin Books\, Inc New York\, 1925\, first penguin books edition 1946\, p.11-12 \n \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. \nModernity is a historical force. It is messy. In architecture history modernity is usually narrated as an interplay between the combined forces of the Industrial Revolution and capital\, with social upheaval\, explosive population growth and immigration as its result. The invention of new materials and new technologies stimulated new forms\, structures\, typologies\, and — in the most optimistic accounts — new forms of living. In this formal reading the historian looks at the artefacts produced by these forces as cultural evidence: railway stations\, factories\, powerplants and switching stations\, dams\, canals and railway lines\, skyscrapers\, tenements\, and department stores\, are all comparatively assessed\, but rarely is the subjective experience of these spaces and landscapes considered. \nThe United States traditionally has had a fraught relationship with its cities in both a positive and a negative sense. Urban areas were\, and are\, pictured as alleged dens of vice\, disease\, and social corruption\, while others project utopian aspirations onto the city which are hard to fulfil in the best of circumstances. Even social science\, which intends to accurately describe the effects of economic change on the social fabric\, lacks by nature the discursive framework to communicate the emotive impact of these processes on individual subjects.\n—Walter Siebel; Die Kultur der Stadt\, Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin\, 2015\, 2nd print\, 2016\, p.39-40 Walter Siebel sees literary studies as a necessary complement to the social sciences\, to offer necessary detail to the abstraction of numbers. \nIn this semester the course participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, and one from fiction or biography. Two datasets are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. Writers and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends.\n—Marshall Berman\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \nEach week will consist of a visual presentation\, a related lecture with group discussion. \nThomas Wensing is a Dutch architect who teaches architecture and architectural history at Kean University in NJ. He writes regularly on the intersection of architecture and politics. \n5:30 to 7:30 pm US DST • 10:30 pm to 12:30 am (GMT)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-8-week-session/2021-06-04/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Globalization,historical materialism,Housing,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Modernity,Political Economy,Race and Class,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Modernity3b_Bing.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210603T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210603T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006899-1622746800-1622754000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Matters of State: Literature & Espionage
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Reading Group takes on three more spy novels\n \nWhy Spy Novels? \nSpy novels emerged as a distinct genre around the time of World War I\, coinciding with the creation of formal intelligence agencies in many countries. This was a period characterized by heightened concern on the part of rulers about national security\, imperial strength\, and the impending conflict of the Great War. Spy novels from the early twentieth century reflect these concerns\, and generally feature secret agents and seemingly realistic tales of international intrigue. With the rise of fascism\, spy novels shifted their focus to examine the dynamics of political movements within individual states\, assessing their threats to the stability of the international political order. In these stories\, the anxiety over the powerlessness of the individual is assuaged by the resourcefulness and ultimate success of exceptional or lucky individuals in confronting such harrowing problems as war\, nuclear proliferation\, and terrorism. The verisimilitude of spy novels written in the twentieth century is an integral part of the genre’s popularity; the genre often reflects political\, economic\, and cultural anxieties as well as showcasing advances in surveillance technology. You will see reference to The Human Factor by Graham Greene below. The group has read and discussed this novel during April. \nTHE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) • GRAHAM GREENE Greene aimed with this book to write a novel of espionage free from the violence that is more typical of the genre. Another theme Greene explored was  Western capital’s hypocritical relations with South Africa under apartheid. He thought that even though some Western capitalists would often publicly oppose apartheid\, those same holders of capital “simply could not let South Africa succumb to black power and (or) communism.” \nA MAP OF BETRAYAL (2014) • HA JIN The protagonists of this novel occupy the “treacherous territory” of margins. Jin’s master spy is no 007 or George Smiley. What distinguishes Gary is his ordinariness\, “his simple\, casual fashion of conducting espionage.” A spare\, haunting tale of conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. \nTHE SYMPATHIZER (2015) • VIET THANH NGUYEN The anonymous narrator has an “acrobatic ability” that guides the reader through the contradictions of the Vietnam War and American identity. Set as a flashback in the coerced confession of a double agent\, the book’s half-Vietnamese\, half-French narrator recounts the fall of the US-allied South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events as its top officials flee to American exile in Los Angeles. \nAMERICAN SPY (2018) • LAUREN WILKINSON It’s 1986\, the tail end of the Cold War\, and Marie Mitchell has been tasked by the FBI with undermining Thomas Sankara\, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose communism has made him an American intervention target. The CIA wants Marie to ascertain how much Sankara knows about America’s involvement in his opposition\, and possibly seduce him — Marie has misgivings\, doubting the CIA’s motives\, but accepts the job anyway. She doesn’t expect\, however\, to be won over by the revolutionary politician: “The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was even more perfect than the version you saw of yourself.” \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/matters-of-state-literature-espionage/2021-06-03/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,China,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Radical Literature
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LockNKey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210528T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210528T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006931-1622223000-1622230200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity
DESCRIPTION:with Thomas Wensing\n2 MORE SESSIONS\nMr. Perry flicked at the burdock leaves with his cane. The real-estate agent was pleading in a singsong voice:\n“I dont mind telling you\, Mr. Perry\, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. […] In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value.”\n— Dos Passos\, John; Manhattan Transfer\, Penguin Books\, Inc New York\, 1925\, first penguin books edition 1946\, p.11-12 \n \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. \nModernity is a historical force. It is messy. In architecture history modernity is usually narrated as an interplay between the combined forces of the Industrial Revolution and capital\, with social upheaval\, explosive population growth and immigration as its result. The invention of new materials and new technologies stimulated new forms\, structures\, typologies\, and — in the most optimistic accounts — new forms of living. In this formal reading the historian looks at the artefacts produced by these forces as cultural evidence: railway stations\, factories\, powerplants and switching stations\, dams\, canals and railway lines\, skyscrapers\, tenements\, and department stores\, are all comparatively assessed\, but rarely is the subjective experience of these spaces and landscapes considered. \nThe United States traditionally has had a fraught relationship with its cities in both a positive and a negative sense. Urban areas were\, and are\, pictured as alleged dens of vice\, disease\, and social corruption\, while others project utopian aspirations onto the city which are hard to fulfil in the best of circumstances. Even social science\, which intends to accurately describe the effects of economic change on the social fabric\, lacks by nature the discursive framework to communicate the emotive impact of these processes on individual subjects.\n—Walter Siebel; Die Kultur der Stadt\, Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin\, 2015\, 2nd print\, 2016\, p.39-40 Walter Siebel sees literary studies as a necessary complement to the social sciences\, to offer necessary detail to the abstraction of numbers. \nIn this semester the course participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, and one from fiction or biography. Two datasets are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. Writers and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends.\n—Marshall Berman\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \nEach week will consist of a visual presentation\, a related lecture with group discussion. \nThomas Wensing is a Dutch architect who teaches architecture and architectural history at Kean University in NJ. He writes regularly on the intersection of architecture and politics. \n5:30 to 7:30 pm US DST • 10:30 pm to 12:30 am (GMT)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-8-week-session/2021-05-28/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Globalization,historical materialism,Housing,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Modernity,Political Economy,Race and Class,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Modernity3b_Bing.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210527T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210527T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006898-1622142000-1622149200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Matters of State: Literature & Espionage
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Reading Group takes on three more spy novels\n \nWhy Spy Novels? \nSpy novels emerged as a distinct genre around the time of World War I\, coinciding with the creation of formal intelligence agencies in many countries. This was a period characterized by heightened concern on the part of rulers about national security\, imperial strength\, and the impending conflict of the Great War. Spy novels from the early twentieth century reflect these concerns\, and generally feature secret agents and seemingly realistic tales of international intrigue. With the rise of fascism\, spy novels shifted their focus to examine the dynamics of political movements within individual states\, assessing their threats to the stability of the international political order. In these stories\, the anxiety over the powerlessness of the individual is assuaged by the resourcefulness and ultimate success of exceptional or lucky individuals in confronting such harrowing problems as war\, nuclear proliferation\, and terrorism. The verisimilitude of spy novels written in the twentieth century is an integral part of the genre’s popularity; the genre often reflects political\, economic\, and cultural anxieties as well as showcasing advances in surveillance technology. You will see reference to The Human Factor by Graham Greene below. The group has read and discussed this novel during April. \nTHE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) • GRAHAM GREENE Greene aimed with this book to write a novel of espionage free from the violence that is more typical of the genre. Another theme Greene explored was  Western capital’s hypocritical relations with South Africa under apartheid. He thought that even though some Western capitalists would often publicly oppose apartheid\, those same holders of capital “simply could not let South Africa succumb to black power and (or) communism.” \nA MAP OF BETRAYAL (2014) • HA JIN The protagonists of this novel occupy the “treacherous territory” of margins. Jin’s master spy is no 007 or George Smiley. What distinguishes Gary is his ordinariness\, “his simple\, casual fashion of conducting espionage.” A spare\, haunting tale of conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. \nTHE SYMPATHIZER (2015) • VIET THANH NGUYEN The anonymous narrator has an “acrobatic ability” that guides the reader through the contradictions of the Vietnam War and American identity. Set as a flashback in the coerced confession of a double agent\, the book’s half-Vietnamese\, half-French narrator recounts the fall of the US-allied South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events as its top officials flee to American exile in Los Angeles. \nAMERICAN SPY (2018) • LAUREN WILKINSON It’s 1986\, the tail end of the Cold War\, and Marie Mitchell has been tasked by the FBI with undermining Thomas Sankara\, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose communism has made him an American intervention target. The CIA wants Marie to ascertain how much Sankara knows about America’s involvement in his opposition\, and possibly seduce him — Marie has misgivings\, doubting the CIA’s motives\, but accepts the job anyway. She doesn’t expect\, however\, to be won over by the revolutionary politician: “The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was even more perfect than the version you saw of yourself.” \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/matters-of-state-literature-espionage/2021-05-27/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,China,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Radical Literature
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LockNKey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210521T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210521T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006930-1621618200-1621625400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity
DESCRIPTION:with Thomas Wensing\n2 MORE SESSIONS\nMr. Perry flicked at the burdock leaves with his cane. The real-estate agent was pleading in a singsong voice:\n“I dont mind telling you\, Mr. Perry\, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. […] In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value.”\n— Dos Passos\, John; Manhattan Transfer\, Penguin Books\, Inc New York\, 1925\, first penguin books edition 1946\, p.11-12 \n \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. \nModernity is a historical force. It is messy. In architecture history modernity is usually narrated as an interplay between the combined forces of the Industrial Revolution and capital\, with social upheaval\, explosive population growth and immigration as its result. The invention of new materials and new technologies stimulated new forms\, structures\, typologies\, and — in the most optimistic accounts — new forms of living. In this formal reading the historian looks at the artefacts produced by these forces as cultural evidence: railway stations\, factories\, powerplants and switching stations\, dams\, canals and railway lines\, skyscrapers\, tenements\, and department stores\, are all comparatively assessed\, but rarely is the subjective experience of these spaces and landscapes considered. \nThe United States traditionally has had a fraught relationship with its cities in both a positive and a negative sense. Urban areas were\, and are\, pictured as alleged dens of vice\, disease\, and social corruption\, while others project utopian aspirations onto the city which are hard to fulfil in the best of circumstances. Even social science\, which intends to accurately describe the effects of economic change on the social fabric\, lacks by nature the discursive framework to communicate the emotive impact of these processes on individual subjects.\n—Walter Siebel; Die Kultur der Stadt\, Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin\, 2015\, 2nd print\, 2016\, p.39-40 Walter Siebel sees literary studies as a necessary complement to the social sciences\, to offer necessary detail to the abstraction of numbers. \nIn this semester the course participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, and one from fiction or biography. Two datasets are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. Writers and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends.\n—Marshall Berman\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \nEach week will consist of a visual presentation\, a related lecture with group discussion. \nThomas Wensing is a Dutch architect who teaches architecture and architectural history at Kean University in NJ. He writes regularly on the intersection of architecture and politics. \n5:30 to 7:30 pm US DST • 10:30 pm to 12:30 am (GMT)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-8-week-session/2021-05-21/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Globalization,historical materialism,Housing,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Modernity,Political Economy,Race and Class,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Modernity3b_Bing.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210520T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210520T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006897-1621537200-1621544400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Matters of State: Literature & Espionage
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Reading Group takes on three more spy novels\n \nWhy Spy Novels? \nSpy novels emerged as a distinct genre around the time of World War I\, coinciding with the creation of formal intelligence agencies in many countries. This was a period characterized by heightened concern on the part of rulers about national security\, imperial strength\, and the impending conflict of the Great War. Spy novels from the early twentieth century reflect these concerns\, and generally feature secret agents and seemingly realistic tales of international intrigue. With the rise of fascism\, spy novels shifted their focus to examine the dynamics of political movements within individual states\, assessing their threats to the stability of the international political order. In these stories\, the anxiety over the powerlessness of the individual is assuaged by the resourcefulness and ultimate success of exceptional or lucky individuals in confronting such harrowing problems as war\, nuclear proliferation\, and terrorism. The verisimilitude of spy novels written in the twentieth century is an integral part of the genre’s popularity; the genre often reflects political\, economic\, and cultural anxieties as well as showcasing advances in surveillance technology. You will see reference to The Human Factor by Graham Greene below. The group has read and discussed this novel during April. \nTHE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) • GRAHAM GREENE Greene aimed with this book to write a novel of espionage free from the violence that is more typical of the genre. Another theme Greene explored was  Western capital’s hypocritical relations with South Africa under apartheid. He thought that even though some Western capitalists would often publicly oppose apartheid\, those same holders of capital “simply could not let South Africa succumb to black power and (or) communism.” \nA MAP OF BETRAYAL (2014) • HA JIN The protagonists of this novel occupy the “treacherous territory” of margins. Jin’s master spy is no 007 or George Smiley. What distinguishes Gary is his ordinariness\, “his simple\, casual fashion of conducting espionage.” A spare\, haunting tale of conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. \nTHE SYMPATHIZER (2015) • VIET THANH NGUYEN The anonymous narrator has an “acrobatic ability” that guides the reader through the contradictions of the Vietnam War and American identity. Set as a flashback in the coerced confession of a double agent\, the book’s half-Vietnamese\, half-French narrator recounts the fall of the US-allied South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events as its top officials flee to American exile in Los Angeles. \nAMERICAN SPY (2018) • LAUREN WILKINSON It’s 1986\, the tail end of the Cold War\, and Marie Mitchell has been tasked by the FBI with undermining Thomas Sankara\, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose communism has made him an American intervention target. The CIA wants Marie to ascertain how much Sankara knows about America’s involvement in his opposition\, and possibly seduce him — Marie has misgivings\, doubting the CIA’s motives\, but accepts the job anyway. She doesn’t expect\, however\, to be won over by the revolutionary politician: “The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was even more perfect than the version you saw of yourself.” \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/matters-of-state-literature-espionage/2021-05-20/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,China,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Radical Literature
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LockNKey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210514T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210514T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006929-1621013400-1621020600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:New York City and the Experience of Modernity
DESCRIPTION:with Thomas Wensing\n2 MORE SESSIONS\nMr. Perry flicked at the burdock leaves with his cane. The real-estate agent was pleading in a singsong voice:\n“I dont mind telling you\, Mr. Perry\, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. […] In six months I can virtually guarantee that these lots will have doubled in value.”\n— Dos Passos\, John; Manhattan Transfer\, Penguin Books\, Inc New York\, 1925\, first penguin books edition 1946\, p.11-12 \n \nThis is a seminar about New York City and its people. It is not a study of architectural styles and objects\, – although the physical stuff of cities does play a role -\, but it is a course about the experience of the way in which modernity builds and destroys cities. \nModernity is a historical force. It is messy. In architecture history modernity is usually narrated as an interplay between the combined forces of the Industrial Revolution and capital\, with social upheaval\, explosive population growth and immigration as its result. The invention of new materials and new technologies stimulated new forms\, structures\, typologies\, and — in the most optimistic accounts — new forms of living. In this formal reading the historian looks at the artefacts produced by these forces as cultural evidence: railway stations\, factories\, powerplants and switching stations\, dams\, canals and railway lines\, skyscrapers\, tenements\, and department stores\, are all comparatively assessed\, but rarely is the subjective experience of these spaces and landscapes considered. \nThe United States traditionally has had a fraught relationship with its cities in both a positive and a negative sense. Urban areas were\, and are\, pictured as alleged dens of vice\, disease\, and social corruption\, while others project utopian aspirations onto the city which are hard to fulfil in the best of circumstances. Even social science\, which intends to accurately describe the effects of economic change on the social fabric\, lacks by nature the discursive framework to communicate the emotive impact of these processes on individual subjects.\n—Walter Siebel; Die Kultur der Stadt\, Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin\, 2015\, 2nd print\, 2016\, p.39-40 Walter Siebel sees literary studies as a necessary complement to the social sciences\, to offer necessary detail to the abstraction of numbers. \nIn this semester the course participants will be presented with multiple views of the same topic; one drawn from the professional literature\, and one from fiction or biography. Two datasets are compared: that of sociologists\, urban planners\, geographers\, and architects\, with that of the subjective vantage point of the biographical account or the fictional character. Writers and novelists have been able to direct the gaze at groups which have been excluded from the path of progress\, – as it was defined and constricted by society – to express diverging meanings to life in the metropolis. Theirs were often minority views\, but in expressing them\, they were able to carve out space for the ‘other’\, and they have expanded the conversation and imagination in indelible ways. A question which looms large in this seminar is the relationship between individual agency and collective action. The seminar encourages the expression of personal\, familial\, local\, and ethnic explorations and to tie these to larger societal trends.\n—Marshall Berman\, All That Is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of Modernity\, Simon & Shuster\, New York\, 1982\, Verso\, London\, Brooklyn\, 2010\, p.346-347. \nEach week will consist of a visual presentation\, a related lecture with group discussion. \nThomas Wensing is a Dutch architect who teaches architecture and architectural history at Kean University in NJ. He writes regularly on the intersection of architecture and politics. \n5:30 to 7:30 pm US DST • 10:30 pm to 12:30 am (GMT)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/new-york-city-and-the-experience-of-modernity-8-week-session/2021-05-14/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Globalization,historical materialism,Housing,Immigration,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Modernity,Political Economy,Race and Class,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Modernity3b_Bing.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR