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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/2021-05-13/
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:20210508T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210508T163000
DTSTAMP:20210503T171619Z
CREATED:20210503T171459Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T171619Z
UID:10006944-1620475200-1620491400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Creolizing Rosa Luxemburg: Reconsidering Primitive Accumulation
DESCRIPTION:A 2 part presentation \n \nThis session will be devoted to engaging with Rosa’s pivotal reworking of the concept of primitive accumulation\, with attention to historical and contemporary South Africa\, medieval European race-making and its legacies\, and contemporary commodification of women’s reproductive labor. \nEssays under consideration are: “Disaggregating Primitive Accumulation”\, Robert Nichols; “Luxemburg’s Contemporary Resonances in South Africa: Capital’s Renewed Super-Exploitation of People and Nature”\, Patrick Bond; “Primitive Accumulation and the Government of the State in Post-Apartheid South Africa”\, Ahmed Veriava; “Rosa Luxemburg and the Primitive Accumulation of Whiteness”\, Siddhant Issar\, Rachel H. Brown\, and John McMahon; and “Creolizing The Accumulation of Capital through Social Reproduction Theory: A Distinctively Luxemburgian Feminism”\, Ankica Čakardić \nSession A 12 noon to 2 pm\nRobert Nichols\, University of Minnesota\nPatrick Bond\, University of the Western Cape\nAhmed Veriava\, University of Witwatersrand\nSession B 2:30 to 4:30 pm\nSiddhant Issar\, University of Massachusetts Amherst\nRachel H. Brown\, Washington University in St. Louis\nJohn McMahon\, SUNY Plattsburgh\nAnkica Čakardić\, University of Zagreb\n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/creolizing-rosa-luxemburg-reconsidering-primitive-accumulation/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,African American History,Anti-colonialism,Capital Studies,Caribbean Studies,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Extractivism,Globalization,historical materialism,Insurgency,Labor History,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Marxisms,Marxist Method,Political Economy,Race and Class,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Method,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks,Social Reproduction,South Africa
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CreolizingLuxCover.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210507T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210507T193000
DTSTAMP:20210614T173123Z
CREATED:20210402T005720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210614T173123Z
UID:10006928-1620408600-1620415800@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/2021-05-07/
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:20210506T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210506T210000
DTSTAMP:20210503T002134Z
CREATED:20210313T044932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210503T002134Z
UID:10006895-1620327600-1620334800@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/2021-05-06/
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:20210402T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210402T163000
DTSTAMP:20210315T160614Z
CREATED:20210315T160118Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210315T160614Z
UID:10006903-1617372000-1617381000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Jesus Christ: Prince of Peace or King of Swords with Shane Mage
DESCRIPTION:The events surrounding the ~30CE trial and execution in Roman-dominated Palestine of the man Y’shua (or Yehoshua—both names transliterate to Joshua)\, generally referred to as Jesus Christ\, are considered well known by perhaps half or more of the population of this planet. The only sources of this supposed knowledge are the four Gospels named Mark\, Matthew\, Luke\, and John. Unfortunately\, all these accounts were compiled\, written\, and edited some two generations—at the earliest—after the events they portray (and after the Jewish uprising of 67-70 had been crushed by Vespasian and Titus) by people none of whom claim to have personally known that man\, nor to have witnessed any of the events described\, nor to have heard any of the words they quote as stated by “Jesus\,” nor to cite any testimony of actual or supposed witnesses of these events. Moreover\, though the languages of the indigenous people involved were Aramaic and Hebrew\, the Gospels are written in koiné Greek before their translation into contemporary languages. For the historian\, therefore\, these are (at best*) fourth-hand sources (original accounts—later retold among various persons—later recounted to the Gospel Writers—and then put\, with unknown correspondence to their original form\, into Greek). \nThe Gospels\, thus have absolutely no presumptive value as history. But neither are they pure fiction despite the patent absurdity of the whole Christian theology built upon them and their obviously falsified passages (especially the blood-libel of Jewish Deicide) designed to justify the inherently antisemitic nature of that Christian theology. The existence of the man Jesus is explicitly stated by the authoritative ancient historian Josephus. Archaeological excavations in and around Jerusalem have unearthed direct physical evidence for details of the gospel accounts\, including the ossuaries (bone-boxes) containing the remnants of “Jesus” and his intimate family. Moreover\, it has been established by biblical scholars over centuries that the gospels themselves were compiled from at least three different sources and that there were many other noncanonical “gospels” (compilations of sayings said to have been said by “Jesus”) of which the best-known is the so-called Gospel of Thomas. Therefore we are entitled as historians to believe that the Gospels\, despite their total unreliability as a whole\, do contain some information that is accurate and must\, since they are our only real source\, be used as the indispensable element for any historical reconstruction. \nMy basic approach is what is called “*tendenz kritik*.” Because the texts are the only available source for an account of real historical events\, their *general* outline of those events is to be taken as a roughly factual account of those events. Because they are permeated by ideological bias\, such bias must always be taken into account and ruthlessly corrected or ejected to remove that bias. In the present case this bias is\, of course\, clearly expressed over millennia in the Pauline Christian doctrines. Likewise\, any words attributed to Jesus must undergo the same critique. The actual words are often presented within a broader Pauline Christian verbal context. Only what is sufficiently concise or strikingly memorable to have been passed down over decades to the eventual compilers should be granted presumptive validity. *Nothing* theological can ever be taken as historical. Only arguably accurate material facts can underly any historical reconstruction. \nThe Pilate Papers is my attempt at a version of such a speculative reconstruction. In it I do what (as far as I know) has not yet been tried by anyone—to present these events from an Imperial Roman point of view. It consists of reports to the Prefect of Judaea\, Pontius Pilate\, from his supposed Roman secret-police official signing himself  as M. Secundus\, as transmitted to the office of Tiberius’s not-yet-purged Praetorian Prefect Aelius Sejanus with comments from Pilate himself. \nShane Mage’s dissertation was on Marx’s theory of the tendential fall in the rate of profit (Columbia U. 1963). Shane taught economics and philosophy at Brooklyn Polytechnic U and Grand Valley State U. He was senior editor for social sciences at Collier’s Encyclopedia through 1994. Among Shane’s publications are a pamphlet “Velikovsky and his Critics;” articles on “Plato and the Catastrophist Tradition” and “Jeroboam and the Israelite Revolution” in KRONOS magazine; articles “Communism” and “Economic History of the USSR” in Collier’s Encyclopedia; and (unpublished still) “The Pilate Papers\,” an essay presenting a “Roman” view of the gospel story. At present he is working on a novel (“The Seducation of a Femtaur—a Bead Game”) set in the present and near future with a philosophical theme and elements of science fiction and magical realism. \nPlease write to info@marxedproject.org for a PDF of The Pilate Papers
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/jesus-christ-prince-of-peace-or-king-of-swords-with-shane-mage/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Antiquity,Classes/Events,historical materialism,Literary Studies,Marxist Method,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/PeaceOrSwords.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210321T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210321T160000
DTSTAMP:20210117T021053Z
CREATED:20210117T021053Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210117T021053Z
UID:10006170-1616335200-1616342400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Working Class Cinema in the Age of Digital Capitalism
DESCRIPTION:A presentation and discussion with\nMassimiliano (Mao) Mollona\nWhy does the story of cinema begin with the end of work? Is it because\, as has been suggested\, it is impossible to represent work from the perspective of labor but only from the point of view of capital\, because the revolutionary horizon of the working class coincides with the end of work? After all\, the early revolutionary art avant-garde had an ambiguous relationship with capitalism: it provided both a critique of commodification while also reproducing the commodity form. Even the cinema of Eisenstein\, which so subverted the bourgeois sense of space\, time\, and personhood\, at the same time standardized and commodified working-class reality with techniques of framing and editing that molded images on the commodity form. \nSuch dialectics between art and the commodity form continue to be played out in today’s digital capitalism\, as exemplified by so-called ‘debt-artists’\, like the hackers collective Robin Hood\, who appropriate the techniques and modes of sociality of financial capitalism to generate spaces of reciprocity and cooperation with the aim of disrupting their commodity logic\, but who in fact end up reproducing it. The tension between critique and commodification is no less in play as the digital medium erases the specificity of cinema\, the relation between its material bases and its poetics\, opening up as it does to other relations – intertextual\, lateral\, and cross-media – that recall the synchronic aesthetics of the avant-garde. As well as disrupting the materiality of the film medium\, digital film disrupts the temporality of classical cinema\, suspended in-between movement and stillness and experienced in the expanded duration of the time-image. \nMASSIMILIANO (Mao) MOLLONA is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London. One of Mao’s main research interests is to look at the role of art institutions and cultural organizations in relation to the bio-politics and political economy of late capitalism. \n  \nAll events are sliding scale. No one is denied admission for an inability to pay. If you are unable to contribute please write to info@marxedproject.org to be given the URL for the zoom code for admission to this or other events. \nThis essay is available from The MEP in the Socialist Register 2021 book that is for sale in our bookstore. All book prices include shipping (US and Puerto Rico only). \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/working-class-cinema-in-the-age-of-digital-capitalism/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Class,Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Intro to Marxism,Literary Studies,Political Economy,Radical Literature,Science and Method,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ManWithMovie.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Capital Studies Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210311T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210311T210000
DTSTAMP:20210312T210306Z
CREATED:20201214T175355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T210306Z
UID:10006843-1615489200-1615496400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:M.A.D. Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War
DESCRIPTION:The year 1953 was like most of the years following the end of the slaughter of World War II. It was another year of the baby boom that filled maternity wards in the United States\, a generation that ironically couldn’t wait to leave these suburbs. The Cold War was well under way\, and anti-communism in the U.S. was at its peak. Politicians pontificated that it was “better to be dead than Red.” In the East and the West\, the military apparatus stockpiled nuclear weapons capable of ending life on this planet thousands of times over — Mutually Assured Destruction. \nWe began this reading group with Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” followed by a shared reading of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl\, and have nowcompleted our discussion of Ring Lardner\, Jr.’s The Ecstasy of Owen Muir. We have just started The Public Burning by Robert Coover\, after which we will read and discuss Richard Wright’s The Outsider. Coover’s novel is a political economy of the US as the hegemon of Post World War II capital global restructuring and the shift of much production to energy\, the military and finance and the attempted thorough destruction of any semblance of a left opposition. \nWhat can we learn from these literary renderings and how do they help us understand the perilous period in history that we now find ourselves living? \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on migration\,border politics and labor organizing and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism\, and this summer will the group will host a 5th consecutive Noir Summer.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/m-a-d-lit-101-american-fiction-and-the-cold-war/2021-03-11/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MutualAssuredScreenSmallest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210304T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210304T210000
DTSTAMP:20210312T210306Z
CREATED:20201214T175355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T210306Z
UID:10006842-1614884400-1614891600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:M.A.D. Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War
DESCRIPTION:The year 1953 was like most of the years following the end of the slaughter of World War II. It was another year of the baby boom that filled maternity wards in the United States\, a generation that ironically couldn’t wait to leave these suburbs. The Cold War was well under way\, and anti-communism in the U.S. was at its peak. Politicians pontificated that it was “better to be dead than Red.” In the East and the West\, the military apparatus stockpiled nuclear weapons capable of ending life on this planet thousands of times over — Mutually Assured Destruction. \nWe began this reading group with Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” followed by a shared reading of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl\, and have nowcompleted our discussion of Ring Lardner\, Jr.’s The Ecstasy of Owen Muir. We have just started The Public Burning by Robert Coover\, after which we will read and discuss Richard Wright’s The Outsider. Coover’s novel is a political economy of the US as the hegemon of Post World War II capital global restructuring and the shift of much production to energy\, the military and finance and the attempted thorough destruction of any semblance of a left opposition. \nWhat can we learn from these literary renderings and how do they help us understand the perilous period in history that we now find ourselves living? \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on migration\,border politics and labor organizing and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism\, and this summer will the group will host a 5th consecutive Noir Summer.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/m-a-d-lit-101-american-fiction-and-the-cold-war/2021-03-04/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MutualAssuredScreenSmallest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210225T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210225T210000
DTSTAMP:20210312T210306Z
CREATED:20201214T175355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T210306Z
UID:10006841-1614279600-1614286800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:M.A.D. Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War
DESCRIPTION:The year 1953 was like most of the years following the end of the slaughter of World War II. It was another year of the baby boom that filled maternity wards in the United States\, a generation that ironically couldn’t wait to leave these suburbs. The Cold War was well under way\, and anti-communism in the U.S. was at its peak. Politicians pontificated that it was “better to be dead than Red.” In the East and the West\, the military apparatus stockpiled nuclear weapons capable of ending life on this planet thousands of times over — Mutually Assured Destruction. \nWe began this reading group with Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” followed by a shared reading of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl\, and have nowcompleted our discussion of Ring Lardner\, Jr.’s The Ecstasy of Owen Muir. We have just started The Public Burning by Robert Coover\, after which we will read and discuss Richard Wright’s The Outsider. Coover’s novel is a political economy of the US as the hegemon of Post World War II capital global restructuring and the shift of much production to energy\, the military and finance and the attempted thorough destruction of any semblance of a left opposition. \nWhat can we learn from these literary renderings and how do they help us understand the perilous period in history that we now find ourselves living? \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on migration\,border politics and labor organizing and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism\, and this summer will the group will host a 5th consecutive Noir Summer.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/m-a-d-lit-101-american-fiction-and-the-cold-war/2021-02-25/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MutualAssuredScreenSmallest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210218T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210218T210000
DTSTAMP:20210312T210306Z
CREATED:20201214T175355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T210306Z
UID:10006840-1613674800-1613682000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:M.A.D. Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War
DESCRIPTION:The year 1953 was like most of the years following the end of the slaughter of World War II. It was another year of the baby boom that filled maternity wards in the United States\, a generation that ironically couldn’t wait to leave these suburbs. The Cold War was well under way\, and anti-communism in the U.S. was at its peak. Politicians pontificated that it was “better to be dead than Red.” In the East and the West\, the military apparatus stockpiled nuclear weapons capable of ending life on this planet thousands of times over — Mutually Assured Destruction. \nWe began this reading group with Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” followed by a shared reading of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl\, and have nowcompleted our discussion of Ring Lardner\, Jr.’s The Ecstasy of Owen Muir. We have just started The Public Burning by Robert Coover\, after which we will read and discuss Richard Wright’s The Outsider. Coover’s novel is a political economy of the US as the hegemon of Post World War II capital global restructuring and the shift of much production to energy\, the military and finance and the attempted thorough destruction of any semblance of a left opposition. \nWhat can we learn from these literary renderings and how do they help us understand the perilous period in history that we now find ourselves living? \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on migration\,border politics and labor organizing and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism\, and this summer will the group will host a 5th consecutive Noir Summer.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/m-a-d-lit-101-american-fiction-and-the-cold-war/2021-02-18/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MutualAssuredScreenSmallest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210211T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210211T210000
DTSTAMP:20210312T210306Z
CREATED:20201214T175355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T210306Z
UID:10006839-1613070000-1613077200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:M.A.D. Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War
DESCRIPTION:The year 1953 was like most of the years following the end of the slaughter of World War II. It was another year of the baby boom that filled maternity wards in the United States\, a generation that ironically couldn’t wait to leave these suburbs. The Cold War was well under way\, and anti-communism in the U.S. was at its peak. Politicians pontificated that it was “better to be dead than Red.” In the East and the West\, the military apparatus stockpiled nuclear weapons capable of ending life on this planet thousands of times over — Mutually Assured Destruction. \nWe began this reading group with Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” followed by a shared reading of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl\, and have nowcompleted our discussion of Ring Lardner\, Jr.’s The Ecstasy of Owen Muir. We have just started The Public Burning by Robert Coover\, after which we will read and discuss Richard Wright’s The Outsider. Coover’s novel is a political economy of the US as the hegemon of Post World War II capital global restructuring and the shift of much production to energy\, the military and finance and the attempted thorough destruction of any semblance of a left opposition. \nWhat can we learn from these literary renderings and how do they help us understand the perilous period in history that we now find ourselves living? \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on migration\,border politics and labor organizing and our most recent session on Women Who Wrote Against Fascism\, and this summer will the group will host a 5th consecutive Noir Summer.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/m-a-d-lit-101-american-fiction-and-the-cold-war/2021-02-11/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Revolutions Study Group,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MutualAssuredScreenSmallest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210104T003000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210104T233000
DTSTAMP:20210123T032405Z
CREATED:20200924T055234Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210123T032405Z
UID:10006146-1609720200-1609803000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:4 Month Pass:
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 $50 or $75 more bring a guest as often as you would like to the classes and events between now and May 31\, 2021. We are hosting many new series including a new literature class\, MAD Lit 101: American Fiction and the Cold War  beginning on January 14\, a continuation of Capital\, Volume 1 class\, a repeat of the popular Blood and Money\, Considerations on Bolshevism before Stalinism\, a reading and discussion group of Hadas Thier’s A People’s Guide to Capitalism\, a multi-session series covering the Socialist Register 2021 annual\, Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living\, and  the 4 new events related to the Pluto Press Fireworks Series which begins on January 23 with Marina Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar on Pandemic Solidarity\, the first book to be presented. The way the calendar works within our WordPress based site may make this confusing. It is a one-time payment good from now through May 21. 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. You can also attend the new series sponsored by Palsgrave on Marx\, Engels\, and Marxisms along with Rowan and Littlefield’s new Creolizing Rosa Luxemburg series of events.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/until-mid-winter-pass-now-through-january-31-2021/
LOCATION:All Venues
CATEGORIES:African American History,American Literature,automation,Bolshevism,Capital Studies,Caribbean Studies,Class,Class and Gender,Classes/Events,Extractivism,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Capital_Rivera2ForSite.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201210T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201210T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006802-1607626800-1607634000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-12-10/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201208T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201208T210000
DTSTAMP:20201018T131737Z
CREATED:20201018T131737Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201018T131737Z
UID:10006153-1607454000-1607461200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Trotsky in Tijuana: A new novel by Dan La Botz
DESCRIPTION:Dan La Botz in conversation with Alan Wald and Suzi Weissman\nWho was the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky? What did he believe and do? What was his legacy? Dan La Botz’s new novel. Trotsky in Tijuana\, examines these questions in fiction. The novel’s premise is that Trotsky was not assassinated in August 1940 but survived and was relocated to Tijuana where he lived on until 1953 dying on the same day as his rival and political opponent Joseph Stalin. We learn of Trotsky’s past and watch him live on into a future he never knew\, dealing with new political situations\, with a new lover\, with his wife\, and with his old friend Victor Serge\, being called to testify before Senator Joseph McCarthy. You can learn more about the book by clicking this link trotskyintijuana.com and browsing the site. \nDAN LA BOTZ formerly taught at the School of Labor and Urban Studies of the City University of New York. In the 1970s\, he was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). From 1994 to 2014\, he was the editor and principal writer of Mexican Labor News and Analysis\, a publication supported by the United Electrical Workers Union (UE)\, a U.S. union\, and the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT)\, a Mexican labor union. He is a member of both Solidarity and the Democratic Socialists of America and a co-editor of New Politics (newpol.org). In 2010\, he was the Socialist Party candidate in Ohio for the U.S. Senate. He is the author of a dozen books on labor\, social movements\, and politics in the United States\, Mexico\, and Nicaragua\, most recently the non-fiction books are What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis and Le nouveau populisme Américain Résistances et alternatives à Trump.  \n ALAN WALD\, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan\, is a cultural historian of the United States Left from the 1930s to the1950s. He most recently authored a trilogy about Communism and writers from the University of North Carolina Press: Exiles from a Future Time\, Trinity of Passion\, and American Night. His book The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s has become a classic of literary and cultural studies. He is a member of the socialist organization Solidarity and an editor of the journals Against the Current and Science & Society.  \n SUZI WEISSMAN is Professor of Politics at Saint Mary’s College of California and an editor of Critique and Against the Current. Her books include Victor Serge: A Political Biography\, and she is currently Co-Producer of the Lindy Laub and David Weiss film about Trotsky\, The Most Dangerous Man in the World. She broadcasts the weekly public affairs program Beneath the Surface with Suzi Weissman on KPFK\, and the Jacobin Radio podcast.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/trotsky-in-tijuana-a-new-novel-by-dan-la-botz/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Seminars and Talks,Speculative fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tijiuana_1940WithCoverSM.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201203T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201203T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006801-1607022000-1607029200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-12-03/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201119T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201119T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006800-1605812400-1605819600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-11-19/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201112T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201112T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006799-1605207600-1605214800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-11-12/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201105T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201105T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006798-1604602800-1604610000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-11-05/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201031T000100
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201031T235900
DTSTAMP:20201217T162636Z
CREATED:20181223T054436Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201217T162636Z
UID:10006711-1604102460-1604188740@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Multi-Month Pass: Now through Dec 31\, 2020
DESCRIPTION:Support the MEP and save $ for yourself. \nFor a one-time sliding scale fee of $150\, $200\, or $250 attend any and all classes and events of The Marxist Education Project. For $50 or $75 more bring a guest as often as you would like to the classes and events between February 1 and May 31\, 2021. The curriculum has not been decided as of yet but this special price will apply for all that takes place from during the stated four-month period. Anyone can purchase this option and can attend all events until May 31\, even if purchased during December\, 2020 or January\, 2021. \nThe way the calendar works within our WordPress based site may make this confusing. It is a one-time payment good for all events and classes that take place between now and May 31\, 2021. 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/. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/4-month-pass-january-21-through-may-20-2019-2020-08-29/2020-10-31/
LOCATION:All Venues
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes,Revolutions Study Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SocietyNature_BeckyB_Site.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201029T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201029T210000
DTSTAMP:20201212T203438Z
CREATED:20200823T210138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T203438Z
UID:10006797-1603998000-1604005200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Women Write Against Fascism
DESCRIPTION:Literary resistance during and after fascism being in command\nFive more weeks with\nSimone de Beauvoir\, Natalia Ginzburg\, Elfriede Jelinek and Anna Seghers\nReading and discussion with the Literature Studies Group of The MEP \nThe Blood Of Others • Simone de Beauvoir • 1945\nThe major theme of The Blood of Others is the relation between the free individual and ‘the historically unfolding world of brute facts and other men and women.’ Or as one of Beauvoir’s biographers puts it\, her ‘intention was to express the paradox of freedom experienced by an individual and the ways in which others\, perceived by the individual as objects\, were affected by his actions and decisions. Another theme of the novel\, though not unrelated to the first\, is the issue of resistance versus collaboration. Beauvoir makes it clear that to not actively resist fascism is to accept it. \nFamily Lexicon • Natalia Ginzburg • 1963\nFamily Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel\, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist\, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it]\,” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places\, events\, and people are all real.” The family described is all anti-fascist. The years depicted in this novel are the years of the 30s and 40s\, taking place in Turino during the years of Mussolini’s fascism. \nWonderful Wonderful Times • Elfriede Jelinek • 1980\nThe novel follows a group of four Viennese teens during the 1950s as they violently engage with the previous generation’s Post-World War II legacy. The novel does not use traditional chapter demarcations and focuses largely on the internal thoughts of the characters. Through the portrayal of the Austrian family Witkowski\, the reader is able to see the relation between daily fascism with the family and an undigested Austrian National Socialist history. The patriarch\, a former Nazi\, makes up for his loss of power and one leg by terrorizing his family and abusing his wife. \nTransit • Anna Seghers • 1944\nTransit is an existential\, political\, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom\,the vitality of storytelling\, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight. The 27-year-old unnamed narrator has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Along the way to Marseilles\, he meets one of his friends\, Paul. Paul then asks the narrator to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel in Paris. When the narrator goes to deliver the letter\, he finds out that Weidel has committed suicide. The narrator also finds that Weidel left behind a suitcase full of letters and an unfinished manuscript for a novel. \nThe MEP LITERATURE GROUP has been meeting to discuss literature since the first days of The Marxist Education Project following a presentation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on her Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and her recommendation that we take up literature with Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of The Dead. The group has rcompleted readings of Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years which was followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Our fourth summer of noir is currently underway. Other studies have included novels related to World War I\, the depression of the 1930s\, and novels on border politics and labor organizing. \nDonations are sliding scale • No one turned away for inability to pay \nplease write to info@marxedproject to get zoom log-in number if you would like to attend but cannot afford to pay \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/women-write-against-fascism/2020-10-29/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2ndSiteWomenAgainst.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201001T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201001T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006767-1601578800-1601586000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-10-01/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200924T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200924T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006766-1600974000-1600981200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-09-24/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200917T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200917T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006765-1600369200-1600376400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-09-17/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200910T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200910T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006764-1599764400-1599771600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-09-10/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200903T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200903T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006763-1599159600-1599166800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-09-03/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200831T000100
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200831T235900
DTSTAMP:20201217T162636Z
CREATED:20181223T054436Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201217T162636Z
UID:10006710-1598832060-1598918340@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Multi-Month Pass: Now through Dec 31\, 2020
DESCRIPTION:Support the MEP and save $ for yourself. \nFor a one-time sliding scale fee of $150\, $200\, or $250 attend any and all classes and events of The Marxist Education Project. For $50 or $75 more bring a guest as often as you would like to the classes and events between February 1 and May 31\, 2021. The curriculum has not been decided as of yet but this special price will apply for all that takes place from during the stated four-month period. Anyone can purchase this option and can attend all events until May 31\, even if purchased during December\, 2020 or January\, 2021. \nThe way the calendar works within our WordPress based site may make this confusing. It is a one-time payment good for all events and classes that take place between now and May 31\, 2021. 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/. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/4-month-pass-january-21-through-may-20-2019-2020-08-29/2020-08-31/
LOCATION:All Venues
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes,Revolutions Study Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SocietyNature_BeckyB_Site.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200827T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200827T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006762-1598554800-1598562000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-08-27/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200820T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200820T210000
DTSTAMP:20200814T012608Z
CREATED:20200717T033928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200814T012608Z
UID:10006761-1597950000-1597957200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Lit and Film: Noir for the Summer of Covid-19
DESCRIPTION:8 sessions\nvia teleconference on Zoom • participation code with registration\nSliding scale admission for teleconference \nContinuing in the MEP LITERATURE GROUP summer tradition\, we will once again delve into Noir genres– but with a twist! Starting August 6\, we will read four books and watch the movies that are based on them. Please join us for four books with the four movies that resulted from them. \nBOOK 1 Odd Man Out /F. L. Green \nF.L. (Laurie) Green’s novel was published in 1945. It followed upon wartime action by the IRA in Belfast\, in consequence of which Northern Ireland undertook its first and only execution of an IRA member\, 19-year old Tom Williams. In the novel\, an IRA plot goes horribly wrong when its leader\, Johnny Murtah\, kills an innocent man\, and he is gravely wounded. Odd Man Out is Green’s most significant novel. \nMOVIE 1 Odd Man Out /Carol Reed • AUGUST 20\nTakes place largely over the course of one tense night\, Reed’s psychological noir\, set in Belfast\, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con who leads a botched robbery. Injured and hunted by the police\, he seeks refuge throughout the city\, while the woman he loves searches for him among the shadows. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker create images of stunning depth for this fierce\, spiritual depiction of a man’s ultimate confrontation with himself. \nBOOK 2 Clean Break /Lionel White • AUGUST 27\n“… none of them are professional crooks. They all have jobs\, they all live seemingly decent\, normal lives. But they all have money problems and they all have larceny in them.” In the opening chapter\, Lionel White sets the stage for the main protagonists of the story: Marvin Unger\, court reporter; George Peatty\, a racetrack cashier and his bored wife\, Sherry; Randy Kennan\, a cop distracted by huge gambling debts; Mike O’Reilly\, a track barman\, regularly bets and loses half his earnings; and Johnny Clay\, just out of jail\, and who has come up with the plan to steal the earnings fromthe Canarsie Stakes. Creating diversions becomes necessary\, including knocking off the favourite in the race (animals lovers beware…). \nMOVIE 2 The Killing /Stanley Kubrick • SEPTEMBER 3\nStanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest\, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative\, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson\, and a phenomenal cast of character actors\, including Sterling Hayden\, Coleen Gray\, Timothy Carey\, Elisha Cook Jr.\, and Marie Windsor\, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony\, it’s Kubrick to the core. \nBOOK 3 Down There /David Goodis • SEPTEMBER 10\nOnce upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall—now he does honky-tonk in a Philly drunk-dive. But then two people walk into Eddie’s life—the first promising Eddie a future\, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Down There (bookretitled after film to Shoot the Piano Player) is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty. \nMOVIE 3 Shoot The Piano Player /François Truffaut • SEPTEMBER 17\nFrançois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this\, his most playful film. Part thriller\, part comedy\, part tragedy\, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour\, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags\, guns\, clowns\, and thugs\, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague. \nBOOK 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /George V. Higgins • SEPTEMBER 24\nElmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written\, though Higgins hated being classified as a crime writer. According to Leonard\, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.” \nMOVIE 4 Friends of Eddie Coyle /Peter Yates • OCTOBER 1\nIn one of the best performances of his legendary career\, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters\, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark\, unforgiving daylight. \nWe will attempt to watch together. Those who watch the film on their own are of course welcome to join in the discussions following the films as they are presented.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/lit-and-film-noir-for-the-summer-of-covid-19/2020-08-20/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Multi-session Classes
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NoirSummer2020_FB3c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200731T000100
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200731T235900
DTSTAMP:20201217T162636Z
CREATED:20181223T054436Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201217T162636Z
UID:10006709-1596153660-1596239940@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Multi-Month Pass: Now through Dec 31\, 2020
DESCRIPTION:Support the MEP and save $ for yourself. \nFor a one-time sliding scale fee of $150\, $200\, or $250 attend any and all classes and events of The Marxist Education Project. For $50 or $75 more bring a guest as often as you would like to the classes and events between February 1 and May 31\, 2021. The curriculum has not been decided as of yet but this special price will apply for all that takes place from during the stated four-month period. Anyone can purchase this option and can attend all events until May 31\, even if purchased during December\, 2020 or January\, 2021. \nThe way the calendar works within our WordPress based site may make this confusing. It is a one-time payment good for all events and classes that take place between now and May 31\, 2021. 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/. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/4-month-pass-january-21-through-may-20-2019-2020-08-29/2020-07-31/
LOCATION:All Venues
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Film Screenings,Literary Studies,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes,Revolutions Study Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SocietyNature_BeckyB_Site.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200709T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20200709T213000
DTSTAMP:20200521T164024Z
CREATED:20200407T025518Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200521T164024Z
UID:10006754-1594323000-1594330200@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:6 Plays of Bertolt Brecht
DESCRIPTION:Beginning April 23 we will read aloud six of the many plays Bertolt Brecht wrote between the 1920s and his death in 1956. We will spend three weeks with The Threepenny Opera\, one week with The Exception and The Rule\, and two weeks each for the other four plays. There will be time to read aloud—taking on various characters among ourselves. There will also be substantive discussion of these works which span all the decades of his writing. The Epic theater\, musical theater along with the learning plays are represented in this selection of plays. Each session will be conducted via Zoom until we have an all-clear to return to the classroom. With your registration\, the zoom password will be sent to you. \n \nThe Threepenny Opera 1928 \nThe Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) is a “play with music” by Bertolt Brecht\, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay’s 18th-century ballad opera\, The Beggar’s Opera\, and four ballads by François Villon\, with music by Kurt Weill. The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. Writing in 1929\, Weill made the political and artistic intents of the work clear: “With the Dreigroschenoper we reach a public which either did not know us at all or thought us incapable of captivating listeners\, Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art. If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age\, then this framework must be destroyed…. In the Dreigroschenoper\, reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch. Weill claimed at the time that “music cannot further the action of the play or create its background”\, but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments.” \nThe Mother 1931 \nBased on Maxim Gorky’s 1906 novel of the same name\, is Brecht’s most elaborate use of his radically experimental Lehrstücke\, or learning plays\, which he describes as “a piece of anti-metaphysical\, materialistic\, non-Aristotelian drama.” The play suggests that to become a good mother involves more than just complaining about the price of soup; rather\, one must struggle against it\, not only for her and her family’s sake\, but for the sake of all working families. The title character\, the mother Pelagea Vlassova\, journeys through the play’s 14 scenes\, the death of her son\, and her own impending illness\, fighting illiteracy while constantly filled with good humor and wily activism. The moment in October 1917 when she becomes free to carry and raise her own Red Flag on the eve of the czar’s overthrow proves momentous. \n \nThe Exception and the Rule 1933 \nThe play itself is short\, and lasts no longer than 60 minutes if performed in its entirety. It tells the story of a rich merchant\, who must cross the fictional Yahi Desert to close an oil deal. During the trip the class differences between him and his working-class porter (or “coolie” as he is called in most English language editions) are shown. As he becomes increasingly afraid of the desert\, the merchant’s brutality increases\, and he feels terribly alone without police nearby to protect him. \nMother Courage & Her Children 1941 \nFollowing Brecht’s own principles for political drama\, the play is not set in modern timesbut during the 30 Years’ War of 1618–1648. It follows the fortunes of Anna Fierling\, nicknamed Mother Courage\, who is determined to make her living from the war. Over the course of the play\, she loses all three of her children\, Schweizerkas\, Eilif\, and Kattrin\, to the very war from which she tried to profit. Mother Courage is an example of Brecht’s concepts of epic theatre and Verfremdungseffekt\, or “V” effect; preferably “alienation” or “estrangement effect” Verfremdungseffekt is achieved through the use of placards which reveal the events of each scene\, juxtaposition\, actors changing characters and costume on stage\, the use of narration\, simple props and scenery. \nThe Good Person of Szechwan 1943 \nBrecht’s interest in historical materialism is evident in the play’s definition of contemporary morality and altruism in social and economic terms. Shen Teh’s altruism conflicts with Shui Ta’s capitalist ethos of exploitation. The play implies that economic systems determine a society’s morality. \nThe Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui 1958 \nIt chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui\, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster\, and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. The play is a satirical allegory of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany prior to World War II. The play has frequent references to Shakespeare. To highlight Ui’s evil and villainous rise to power\, he is explicitly compared to Shakespeare’s Richard III. Like Macbeth\, Ui experiences a visitation from the ghost of one of his victims. Finally\, Hitler’s practiced prowess at public speaking is referenced when Ui receives lessons from an actor in walking\, sitting and orating\, which includes his reciting Mark Antony’s famous speech from Julius Caesar.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/6-plays-of-bertolt-brecht/2020-07-09/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/BrechtPortrait.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR