• Imperialism: The Long View and the Big Picture

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting

    In eight weekly sessions guided by Dan La Botz, we will look at imperialism in the long view, from the ancient world to today. We will examine the experience of imperialism and the theoretical justifications for it, as well as anti-imperialist movements and their arguments. We will look at imperialism as economic phenomenon, as political strategy, as cultural experience, and as psychological affect. We will discuss imperialism and gender and imperialism and the environment.

    Free – $80
  • David McNally: Marx and Colonialism

    Recording available on YouTube

    David McNally joins our 10th anniversary celebration of the MEP with a keynote talk on "Marx and Colonialism: The End of Capital and the Beginning of a Journey."

    Free
  • 60 Years Since the April Revolution in Santo Domingo

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting

    Join us on May 3 for a panel to commemorate the 6oth anniversary of the April Revolution in Santo Domingo and discuss its political implications, the role of working-class Afro-Dominicans, women, LGBTQ people, Haitian internationalist fighters, socialists, writers and artists as well as the worldwide international solidarity movement that ensued in the face of imperialist onslaught.

    Free
  • Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 1, Oversight

    Recording available on YouTube

    “The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep,” Guy Debord declared in The Society of the Spectacle (1967): it is “a permanent opium war.” A half-century later, the specter of the spectacle continues to haunt Marxist cultural studies. In two linked panels, the Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture proposes to track “the worldwide division of spectacular tasks” from lens manufacture to retail logistics, stadiums to camptowns, polar expeditions to spring festivals, as well as revolutionary specters in novels and borders, assassinations and squares. 

    Free
  • Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 2, Witness

    Recording available on YouTube

    “The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep,” Guy Debord declared in The Society of the Spectacle (1967): it is “a permanent opium war.” A half-century later, the specter of the spectacle continues to haunt Marxist cultural studies. In two linked panels, the Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture proposes to track “the worldwide division of spectacular tasks” from lens manufacture to retail logistics, stadiums to camptowns, polar expeditions to spring festivals, as well as revolutionary specters in novels and borders, assassinations and squares. 

    Free
  • The Politics of Collecting with Eunsong Kim

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting

    In her new book, The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property, Eunsong Kim traces how racial capitalism and colonialism situated the rise of US museum collections and conceptual art forms. Ranging from the conception of philanthropy devised by the robber barons of the late nineteenth century to ongoing digitization projects, Kim provides a ... Read more

    Free
  • Slavery and Capitalism: A Book Talk by David McNally

    Recording available on YouTube

    A video of this November 29, 2025, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. A book talk by David McNally on Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History. McNally injects new life into Karl Marx’s writings on enslavement and labor, presenting a new, systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery—using colonial ... Read more

  • Slavery and Capitalism: A Reading Group

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting

    Join us for a nine-session reading group on David McNally's recently published Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History. McNally's book presents a systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery to support the provocative claim that enslaved labor in the plantation system is a form of capitalist commodity production. Weaving together history, ... Read more

  • Roundtable on Venezuela, Oil, and Global Politics

    Recording available on YouTube

    A video of this January 21, 2026, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. A conversation among leading left critics of the Trump administration's attack on Venezuelan sovereignty and its attempt to seize that nation's oil wealth. Matt Huber challenges interpretations of these events as simply another case of "blood for oil." Steve Maher ... Read more

  • Protective Presence in the West Bank

    Recording available on YouTube
    Special Event

    Live event concluded, but you may watch the recording on YouTube. The only people standing beside the Palestinians of the West Bank as they defend themselves from ethnic cleansing are protective presence activists. Celeste Marcus and Mitch Abidor have both spent time in the West Bank doing protective presence, accompanying Palestinians in their fields and ... Read more