Past Events

The innocent and marginalized that seem destined to be lost in the history of a world cold to their existence and beyond their ability to affect, would get their days back and the publishing world had an explosion of creative expression by some of the biggest names in comic book history.The Pulitzer Prize winning Maus by Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller’s gritty The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore’s prophetic V for Vendetta, Will Eisner’s semi-biographical A Contract with God and the grim post-nuclear When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs are some of the books this forward-looking and exciting 8-week class will read, consider and discuss.

THIS SERIES HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MAY 20!
...the great social revolution of that momentous period following the Civil War was surely the “reconstruction” of social relations in the former slave states. In his groundbreaking study (1935), W.E.B. DuBois reveals that this social revolution was both initiated by slaves in the midst of the war and carried through by the emancipated Black population during and after the period when federal troops occupied the former Confederate states.

American Dream chronicles the six-month strike that followed during 1985 and 1986 at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota. In addition to union-company tension, there's union-union in-fighting. Hormel holds firm; scabs, replacement workers, brothers on opposite sides, a union coup d'état, and a new contract materialize. Full neoliberal agenda focussed on small town America.

We are now taking on two readings which are keys to unlocking the power of the color line in shaping the political economy our world and in shaping the lives of African Americans. Theodore Allen’s pamphlet “Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race,” and W.E.B. DuBois’ “The Souls of Black Folk”.

Four writers (John Berger, China Miéville, Arundathi Roy and Chris Abani) who have provided us with an array of work to counter the despair of late capital during this period when the scales are weighted far more towards barbarity and continual degradation of our biosphere, than towards what should be an equally shared planet by all who inhabit it. Please join us for close readings and discussions of works spanning the last century and much of the globe.

Has America always been capitalist? Today, the US sees itself as the heartland of the international capitalist system, its society and politics intertwined deeply with its economic system. Parisot’s book looks at the history of North America from the founding of the colonies to debunk the myth that America is ‘naturally’ capitalist.

A decade has passed but the crisis is not over. Indeed we might even say that we are only beginning to see the effects of this greatest crisis of capitalism: the rise of anti neo-liberal populism of the right and left in Trump and Sanders, Brexit, extreme austerity, all the labor and social movements such as the teachers movement in the US and the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France and the deepening crisis in the Middle East. The ruling class has regrouped and regained its arrogance, continuing their political and economic assault imposing ever deeper social wage cuts while ideologically taking aim at hard won democratic and civil rights. It remains important for us to understand the underlying causes within this late stage of capitalist development that led to the 2008 crisis so that we of the working classes develop our capacity to effectively take on the political, ideological and economic challenges we are facing now and in the struggles ahead for a better life for all.

This summer our noir group will visit our old stomping grounds of Los Angeles but will begin our summer of more discontent with Narcopolis, set in Mumbai, then after two stops in L.A. go off to Glasgow before dipping south to finish our summer in Paris with the soon-to-be-published Nada.