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The Spectre Still Haunting: Introducing the Revolutionary Politics of Marx and Engels

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

An introductory reading group for those just getting acquainted with Marxist ideas, based on Marx and Engels' elegant and rousing classic The Manifesto of the Communist Party. We will be guided by China Miéville's thoughtful, provocative meditations on the Manifesto, A Spectre Haunting.

Free – $80

Reading Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

We continue to study selected passages from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. We delve into key themes and concepts related to civil society and state: politics and the arts, racism, class and gender, religion, linguistics, and other methods of analysis, critical theory, mass media, and cinema, hegemony, and subaltern studies, as well as the role of intellectuals and activists in discovering new methods and languages to be transformative.

Free – $80

Oppression and Resistance in New Chinese and Chinese-American Science Fiction

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

Before Theodore W. Allen turned to his magnum opus, The Invention of the White Race, he drafted an essay "The Kernel and Meaning: A Contribution to a Proletarian Critique of U.S. Historiography." In it, he assessed how the industrial bourgeoisie successfully overturned plantation capital's rule while assuring its own ascendancy over the proletariat. Allen reviewed six commonly held explanations as to why, despite favorable objective conditions, the U.S. left and workers movements failed to establish socialism or even a permanent working-class party. Participants in this group will read and discuss the original, 160-page typescript of Allen's unpublished essay.

Free – $80

Chile’s 9/11: Fifty Years of Literary Resistance

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

Reading group in progress, ending 2/8/24. September 2023 marked fifty years since the overthrow of Salvador Allende's socialist government on September 11, 1973. To honor the struggles and sufferings of the Chilean people, the MEP's Literature Group is reading Chilean writers active before, during, and since the Pinochet dictatorship.

The Fall and Rise of American Finance

The People's Forum 320 West 37th Street, New York, NY, United States

In-person event at The People's Forum in NYC featuring Stephen Maher and Scott Aquanno, authors of 'The Fall and Rise of American Finance: From J.P. Morgan to Blackrock.' They insist that financialization has not implied the hollowing out of the "real" economy, the decline of capitalism, or the retreat of the state. Rather, it has served to intensify competitive discipline to maximize profits and the exploitation of labor occurred with the support of an increasingly authoritarian state.

Marx for Cats with Leigh Claire La Berge

Recording available on YouTube

“All history is the history of cat struggle.” In "Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary," our guest speaker Leigh Clare La Berge follows feline footprints through Western economic history to reveal an animality at the heart of Marxism. By asking what humans and animals owe each other in a moment of ecological crisis, La Berge joins current debates about the need for and possibility of eco-socialism.

Late Fascism: a Conversation With Alberto Toscano

Recording available on YouTube

In 'Late Fascism' Alberto Toscano asks, how should we name, map and respond to the present state of affairs where the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand? Drawing especially on Black radical and anticolonial theories of fascism, Toscano makes clear the limits of associating fascism primarily with the kinds of political violence experienced in past European regimes. He argues that we should see fascism as a changing process, a threat anchored in racial and colonial capitalism, which continues to evolve in the present day.

Free – $12.00

Fletcher and Davidson: Campaigns, Movements and Organizing Strategies

Recording available on YouTube

A video of this March 16, 2024, event is available on the MEP's YouTube channel. Bill Fletcher Jr. and Carl Davidson join us for a talk and discussion jumping off from their recent article on political strategy--"Campaigns and Movements: How Are They Connected, How Do They Differ?" (Convergence, October 6, 2023). In a wide-ranging survey, ... Read more

Free – $10.00

Reading Science Fiction Politically

The Science and Visionary Fiction reading group reconvenes April 15 for a new Spring season. Watch this space for coming reading selections and use the website contact page for questions and suggestions. *     *     * Join us this winter to read five landmark, award-winning novels, and novellas using science fiction to shine a ... Read more

Reading Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks – Spring 2024

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

In this ongoing weekly reading group, we continue to read and learn from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks.  We explore key themes and concepts related to politics and civil society, including race, class and gender, religion, linguistic and other methods of analysis, critical theory, mass media, the arts and cinema, hegemony, and subaltern studies.

Free – $65.00

Reading Science Fiction Politically – Spring 2024 Season

The Science and Visionary Fiction reading group meets weekly to read and discuss science, visionary and speculative fiction that bears on politics, the environment, and the struggle for a better future for all. We focus on the concept of visionary fiction, emerging from Octavia Butler's writings and beautifully articulated ten years ago by Walidah Imarisha, ... Read more

Free – $65.00