The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play
“A mind is like a parachute—it doesn’t work unless it’s open.”
—Frank Zappa
Living Radical, Living Female
We will examine how radical women have narrated their lives and imagined different futures through a consideration of both fictional and autobiographical works .
Marx, Nature and Capital: A Study Group
This group will read and discuss works that bring Marxist theory to bear on the environmental crisis and climate change.
Our Mother Ocean
I applaud the authors’ passionate portrayal of workers on the sea as an organic part of those of us who wish to protect Nature against the rapacious excesses of capitalism.
—George Katsiaficas
Mexican Workers and the Mexican Labor Movement: A History
This course will deal with the history of Mexican workers from ancient times until today. The course will look at the political economy and the organization of work from indigenous communal organizations of the pre-Columbian period through the era of the Porfiriate, the Mexican Revolution, and into the modern era including today.
Latin America: Colonized and Post-Colonial Attempts at Liberation
A unique opportunity to read and discuss the documentary history of the massacre at Tlatelolco side by side with Bolaño’s novel of the same.
Cambodia: Forced Eviction and the Violence of Law
In contrast to the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this talk argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law.
Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
Presenting theoretical explanations and historical accounts of imperialism and anti-imperialism from the 16th Century to the present day.
Prison and Social Death
...social death does not end with prison. The condition is permanent, following people after they are released from prison...the mechanisms of social death, Price shows, are also informal and cultural.
István Mészáros’ The Challenge & Burden of Historical Time
Capital cannot tolerate any limitations to its own mode of social metabolic reproduction...not even when the devastating consequences are already glaringly obvious both in the field of production and on the terrain of the ecology. The only modality of time in which capital can be interested is exploitable labor time.
Hegel’s Philosophy of History (1837)
Marx and Engels's own theory of historical materialism was explicitly developed in opposition to Hegel's theory of history.
Hillary Clinton: Born Again Progressive or Architect of Empire?
Doug notes of her review of a book by Henry Kissinger,
he praised his “breadth and acuity” and described him as “a friend,” on whose “counsel” she relied while Secretary of State. Her appreciation of her predecessor seems apt. There’s something reminiscent of Kissinger about Hillary – the ruthlessness, the admiration of toughness and force, the penchant for deception and secrecy, the view of diplomacy as war continued by other means.
Family, Welfare, and the State: Between Progressivism and the New Deal
“Family, Welfare, and The State leaves no doubt that the New Deal was not only the last resort to save capitalism from the danger of working class revolution, but was also in essence a productivity deal that was structured to maintain a patriarchal and racist order.” —Silvia Federici, from the Preface
It’s Not Over: Learning From the Socialist Experiment
This history lives through the words and actions of the men and women who made these revolutions, and the everyday experiences of the millions of people who put new revolutionary ideas into practice under the pressures of enormous internal and external forces.
On Rebel Friendships and Affinity Groups
Benjamin Shepard explores the way friendship infuses social movements with the social capital necessary to move bodies of ideas forward...offering a new take on the ties between friends who are connected through affinity and efforts aimed at social change.