Events
-
-
Exploring the Literature of Afro-Surrealism
Thursdays, 7-9 pm ET, beginning April 24 This spring, the MEP Literature Reading Group takes up novels loosely grouped as "Afro-Surrealism." Borrowing from use by Amiri Baraka in the 1970s, D. Scot Miller encouraged use of the term through his 2009 essay, “Afrosurreal Manifesto." Writers and artists in the African diaspora have now reclaimed the ... Read more
Free -
Reading ‘Human Acts’ by Han Kang
Thursday, May 15 - 7 pm ET MEP's Literature Reading Group will commemorate the 1980 South Korean pro-democracy uprising with a reading of Han Kang's Human Acts. On May 18, 1980, the citizens of Gwangju, South Korea rose up in a ten-day revolt against the imposition of martial law. Factory workers, university and high ... Read more
Free -
‘Roses for Gramsci’ with Andy Merrifield
Recording available on YouTubeAuthor Andy Merrifield presents 'Roses for Gramsci,' a remarkable personal journey through the life and writings of the great Sardinian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci.
Free -
Darkest Los Angeles
Institute for the Radical Imagination NY, United StatesReading GroupDennis Broe leads a group reading of his five Los Angeles novels set in the film-noir period of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The contradictions we will unearth in that postwar period, the period of crime films that visually documented this seedy reality, have never been resolved, only continually papered over, and so they resound today.
-
-
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 -
Literary Echoes of Vietnam’s 1975 Victory
FeaturedOnline Event - Zoom MeetingWhile the bombs were falling, only a stone wouldn't be terrified. If the Americans noticed movement in the forest, they would eliminate the forest. Who knows how much money was spent? American taxpayers' money. If a cluster of napalm bombs were dropped, the jungle would turn into a sea of fire. Can you imagine a ... Read more
Get Tickets Free -
Trotsky in New York Walking Tour
Join Alex Steinberg and Daniel Lazare for a historical walking tour of Lower Manhattan as we explore some of the places where Leon Trotsky visited and worked during his nine week stay in New York in early 1917.
$10.00 -
Aristotle, Hegel, Marx: A Philosophical Dialogue
Recording available on YouTubeJoin us for a dialogue on philosophical themes featuring the authors of two forthcoming books. Michael Lazarus is the author of 'Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx,' and Jensen Suther is the author of 'True Materialism: Hegelian Marxism and the Modernist Struggle for Freedom.'
Get Tickets Free -
Reading Death of the Author by Nigeria’s Nnedi Okorafor
Featured Science and Visionary FictionOnline Event - Zoom Meeting"To build a better future, we have to envision it first." Reading science fiction, discussing it together, and reading it politically, offers one tool for "envisioning" a future worth building. We continue our explorations of diverse points of view of social conflict and resolution, possible and imagined just worlds, here on Earth and perhaps afar.
Free -
-
Book Talk: Brian Kwoba on Hubert Harrison
Recording available on YouTubeReading GroupA video of this July 1, 2025, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. Brian Kwoba speaks on his newly published book Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism and Harrison's prominent role in the early Socialist Party, IWW, and Black radicalism during the 1910s and 20s. Brian's visit forms part of our current ... Read more
Free -
Reading Science Fiction Politically: Severance by Ling Ma
Featured Science and Visionary FictionOnline Event - Zoom Meeting"To build a better future, we have to envision it first." Reading science fiction, discussing it together, and reading it politically, offers one tool for "envisioning" a future worth building. We continue our explorations of diverse points of view of social conflict and resolution, possible and imagined just worlds, here on Earth and perhaps afar.
Get Tickets Free -
Hegel for Radicals: The Phenomenology of Spirit
Online Event - Zoom MeetingReading GroupOver 16 Saturdays, beginning March 8, we will read and discuss one of the most influential books of all time, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This massive retelling of humanity defies traditional divisions between history, philosophy, comedy, and tragedy.
-
-
Summer in France in the Shade of Noir
FeaturedOnline Event - Zoom MeetingReading GroupThe MEP Literature Group continues its tradition of easy summer reading focusing on the noir genre. Our two selections - 'Command Performance' and 'Creation Lake' - are both set in France and both deal with corruption in high places by right-wing politicians and corporations who manipulate inept investigators of low social standing and morals.
Get Tickets Free -
-
‘Fake Work’ with Leigh Claire La Berge
FeaturedRecording available on YouTubeA video of this September 24, 2025, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. Using the most banal of office settings - corporate documentation - in the most extraordinary of circumstances - a looming Y2K apocalypse, Leigh Claire La Berge's newly published Fake Work offers not only a unique experience of alienated labor, but ... Read more
Free