A Guide to The Communist Manifesto with Phil Gasper
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsIF YOU CANNOT OURCHASE ON OUR SITE, TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT EVENTBRITE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/203494927807
Since Phil produced this edition, the English-reading left has had an authoritative introduction to history’s most important political document, with the full text of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. This beautifully organized and presented edition of The Communist Manifestois fully annotated, with clear historical references and explication, additional related texts, and a glossary that will bring the text to life for students, as well as the general reader. Since it was first written in 1848, the Manifesto has been translated into more languages than any other modern text. It has been banned, censored, burned, and declared “dead.” But year after year, the text only grows more influential, remaining required reading in courses on philosophy, politics, economics, and history.
Parade of the Old New with artist/author Zoe Beloff
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA discussion by Zoe Beloff about her new 40-panel accordion book that reproduces, Parade of the Old New, an epic panorama on cardboard panels, a 40 meter long allegory of the American body politic. The title is taken from a 1938 poem by Bertolt Brecht that inspired the theme of this work; now more than ever, we are not finished with the past and the past is not finished with us. The project was launched with Trump's inauguration and continued until he was defeated at the ballot box. It begins with the president's triumphal entry into Washington DC.Parade of the Old New is distributed by Booklyn, Inc. (booklyn.org). Booklyn also represents Beloff's work within the library and academic market.
Disputing the Deluge with Darko Suvin joined by Editor Hugh O’Connell and special guests
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDarko Suvin’s writings from the early 2000s investigate the function of literary genres and reconsider the relationship between science fiction and fantasy, the essays collected here highlight the value of science fiction for grappling with the key events and transformations of recent years. Suvin’s interrogations show how speculative fiction has responded to 9/11, the global war on terror, the 2008economic collapse, and the rise of conservative populism, along with contemporary critical utopian analyses of the Capitalocene, the climate crisis,COVID19, and the decline of democracy. This collection allows new generations of students and scholars to engage directly with his work and its continuing importance and timeliness.
The Invention of the White Race
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsTheodore W. Allen spent 30 years researching the primary sources and writing The Invention of the White Race (2 volumes), which provides a historical materialist analysis of racial oppression and the white identity which emerged as a principal form of social control over rebellious laboring class of European and Africans in the pattern setting colonies of Virginia and Maryland in the late 17th early 18th century.
The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsMoving beyond headlines and personalities, uncovered are the real working class conditions in modern Turkey. Combining field research and interviews, cutting-edge analyses of workplace struggles, trade unionism, the AKP’s relationship with neoliberalism, migration, gender, agrarian change and precarity, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on workers are presented succinctly. Brought together by a broad range of Turkish activists and scholars who consider what the dynamics and contradictions of working-class resistance against Turkey’s neoliberal authoritarian regime have become.
Women Write on the Verge of Historical Change: Last session
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDuring this term, the MEP Literature Studies Group will read novels by women writers which explore the intersections of life in their communities, both at home and in the metropoles of Europe, India and the Philippines. These stories will take us to places and introduce us to people facing many of the dilemmas posed during late-stage capitalism, when the looming tipping points begin to collide. Reading and discussing these important writers could very well bring us to a broader sense of time and place. We will discussion Aminatta Forna and Gloria Apostol on December 2, 9, and 16.
Rethinking Alternatives with Marx: Economy, Ecology and Migration
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThe dual aim of this collective volume is to contribute to a new critical discussion on Marx’s critique of political economy and to develop a deeper analysis of certain questions, like ecology and migration, to which relatively little attention has been paid until recently.
Book Special Redux! Marx Dead and Alive: Reading Capital in Precarious Times
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThis is for ordering the book only. Andy has an upcoming talk on Sunday, January 23. We are offering this important book for $12.00 inclusive of postage (US and Puerto Rico only), until one week after Andy's presentation on Henri Lefebvre and Louis Althusser.
We Are “Nature” Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsChronicles the story of the ZAD (zone to defend), a resistant land occupation emerging out of a decades-long struggle which stopped a new airport project. Fremeaux and Jordan blend rich eyewitness accounts with theory, inspired by a diverse array of approaches, from neo-animism to revolutionary biology, insurrectionary writings and radical art history.
A People’s History of Detroit
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsMark Jay and Philip Conklin outline the complex sociopolitical dynamics underlying major events in Detroit's past, from the rise of Fordism and the formation of labor unions, to deindustrialization and the city's recent bankruptcy. They demonstrate that Detroit's history is not a tale of two cities—one of wealth and development and another racked by poverty and racial violence; rather it is the story of a single Detroit that operates according to capitalism's mandates.
Power Despite Precarity
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsPower Despite Precarity is part history, part handbook and a wholly indispensable resource in this fight. Joe Berry and Helena Worthen outline the four historical periods that led to major transitions in the work-lives of faculty of this sector. They then take a deep dive into the 30-year-long struggle by California State University lecturers to negotiate what is recognized as the best contract for contingents in the US.
Siegebreakers: A discussion of Justin Podur’s novel set in Gaza
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsUnder the crushing weight of the siege of Gaza, Laila and Nasser are members of the Palestinian resistance fighting desperately to free their people. Together, they learn of a plan to unite the disparate Palestinian factions and break Israel’s siege. Unknown to them, Ari, a brilliant Israeli spy, has decided that his conscience can no longer allow him to participate in the starvation of Gaza. A double agent whose every move is under mounting suspicion, Ari reaches out to the American contractors who trained him with a secret plan. As they all struggle to break the siege, they face the wrath of the Israeli military machine.
Lefebvre / Althusser: Humanist and Anti-Humanist Marxism
Could a unified Left leverage state power away from a disgruntled Right? Could it do so in the streets, in the factories, and through the ballot box? Could forces within the state be modified by organized pressure from the outside? Could pressure from the outside not only transform the inside but actually become that inside? These and more questions will be discussed.
States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsSkocpol asserts that social revolutions are rapid and basic transformations of a society's state and class structures. She distinguishes this from mere rebellions, which involve a revolt of subordinate classes but may not create structural change, and from political revolutions that may change state structures but not social structures. What is unique about social revolutions, she argues, is that basic changes in social structure and political structure occur in a mutually reinforcing fashion and these changes occur through intense sociopolitical conflict. A convergence of peasant rebellion on one hand and international pressures causing state breakdown on the other hand cause revolutionary social movements.
50 Years of Anti-Imperialist Writing: Galeano, Rodney, and Ghosh
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA reading group to celebrate and reflect on two classic works of anti-imperialist writing first published fifty years ago but with an ongoing worldwide impact: Eduardo Galeano’s OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971) and Walter Rodney’s HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA (1972). Extending our scope to Asia and bringing matters up to the present day, we will conclude by reading Amitav Ghosh’s just-published THE NUTMEG’S CURSE: PARABLES FOR A PLANET IN CRISIS.