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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250615T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250615T160000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250512T162306Z
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SUMMARY:Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 1\, Oversight
DESCRIPTION:Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture\nA video of this June 15\, 2025\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \n“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. Do we still sleep in Debord’s spectacle\, a world of images\, infinitely consumable and reproducible\, devoid of meaning outside the hollow\, homogenous temporality of the commodity? Or have we entered an age where the audience is more appropriately conceived\, not as isolated onlookers\, but as a network of users–with unprecedented access to digital information while subjected to pervasive forms of control and surveillance? Does “a critical theory of the spectacle” still allow us to make sense of shared sensorial flashpoints\, past and present? And what does it mean to be a spectator–to regard\, to look\, to witness? 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.  \nThe first panel\, “Oversight\,” considers the dual meanings of oversight: as surveillance – “watching over” – and as that which is missed – “overlooked.” In “That Superficial\, Theatric Sense\,” Suvij Sudershan opens by exploring the resonances of spectacle and speculation in reflections on revolutions from Edmund Burke to Lukács. In “Roving Eyes: The Stereoscopic Vision of War\,” Jane Zhang examines the production and marketing of optical lens to offer an alternative history of stereoscopic vision. In a pre-history of our contemporary era of Amazon last-mile delivery and e-commerce\, “From Errand to Spectacle\,” Sofia Cutler follows the delivery drivers who serviced elite white women shopping at early 20th-century department stores to show how their labor transformed shopping. In “Vita Contemplativa: Beijing Coma and China’s Modern Constitution\,” Henry Zhang explores Ma Jian’s anatomy of the student movement and its aftermath. In “Arenas of Conflict” Jess Cruz traces the unexpected uses of Miami’s stadiums and their links to the city’s multigenerational devotion to anti-communism and transnational right-wing politics. \nThe Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture is an interdisciplinary cultural studies research collective that has been practicing at Yale University since 2003. Over the years\, we have presented our work at the Left Forum\, Historical Materialism\, the Marxist Education Project\, Occupy Boston\, and the World Social Forum. Past projects have appeared as “Going into Debt\,” online in Social Text‘s Periscope\, and as “Spaces and Times of Occupation” in Transforming Anthropology; a collective interview regarding “Matters of Life and Death” was published in Revue Française d’Études Américaines. Our current members are: Damanpreet Pelia (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research interests include religion\, sovereignty\, and empire); Henry Zhang (doctoral researcher in English; research focuses on the aesthetics of post-war memory and post-socialist transition in East Asia and its diaspora during the long cold war); Jane Zhang (doctoral researcher in Comparative Literature and Film & Media Studies; research focuses on the intersecting history of medicine\, consumer culture\, and notions of selfhood); Javier Porras Madero (doctoral researcher in Latin American history; research focuses on revolution and border formation); Jess Cruz (doctoral researcher in History; research focuses on the history of Miami\, Florida as a center for the Latin American Right across the 1980s-1990s); Madeleine Han (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research focuses on US militarism\, cold war cultures\, and overlapping imperialisms in Asia); Michael Denning (professor of American Studies; research focuses on labor\, critical theory\, and social movements); Morgan E. Freeman (doctoral researcher in American Studies; her research focuses on the contemporary art and visual cultures of Black and Native practitioners as it relates to belonging and place specificity); Sofia Cutler (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research traces the cultural and political history of last-mile delivery–or the last-leg of a product’s long journey across supply chains to a customer’s front door; and Suvij Sudershan (doctoral researcher in English and Film; research focuses on 19th and 20th century global anglophone\, francophone\, and South Asian vernacular literature\, the development of the novel\, ideas of realism and modernism\, and the depiction of peasant revolt and rural modernization).
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/yale-wggc-2025-1/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Alienation,American Imperialism,Art and politics,Asia,Colonialism,Critical Theory,Cultural Resistance,featured,Globalization,Imperialism,Marxisms,Modernity,Political Economy,Seminars and Talks,Spring 25,Urbanism,Video Available
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/spectacle-denning-crop.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250621T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250621T160000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250512T162452Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250926T163308Z
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SUMMARY:Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 2\, Witness
DESCRIPTION:Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture\nA video of this June 21\, 2025\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \n“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. Do we still sleep in Debord’s spectacle\, a world of images\, infinitely consumable and reproducible\, devoid of meaning outside the hollow\, homogenous temporality of the commodity? Or have we entered an age where the audience is more appropriately conceived\, not as isolated onlookers\, but as a network of users–with unprecedented access to digital information while subjected to pervasive forms of control and surveillance? Does “a critical theory of the spectacle” still allow us to make sense of shared sensorial flashpoints\, past and present? And what does it mean to be a spectator–to regard\, to look\, to witness? 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.  \nThe second panel\, “Witness\,” asks how various spectral presences–of memory\, rebellion\, interiority\, history–demand us to account for spectacle’s reversals\, negations\, and reenactments in mass protests and counter-spectacles. Is the society of the spectacle necessarily also one of bearing witness?  In “Delineating Specters\,” Javier Porras Madero considers how the conjuration and nationalization of specters deepened the contradictions of border formation in the decades following the Mexican Revolution. In “Spectacles of Sympathy\,” Morgan E. Freeman analyzes human interest stories produced in the age of polar exploration to consider this genre as a vehicle for mythologies of the bourgeoisie. In “Spectacular Reversal\,” Damanpreet Pelia reflects on the spectacle of political violence by tracking the spectral presence of the bāz (from the Persian for hawk) in the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Satwant Singh and Beant Singh in 1984. In “The Spectacle of the Mass Demonstration\,” Michael Denning reflects on Marx’s account of mass demonstrations and universal suffrage in the wake of a decade of occupations: citizens in the streets and elected populists as the religion of everyday life. In “Detouring the US Military Camptown\,” Madeleine Han explores tourism as memory work toward remembering the US military’s legacy and ongoing occupation of Korea. \nThe Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture is an interdisciplinary cultural studies research collective that has been practicing at Yale University since 2003. Over the years\, we have presented our work at the Left Forum\, Historical Materialism\, the Marxist Education Project\, Occupy Boston\, and the World Social Forum. Past projects have appeared as “Going into Debt\,” online in Social Text‘s Periscope\, and as “Spaces and Times of Occupation” in Transforming Anthropology; a collective interview regarding “Matters of Life and Death” was published in Revue Française d’Études Américaines. Our current members are: Damanpreet Pelia (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research interests include religion\, sovereignty\, and empire); Henry Zhang (doctoral researcher in English; research focuses on the aesthetics of post-war memory and post-socialist transition in East Asia and its diaspora during the long cold war); Jane Zhang (doctoral researcher in Comparative Literature and Film & Media Studies; research focuses on the intersecting history of medicine\, consumer culture\, and notions of selfhood); Javier Porras Madero (doctoral researcher in Latin American history; research focuses on revolution and border formation); Jess Cruz (doctoral researcher in History; research focuses on the history of Miami\, Florida as a center for the Latin American Right across the 1980s-1990s); Madeleine Han (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research focuses on US militarism\, cold war cultures\, and overlapping imperialisms in Asia); Michael Denning (professor of American Studies; research focuses on labor\, critical theory\, and social movements); Morgan E. Freeman (doctoral researcher in American Studies; her research focuses on the contemporary art and visual cultures of Black and Native practitioners as it relates to belonging and place specificity); Sofia Cutler (doctoral researcher in American Studies; research traces the cultural and political history of last-mile delivery–or the last-leg of a product’s long journey across supply chains to a customer’s front door; and Suvij Sudershan (doctoral researcher in English and Film; research focuses on 19th and 20th century global anglophone\, francophone\, and South Asian vernacular literature\, the development of the novel\, ideas of realism and modernism\, and the depiction of peasant revolt and rural modernization).
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/yale-wggc-2025-2/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Alienation,American Imperialism,Art and politics,Asia,Colonialism,Critical Theory,Cultural Resistance,featured,Globalization,Imperialism,Marxisms,Modernity,Political Economy,Seminars and Talks,Spring 25,Urbanism,Video Available
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/spectacle-denning-crop2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250626T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250626T203000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250530T133233Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250620T134031Z
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SUMMARY:Literary Echoes of Vietnam's 1975 Victory
DESCRIPTION:While 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 sea of fire? –Bao Ninh \nJoin with the MEP Literature Group to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1975 fall of Saigon\, bringing an end to the Vietnam War. This month\, we will read two volumes by Bao Ninh–The Sorrow of War and Hà Nôi at Midnight.  \nBorn in October 1952\, Bao Ninh experienced the effects of US bombing while growing up and later joined the “Glorious 27th Youth Brigade” at the age of 17. Bao Ninh’s writing offers restrained\, poignant\, yet powerful accounts of the “sorrow of war\,” the losses and grief of a generation who fought to unify the country. \nConvened by Jacqueline Cantwell and the MEP Literature Reading Group. Jacqueline Cantwell became involved with the MEP’s Literature Group because of her love of Victor Serge’s  novels. Participating in an MEP reading group led by Serge translator Richard Greeman eight years ago\, Jacqueline found a community of readers eager to be challenged by the ambitions of international writers devoted to the creative potential of political fiction. Since the death of Michael Lardner\, who hosted and organized the Literature Group for so many years\, Jacqueline has taken the lead in furthering the group’s goals of exploring international fiction and encouraging thoughtful conversation. \n(Bao Ninh quote from Ken Burns’ series The Vietnam War)
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/fall_of_saigon/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,featured,Literary Studies,Summer 25,War
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/81ckXikZEyL._SY522_.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250628T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250628T170000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250519T194137Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250605T154118Z
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SUMMARY:Trotsky in New York Walking Tour
DESCRIPTION:Socialists and Immigrants in the Lower East Side\nJoin 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. \nWe will explore the culture of the radicalized immigrant communities of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe as well as German\, Russian\, Italian and Greek immigrants. These communities supported a thriving socialist movement in New York.  And in 1917\, ferment and struggle increased dramatically as America entered World War I on April 6\, 1917 and Russia’s revolutionary wave exploded a few months later. \nAfter beginning at Cooper Union\, we will walk to 77 St. Marks Place\, which housed the offices of the Russian language newspaper Novy Mir and where Trotsky and other future Bolshevik leaders worked daily. From there\, the tour will walk to the building of the Jewish Daily Forward in Seward Park\, where we will learn of Trotsky’s dramatic confrontation with more conservative socialists. As we walk we will pass by a number of places that were important in understanding the history of the social struggles of immigrants in a New York very different than the city we know today. \nLed by Alex Steinberg and Daniel Lazare. Alex is a frequent teacher of Marxist Education Project classes on the philosophy of Hegel and related topics. Daniel is is a journalist and author; his books include The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy. \nMeet in front of the main entrance to The Great Hall of Cooper Union\, behind the statue of Peter Cooper\, East 7th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/trotsky-in-new-york-tour/
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,History,Russian Revolution,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/TrotskyTourSite.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250629T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250629T180000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250528T145023Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250926T163231Z
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SUMMARY:Aristotle\, Hegel\, Marx: A Philosophical Dialogue
DESCRIPTION:A video of this June 29\, 2025\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \nJoin us for a dialogue on philosophical themes featuring two authors of forthcoming books from Stanford University Press. 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.  Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry\, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. His book traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx’s work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre\, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately\, the book claims that Marx’s value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. In True Materialism\, Suther engages with three titans of literary modernism—Franz Kafka\, Thomas Mann\, and Samuel Beckett—to pursue not only an account of Hegel’s materialism but also a new critique of capitalist modernity. Breaking with the received view of Marx’s relation to German Idealism\, the book argues that the materialist critique of capitalist production is inseparable from Hegel’s idea that the demand for freedom is a demand for mutual recognition. \nMichael Lazarus is a postdoctoral research fellow at Deakin University. \nJensen Suther received his PhD from Yale University and is currently a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/aristotle-hegel-marx/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Antiquity,communism,featured,Hegelianism,historical materialism,History,Marx,Marx and Hegel,Modernity,Philosophy,Philosophy of History,Science and Method,Seminars and Talks,Summer 25,Video Available
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/web-image.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250630T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250630T183000
DTSTAMP:20260610T102627
CREATED:20250313T184630Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250620T193944Z
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SUMMARY:Reading Death of the Author by Nigeria's Nnedi Okorafor
DESCRIPTION:Next\, Monday June 30\, 5:00 pm   \nAfricanfuturism is concerned with visions of the future\, is interested in technology\, leaves the earth\, skews optimistic\, is centered on and predominantly written by people of African descent (black people) and it is rooted first and foremost in Africa. It’s less concerned with “what could have been” and more concerned with “what is and can/will be”. It acknowledges\, grapples with and carries “what has been.”   —NNedi Okorafor  \nDip into the growing realm of Africanfuturism reading NNedi Okorafor’s most recent novel\, Death of the Author.  Her science fiction successful and highly popular today\, Okorafor here provides both an introduction to Nigerian science fiction for those that need it and a reflection on its cultural meaning for those who have read Binti\, others from Okorfor\, or other Nigerian- or African-inspired visionary and speculative fiction today. \nDeath of the Author centers on a Nigerian woman setting out to write science fiction\, perhaps like Okorafor herself years and many novels back. The novel explores Zelu’s dilemmas and doubts\, her relationship with family and community\, the world of publishing  in ways that may reflect Okorfor’s past. It also features a story within the story about intelligent robots in a futuristic African context.  The two stories blend together in unusual and unexpected ways\, and fit well with concerns of politically conscious readers of fiction and science fiction today. \n  \n  \nJuly Book Selection: Severance\, by Ling Ma.\nWatch this page for more information. \nFor more than three years\, the MEP Science and Visionary Fiction reading group has explored topics of oppression and resistance\, history and science\, capitalist and post-capitalist future\, human and nonhuman intelligence. We read with an overall commitment\, To build a better future\, we have to envision it first (adapted from Walidah Imarisha). Reading science\, speculative and visionary fiction\, discussing it together\, and reading it politically\, offers one tool for envisioning a future worth building. \nGive it a try for your summer reading: drop in\, stay for a while\, and contribute to lively\, present day-centered discussions. Everyone has something to contribute\, whether you read this sort of thing regularly or have hardly ever given it a second thought. Convened by Steve Backman \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/reading-science-fiction-politically-summer-25/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Africanfuturism,Classes/Events,featured,Literature,Multi-session Classes,Science Fiction,Visionary Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-05-30_12-17-26.jpg
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