Reading Science Fiction Politically: Severance by Ling Ma

Book cover for Severance novel

“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.

Book Talk: Brian Kwoba on Hubert Harrison

Brian Kwoba will speak 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 … Read more

Aristotle, Hegel, Marx: A Philosophical Dialogue

Join 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.’ 

Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 1, Oversight

“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. 

Reading Death of the Author by Nigeria’s Nnedi Okorafor

Interview with Author Nnedi Okorafor

“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.

Antonio Gramsci Studies: 2025 Series

The continuing 2025 Gramsci Study Sessions will read and explore from: Selections from the Prison Notebooks Selections from Cultural Writings Selections from Political Writings Gramsci’s writings on international politics, as … Read more

Reading Capital in an Age of Climate Change

Matt Huber highlights the relevance to the climate crisis of key concepts from Marx’s ‘Capital’ such as value, the hidden abode of production, surplus-value, the accumulation of capital, primitive accumulation, and the expropriation of the expropriators.

Translating ‘Capital’ for the 21st Century

The appearance of a new English-language edition of Marx’s Capital, Volume I, translated and edited by Paul Reitter and Paul North, has been a momentous occasion. Join a conversation with Reitter, North, and noted Marx scholar Michael Heinrich on the challenges of translating Marx for 21st century readers, the weaknesses and strengths of earlier translations, and the ways the new edition can help us understand Marx’s analyses of capital and value.

A Prime Competitor: Understanding Amazon’s Market Power

Amazon delivery trucks

Stephen Maher and Scott Aquanno present an innovative analysis of Amazon’s market power, drawing on major themes from Marx’s Capital, volume 2. In a recent contribution published by Canada’s Socialist Project, they challenge understandings of “monopoly” common in mainstream economics as well as among sections of the left.