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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251218T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251218T200000
DTSTAMP:20251212T183931Z
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SUMMARY:Reading 'Karl Marx in America'
DESCRIPTION:An eight-week study of Andrew Hartman’s recently published Karl Marx in America.  To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation\, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of people to formulate a more precise sense of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith\, John Locke\, and Thomas Paine. Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures\, yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life. Karl Marx in America argues that even though Marx never visited America\, the country has been infused\, shaped\, and transformed by him. \nFacilitated by David Worley\, a member of the executive committee of the Marxist Education Project and a longtime associate of the Brecht Forum\, where he served a term as co-chair of the Board of Directors. David is a nonsectarian socialist\, active since the 1960s in support of a wide range of peace and social justice causes.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/reading-karl-marx-in-america/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Civil War,Fall 2025,historical materialism,Housing,Intro to Marxism,Labor History,Marx,Marxisms,Political Economy,Political Strategy,Race and Class,Reading Group,Seminars and Talks,Social Democracy,Socialism,US History,Working Class History
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251208T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251208T183000
DTSTAMP:20251126T164400Z
CREATED:20250903T160349Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251126T164400Z
UID:10008365-1765213200-1765218600@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Octavia Butler: ‘Positive Obsession’ and ‘Wild Seed’
DESCRIPTION:Alternate Mondays\, Next on December 8\, 5-6:30 pm ET \nWatch for new selections coming soon\, featuring Frankenstein and the Chicano Frankenstein. \nJoin us for a new appreciation of Octavia Butler\, beginning with Susana M. Morris’s pathbreaking new biography\, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia Butler followed by Butler’s prophetic Wild Seed and other short selections. Offered by the Speculative and Visionary Fiction reading group. \nMorris’s just published biography blends commentary on Butler’s work and life against the social and political conditions she lived and wrote in. Butler developed her literary powers during the Reagan years while living a far from easy life.  As Dana A. Williams notes in her New York Times review\, “One of the biography’s most compelling themes is Butler’s sustained critique of American imperialism. From the scorched landscapes in Parable of the Sower to the uneasy alliances between humans and the Oankali (an “alien” race in the Xenogenesis series) to the entanglement of history and power in Kindred\, Butler’s fiction exposes the toll of empire (and its illusion of progress) on the body\, on the planet and on humanity.” \nWhether you have read a lot or a little of Butler’s fiction\, we encourage you to join with the MEP’s long-running reading group for a new introduction to Butler’s pivotal role in reshaping science\, visionary and speculative fiction\, helping inspire the emergence of Afro-Futurism\, and influencing a new generation of younger writers. We will accompany our reading of the biography with short selections from Butler’s fiction and other related materials. \nConvened by Steve Backman \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/read-positive-obsession-the-life-and-times-of-octavia-e-butler/
CATEGORIES:American Literature,Class and Gender,Cultural Resistance,Dystopian literature,Fall 2025,Literary Studies,Literature,Multi-session Classes,Radical Literature,Reading Group,Science Fiction,Speculative fiction,Visionary Fiction,Visionary Fiction,Women
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251206T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251206T180000
DTSTAMP:20251130T213743Z
CREATED:20250828T005014Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251130T213743Z
UID:10008361-1765036800-1765044000@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Marx's Capital\, Volume I - A Short Course on Capitalist Production
DESCRIPTION:A 12-session study group\, September 20 through December 13 \n\nHave you always wanted to study Marx’s Capital\, Vol 1\, and hesitated because of the time commitment to read the entire volume from start to finish? Join us for a 12-session study group covering key sections of the book. \nExperienced Capital study leader Lisa Maya Knauer will facilitate as we explore the relevance of Marx’s analysis to our current context. While we will go over the assigned material each week\, participants will read the material on their own in advance. This reading group is open to both Capital newbies and those who have read it previously but want a refresher. \n\nLisa Maya Knauer\, our facilitator\, has been involved with Marxist education in New York for her entire adult life\, and has taught a variety of classes at the MEP and its predecessors. Her current activist work focuses on immigrant workers’ rights and indigenous struggles for land and water. In her day job\, she is a tenured radical at a public university. \nEnrollment in this series is now closed – please watch for future sessions on Marx’s Capital.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/capital-short-course/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,Fall 2025,historical materialism,History,Intro to Marxism,Labor Process,Marx,Marx's Capital,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Reading Group,Social Reproduction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/capitalism.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Capital Studies Group":MAILTO:info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251124T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251124T200000
DTSTAMP:20251130T213549Z
CREATED:20241119T143934Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251130T213549Z
UID:10008325-1764009000-1764014400@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Reading Marx's Capital\, Volume III
DESCRIPTION:Volume III of Capital – The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole – integrates and completes Marx’s analysis\, enabling us to understand and make sense of how the phenomena we see occurring on the surface of society are related to the underlying system of capitalism. It is essential to understanding the current moment of late capitalist/imperialist development\, in which we see the rise of rentier and finance capital and the commodification of debt; continuously rising prices that bring still more poverty and starvation; new technologies turned into means of extracting rents; the privatization of public spaces\, properties and institutions; and the list goes on. \nParticipants in this long-running study group have been closely reading and discussing Volume III\, using a hybrid approach to cover the entire book. For key chapters or sections\, we do a line-by-line reading with pauses for questions and commentary. Participants read other sections on their own\, along with occasional supplemental materials such as passages from Beverley Best’s highly praised companion to Volume III\, The Automatic Fetish. The series is nearing completion with study of Part Six on Ground-Rent.\nRegistration is now closed\, but please email info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com if you are interested in further Capital studies. \nFred Murphy facilitates this group. Since 2015 Fred has led numerous MEP study groups on ecosocialism\, science and technology\, the history of capitalism\, and Latin American politics. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research and reported from Latin America for several socialist publications.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/capital-volume-iii/
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,Capital Studies,Classes/Events,Crisis,Financialization,historical materialism,History,Marx,Marx's Capital,Marxist Method,Money,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Reading Group,Science and Method,Winter 2025
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ORGANIZER;CN="Capital Studies Group":MAILTO:info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250828T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250828T210000
DTSTAMP:20250827T152254Z
CREATED:20250711T161922Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250827T152254Z
UID:10008354-1756407600-1756414800@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Summer in France in the Shade of Noir
DESCRIPTION:The MEP Literature Group continues its tradition of easy summer reading focusing on the noir genre. Our two selections 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. \n\nCommand Performance\, by Jean Echenoz; translated by Mark Polizzotti (New York Review Books\, 2020).  A hapless unemployed flight attendant thinks he can solve his financial problems by becoming a private detective\, but he ends up in the employ of a fractious right-wing political party. Things do not go well.  Be prepared to discuss the entire book at our first session on August 6.\nCreation Lake\, by Rachel Kushner (Scribners\, 2024). Sadie Smith once worked as a government undercover operative within an environmental rights group. She got fired for entrapment and went to work in corporate espionage. Her summer assignment in France is to provoke an incident by an environmental rights group that will justify government action. Will Sadie’s honey trap tactics succeed? (August 13\, 20\, 24)\n\n\nConvened by Jacqueline Cantwell and the MEP Literature Group. Jacqueline 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.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/shade-of-noir/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:_Seasons,Anti-capitalist Literature,Classes/Events,featured,France,Literary Studies,Literature,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Reading Group,Summer 2025
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/noir-collage.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250719T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250719T130000
DTSTAMP:20250714T133753Z
CREATED:20250209T000040Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250714T133753Z
UID:10008334-1752922800-1752930000@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Hegel for Radicals: The Phenomenology of Spirit
DESCRIPTION:The MEP’s recurring Hegel for Radicals series introduces what is living in Hegel for those who want to change the world. Over 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. As participants in Hegel’s Bacchanalian Revel we will step through such themes as \n\nThe Inverted World\nThe Dialectic of Master and Slave\nThe Cynical Bohemian\nThe Beautiful Soul\nFreedom and Terror\nSpirit Externalized as Nature and History\nThe Absolute\n\nThis journey provides a foundation for Hegel’s dialectic\, which is in turn a key to Marx’s Capital. \nWe recommend the translation by A.V. Miller of the Phenomenology of Spirit\, published by Oxford University Press and readily available as an inexpensive paperback. \nAlex Steinberg is an independent scholar and lifelong socialist who has taught classes in Marxist philosophy\, Hegel\, the dialectics of nature\, Heidegger\, and Nietzsche at the New Space for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education\, The Brecht Forum\, the Marxist Education Project\, and other venues. Alex was a Conference Presenter at the First International Conference on Trotsky in Havana\, Cuba. In addition to his scholarly activities Alex has been involved with the governance of WBAI radio\, most recently as Chair of the Pacifica National Board from 2019 – 2021. \nRegistration for this study group is now closed.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/hegel-phenomenology/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Alienation,Critical Theory,French Revolution,Hegel,History,Marx and Hegel,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Philosophy,Reading Group,Science and Method,Winter 2025
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250701T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250701T203000
DTSTAMP:20250926T163514Z
CREATED:20250624T143442Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250926T163514Z
UID:10008352-1751396400-1751401800@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Book Talk: Brian Kwoba on Hubert Harrison
DESCRIPTION:A video of this July 1\, 2025\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \nBrian 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 study group on the Historical Roots of American Fascism. \nThe following excerpt from the Introduction to Kwoba’s book gives a taste of his new approach: \n“In the face of the superexploitation of working people by the likes of John D. Rockefeller\, Andrew Carnegie\, and J. P. Morgan—the capitalist robber barons of the Gilded Age—Harrison crystallized a secular Black revolutionary Socialist politics. In so doing\, he theorized the role of anti-Black racial oppression in preventing the emancipation of the working class from the wage slavery of industrial capitalism. \nIn contrast to the Eurocentric mass media and education systems\, Harrison’s spellbinding street-corner speaking\, commitment to grassroots empowerment\, fearless journalism\, and encyclopedic knowledge allowed him to crystallize a new and revolutionary model—what some called the “Outdoor University”—for free urban Black emancipatory education. It stood in stark contrast to both the industrial education symbolized by Booker T. and Margaret Murray Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and the “higher” elite education of the colleges and universities that were inaccessible to the masses of Black people. Perched atop a sidewalk stepladder at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue and addressing audiences large enough to block traffic\, Harrison spoke on subject matter ranging across such topics as African American art and popular culture\, sociology\, scientific racism\, English literature\, evolutionary biology\, theological criticism\, African history\, macroeconomics\, and global geopolitics. A. Philip Randolph aptly described this model of education as “one of the great intellectual forums in America.” \nIn the face of rampant racism in white society and President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to take the United States of America into World War I\, Harrison helped crystallize Harlem’s political “New Negro” movement. Calling for voting rights for Black men and Black women\, federal antilynching legislation\, armed self-defense\, and an end to Jim Crow racial oppression\, Harrison’s Liberty League of Negro-Americans cohered a pan-African and people-centered movement for Black self-empowerment. By recruiting and training an unknown Jamaican immigrant by the name of Marcus Garvey\, Harrison’s Liberty League catalyzed the emergence of the largest international organization of Black people in modern history. \nHarrison spoke out about injustices taking place all over the globe. Standing against European colonialism and the predatory imperial powers of the world\, Harrison crystallized a new form of radical internationalism in his groundbreaking theorization of the “Colored International.” As a revolutionary political alliance of colonized peoples in the Islamic world\, India\, the Caribbean\, Latin America\, Africa\, Europe\, and Asia\, the Colored International he envisioned would smash the giant triplets of capitalism\, imperialism\, and white racial domination. \nIn a city where white people put a Congolese man named Ota Benga on display in the Bronx Zoo\, Harrison self-identified as an “untamed\, untamable African” and crystallized a model of African consciousness for the Black diaspora based on his deep study of African history\, culture\, and politics. \nAfter a childhood upbringing steeped in the Anglican Church\, Harrison broke with Christianity and religion more generally. He would later emerge as the most prominent Black freethinker of his generation. As against the conservative dogmas of the church\, Harrison crystallized—for a new generation—a Black agnosticism grounded in modern science\, empirical evidence\, and rational explanation over religious dogma. As a militant “truth seeker\,” he demanded the taxation of church properties\, an end to prayers in school and courtroom Bible oaths\, and a complete separation of church and state. \nIn the face of federal government censorship\, repression\, and criminalization of sexuality—and widespread policing of sexual morality by the church—Harrison crystallized a Black free love politics. In that respect\, he emerged among the earliest of Black voices advocating for legalizing access to contraception\, offering public-facing courses in sex education\, and explicitly advancing a conception of love based on variety and freedom from compulsory monogamy and the Puritanical sex-negativity of US culture and society. \nAs a result of crystallizing so many political breakthroughs\, Harrison developed a kaleidoscopic radicalism that connected multiple worlds of counter-hegemonic knowledge. As Kirnon put it\, “Harrison was the first Negro who boldly preached racialism and all forms of radicalism in New York. He preached them continuously and consistently. He was the first Negro whose radicalism was comprehensive enough to include racialism\, science\, politics\, sociology and education in a thorough-going\, scientific manner.”… \nScholars of a particular figure or organization are often ideologically partisan toward it and therefore less comfortable remembering—let alone actually engaging with—forceful internal critics like Harrison. As Harrison once observed\, “Even savants are prone to forget that they do most of their thinking with their desires\, beliefs\, prejudices and subconscious urges\, which they then proceed to rationalize.”23 This explains\, in part\, why those who are partial to one or another ideological framework that Harrison criticized have so often run from him—whether consciously or subconsciously—like a rich person avoiding a beggar. His legacy has been forbidden precisely because it forces us to rethink fundamentally what we think we know—about everything from poverty\, war\, and racism\, to love\, sex\, and religion. \nAnd this is precisely why it is so revealing to study Hubert Henry Harrison. \nOn the one hand\, the most relevant historiographies—of Black Marxism\, Black freethinkers\, Garveyism\, Black sexual liberation\, and the New Negro “Renaissance”—have either marginalized or omitted him entirely. On the other hand\, Harrison played a groundbreaking role in the crystallization of each of these formations. Therefore\, putting him back into the picture opens multiple highly revealing angles of vision on the conjunctures both within and between them. \nRecovering Harrison’s legacy requires us to: reexamine the history of Black people in relation to the Socialist and Communist Parties; recover a forgotten strand of Black class-conscious\, anti-imperialist\, “colored” internationalism; reframe the spatial and intellectual possibilities for Black liberatory education in light of Harlem’s “Outdoor University”; rethink the genealogy of the Black secular and freethinking traditions; reappraise the origins and pitfalls of the global Garvey movement; reinterrogate the mythology of the “Harlem Renaissance”; excavate an onyx crystalline layer in the historical geology of free love politics. In short\, to reimagine the horizons of the Black radical tradition.”
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/kwoba_on_harrison/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,featured,Multi-session Classes,Reading Group,Summer 2025,Video Available
ORGANIZER;CN="Political Strategy Study Group":MAILTO:info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250523T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250523T203000
DTSTAMP:20250519T200718Z
CREATED:20250415T151936Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250519T200718Z
UID:10008337-1748026800-1748032200@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Darkest Los Angeles
DESCRIPTION:Film Noir\, Greed\, and Corporate Graft in LaLa Land\nA five-session reading group with novelist and scholar Dennis Broe\, presented by the Institute for the Radical Imagination and co-sponsored by the MEP\, LA Progressive and People’s World\nOrson Welles once called Los Angeles “a bright\, guilty place\,” and that is as true today as it was in the 1940s when Welles coined this description. Dennis 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. We will look at five industries and moments in this period with a view toward explaining how the postwar period set the tone for what was to follow\, leading to the present era of a vast income disparity and frequent “natural\,” though totally avoidable\, disasters. \n*The novels – Left of Eden\, A Hello to Arms\, The Precinct with the Golden Arm\, The House That Buff Built\, and The Dark Ages – are detailed in this syllabus. They are available from various online booksellers. \nDennis Broe is a professor\, journalist and novelist whose books include: Film Noir\, American Workers and Postwar Hollywood; Class\, Crime and International Film Noir: Globalizing America’s Dark Art; and Cold War Expressionism: Perverting the Politics of Perception. He has taught at The Sorbonne and is the Parisian correspondent for Arts Express on The Pacifica Network. Dennis also writes for LA Progressive\, People’s World\, Crime Time\, Culture Matters\, the British daily Morning Star and Monthly Review Online. His series of five novels is continuing with his latest\, Pornocopia\, about the corporate takeover of Las Vegas and the porn industry. Dennis has also just launched a new podcast\, Culture and Barbarism\, with Toby Miller. \nRegister for this class series at the Institute for the Radical Imagination
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/darkest-los-angeles/
LOCATION:Institute for the Radical Imagination\, NY\, United States
CATEGORIES:Alienation,American Literature,Anti-fascism,Art and politics,Capital vs. Labor,Cultural Resistance,Film and television,History,Literature,Multi-session Classes,Noir Fiction,Race and Class,Radical Literature,Reading Group,Repression,Spring 2025,Urbanism
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/darkestLA-image2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T193000
DTSTAMP:20250501T145332Z
CREATED:20250222T181717Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250501T145332Z
UID:10008335-1746640800-1746646200@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Karl Marx and Republicanism: Reading 'Citizen Marx'
DESCRIPTION:“… It is still not adequately appreciated that Marx’s principal political value was freedom\,\nrather than\, say\, equality or community.” Bruno Leipold\, Citizen Marx \nA five-session reading group\nWhat better time than the present moment to revisit Karl Marx’s commitment to the democratic republic as a necessary (if not sufficient) step on the path to human freedom? Over five weekly meetings we will read and discuss Bruno Leipold’s recently published Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought. As some of the most powerful capitalists in history are openly disavowing political democracy and calling for the unbridled rule of private wealth\, we revisit Karl Marx’s revolutionary republicanism and his ideas about political power and social classes. \nConvened by David Worley\, a member of the executive committee of the Marxist Education Project and a longtime associate of the Brecht Forum\, where he served a term as co-chair of the Board of Directors. David is a nonsectarian socialist\, active since the 1960s in support of a wide range of peace and social justice causes.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/citizen-marx-karl-marx-and-republicanism/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Anarchism,Capital vs. Labor,communism,England,France,History,Intro to Marxism,Marx,Multi-session Classes,Philosophy,Political Strategy,Reading Group,Republicanism,Revolutions,Social Democracy,Winter 2025
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250426T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250426T180000
DTSTAMP:20250420T133333Z
CREATED:20250114T154813Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250420T133333Z
UID:10008330-1745683200-1745690400@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Marx's Capital Volume 1: A Short Course for Today
DESCRIPTION:A 12-session study group\, February 1 – April 26 \n\nHave you always wanted to study Marx’s Capital\, Vol 1\, and hesitated because of the time commitment to read the entire volume from start to finish? Join us for a 12-week study group covering key sections of the book. \nExperienced Capital study leader Lisa Maya Knauer will facilitate as we explore the relevance of Marx’s analysis to our current context. While we will go over the assigned material each week\, participants will read the material on their own in advance. This reading group is open to both Capital newbies and those who have read it previously but want a refresher. \n\nLisa Maya Knauer\, our facilitator\, has been involved with Marxist education in New York for her entire adult life\, and has taught a variety of classes at the MEP and its predecessors. Her current activist work focuses on immigrant workers’ rights and indigenous struggles for land and water. In her day job\, she is a tenured radical at a public university. \nThis group is approaching completion – please email info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com if you still wish to join.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/marxs-capital-volume-1-short-course-for-today/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Capital Studies,historical materialism,History,Intro to Marxism,Labor Process,Marx,Marx's Capital,Marxist Method,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Reading Group,Social Reproduction,Winter 2025
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/capitalism.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Capital Studies Group":MAILTO:info@mepnet.wpenginepowered.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250326T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250326T203000
DTSTAMP:20250327T152213Z
CREATED:20250222T183359Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T152213Z
UID:10008336-1743012000-1743021000@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:'Citizen Marx' with author Bruno Leipold
DESCRIPTION:A video of this March 26\, 2025\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \nAs some of the most powerful capitalists in history are openly disavowing political democracy and calling for the unbridled rule of private wealth\, now is a good time to revisit Karl Marx’s revolutionary republicanism and his ideas about political power and social classes. In his recently published Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought\, Bruno Leipold argues that Karl Marx’s thinking was deeply informed by republicanism. Challenging common depictions of Marx that downplay or ignore his commitment to politics\, democracy\, and freedom\, Leipold shows that Marx viewed democratic political institutions as crucial to overcoming the social unfreedom and domination of capitalism.  \nPlacing Marx’s republican communism in its historical context—but not consigning him to that context—Leipold traces Marx’s shifting relationship to republicanism across three broad periods. First\, Marx began his political life as a republican committed to a democratic republic in which citizens held active popular sovereignty. Second\, he transitioned to communism\, criticizing republicanism but incorporating the republican opposition to arbitrary power into his social critiques. He argued that although a democratic republic was not sufficient for emancipation\, it was necessary for it. Third\, spurred by the events of the Paris Commune of 1871\, he came to view popular control in representation and public administration as essential to the realization of communism. Leipold shows how Marx positioned his republican communism to displace both antipolitical socialism and anticommunist republicanism. One of Marx’s great contributions\, Leipold suggests\, was to place politics (and especially democratic politics) at the heart of socialism. \nBruno Leipold is a fellow in political theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science.\nHe is the coeditor of Radical Republicanism: Recovering the Tradition’s Popular Heritage.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/citizen-marx-bruno-leipold/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Anarchism,Capital vs. Labor,communism,England,featured,France,History,Intro to Marxism,Marx,Multi-session Classes,Philosophy,Political Strategy,Reading Group,Republicanism,Revolutions,Social Democracy,Winter 2025
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250104T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250104T173000
DTSTAMP:20241222T171525Z
CREATED:20241031T193950Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241222T171525Z
UID:10008324-1736006400-1736011800@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Marx Miniseries: The 'Resultate'
DESCRIPTION:Having completed a year-long study of Marx’s Capital\, volume 1\, the MEP’s Capital Studies Group is closely reading the chapter Marx omitted from the original book. Titled “Results of the Immediate Process of Production” and often referred to by the German Resultate\, this long chapter was published as an Appendix to the Penguin edition of Capital I. It can be read as a bridge between volumes 1 and 2 of Capital and presents a number of concepts in greater depth\, including the distinctions between productive and unproductive labor and between “formal” and “real” subsumption of labor to capital. \nFacilitated by Fred Murphy and Lisa Maya Knauer.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/marx-miniseries-the-resultate/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:_Seasons,Accumulation of Capital,Capital Studies,Capital vs. Labor,Fall 2024,Intro to Marxism,Marx,Marx's Capital,Marx's Capital,Marxist Method,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Reading Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/MarxPencilDrawing.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241214T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241214T130000
DTSTAMP:20241209T174911Z
CREATED:20240930T145524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241209T174911Z
UID:10008320-1734174000-1734181200@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Hegel’s 'Science of Logic' - An Epilogue and a Prologue
DESCRIPTION:The MEP’s recurring series Hegel for Radicals introduces what is living in Hegel for those who want to change the world. We are reading the Introduction and Preliminary Concepts from Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic\, sometimes called “The Shorter Logic.” The material we are discussing can stand alone as an Introduction to Hegel’s magnum opus\, The Science of Logic. But for those who have already studied the Science of Logic with us this can serve as completion of the Circle of the dialectic. \nWe are reading from:\nG. W. F. Hegel\, The Encyclopaedia Logic\, also known as Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences\, translation by T. F. Geraets\, W. A. Suchting\, and H. S. Harris. Hackett Publishing Company\, 1991. \nAlex Steinberg is an independent scholar and lifelong socialist who has taught classes in Marxist philosophy\, Hegel\, the dialectics of nature\, Heidegger\, and Nietzsche at the New Space for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education\, The Brecht Forum\, the Marxist Education Project\, and other venues. Alex was a Conference Presenter at the First International Conference on Trotsky in Havana\, Cuba. In addition to his scholarly activities Alex has been involved with the governance of WBAI radio\, most recently as Chair of the Pacifica National Board from 2019 – 2021. \nMatthew Strauss is an independent scholar and a revolutionary communist. He is affiliated with the Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists (CORS) of Columbus\, Ohio\, and was a member for eleven years of the International Socialist Organization until its dissolution. \nRegistration for this group is now closed.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/hegels-science-of-logic-an-epilogue-and-a-prologue/
CATEGORIES:_Seasons,Classes/Events,Fall 2024,Hegel,historical materialism,Marx,Modernity,Multi-session Classes,Philosophy,Reading Group,Science and Method
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/hegel-by-burkner-c98254-1024-2-e1718540268538.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T143000
DTSTAMP:20250221T170750Z
CREATED:20240829T205940Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250221T170750Z
UID:10008311-1732626000-1732631400@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:AI versus Labor: Luddism and Beyond
DESCRIPTION:Weekly sessions on Tuesdays at 1 pm through December 2024 \nIs Artificial Intelligence (AI\, sic) really the dire threat to the future of humanity as even some of its proponents claim\, or is it a more mundane and familiar threat to working people who face loss of their livelihoods and/or further speed-up and alienation? The entire history of industrial capitalism is punctuated by recurring waves of automation to reduce labor costs and turnover time\, each time provoking strong resistance by the affected workforce. This reading group will probe the history both of AI and computer technology specifically and of working-class resistance to capitalist automation in general. In eight weekly sessions we will read\, discuss\, and critique two recent works: Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job\, by Gavin Mueller; and The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence\, by Matteo Pasquinelli. Both are available in paper and eBook format from the publisher\, Verso Books. Additional reading selections will be provided in PDF format. \nFacilitated by Fred Murphy. Fred has led numerous study groups on ecosocialism\, science and technology\, the history of capitalism\, and Latin American politics at the Marxist Education Project since 2015. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research. \nThere is no fee for this eight-week online reading group – RSVP below if you wish to attend and we will send you the Zoom link. A suggested donation of $50 or whatever amount you can afford is welcome and appreciated.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/ai-versus-labor-luddism-and-beyond/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,Alienation,Artificial Intelligence AI,automation,Capital Studies,Capital vs. Labor,Class,Class and Gender,Fall 2024,featured,Gender,History,Labor History,Labor Process,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Precarity,Reading Group,Science and Technology,Solidarity,Women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/WebImageLarge.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240613T070000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240613T210000
DTSTAMP:20240614T133331Z
CREATED:20240113T151454Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240614T133331Z
UID:10008304-1718262000-1718312400@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Palestine: Celebrating 75 Years of Literature
DESCRIPTION:Read Palestinian fiction\, poetry\, and related literature in weekly meetings with the MEP’s Literature Group. The ongoing catastrophe in the Middle East breaks our hearts daily. As part of our mission to explore creative political resistance to oppression\, we will read several novels and poems by Palestinian authors. The novels selected for this session include prominent and emerging writers investigating themes since 1947 of armed resistance\, class\, the refugee experience\, and women’s experience of conflict. \nWe invite participants to add to our selections\, published from 1949 to the present\, and tentatively include: \nThings You May Find HIdden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha; Minor Detail\, by Adania Shibli; selected stories by Ghassan Kanafani; Out of Time: The Collected Stories of Samira Azzam\, Arabesques by Anton Shammas\, The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan\, Wild Thorns\, by Sahar Khalifeh; Passage to the plaza\, by Sahar Khalifeh; A Day in the Life of Abed Salama; Palestine +100\, edited by Basma Ghalayini. \nConvened by Jacqueline Cantwell\, who 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 seven 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\, she has taken the lead in furthering the group’s goals of exploring international fiction and encouraging thoughtful conversation. \nThis group’s final session is June 27. Please contact us if you wish to join the group in progress. \nThe map: sampled from the amazing Visualizing Palestine project website.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/palestine-celebrating-75-years-literature/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literature,Palestine,Reading Group,Summer 2024
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/palestinemap-1.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240430T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240430T203000
DTSTAMP:20240424T130741Z
CREATED:20231226T145134Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240424T130741Z
UID:10007967-1714501800-1714509000@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:If We Burn: Mass Protest and Political Strategy for the 21st Century
DESCRIPTION:What can the last fifteen years of worldwide mass protests teach us about strategy and organization for socialism? Street protests and organizing from Seattle WTO to Occupy and on to George Floyd Black Lives Matter demonstrated new tactics\, new generations of activists\, and new lessons about the future. Likewise\, worldwide protests from the Arab Spring to Latin America\, Europe\, and Hong Kong also struck hard and have brought many important lessons. Join us for reading and discussion probing three connected themes: \n\nMass street protest since Occupy. We will analyze the rich legacy of largely leaderless mass mobilizations as well as new labor struggles\, locally and globally\, over the last fifteen years.\nCrowdsourcing the Revolution: Digital possibilities\, real-world limitations in networked movements. How has digital communications media changed the organizing landscape since the Arab Spring? A critical assessment of the politics and practicalities of digital networking and communication for effective political strategies.\nFrom mass mobilization to accumulating power against capitalism: new long-term strategy for socialism. What remains important and what has changed in connecting strategy and organization?\n\nReadings will include selections from newly published analyses of and theoretical reflection on recent struggles in the United States and globally: \nIf We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution\, by Vincent Bevins (PublicAffairsBooks)\nTwitter and Tear Gas:  The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest\, by Zeynap Tufekci (Yale)\nCommunism and Strategy: Rethinking Political Mediations\, by Isabelle Garo (Verso)\nNeither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization\, by Rodrigo Nunes (Verso) \nBringing direct experience from Brazil\, France\, Turkey\, and the United States\, these authors invite reconsideration of political and organizational strategy in light of the worldwide extent of recent struggles. We will make this a new\, collaborative exercise and add related readings\, multimedia\, and possibly guest talks suggested by participants in the reading group. \nTuesdays\, at 6:30 pm EST; Winter series ends April 30; RSVP for information about coming Spring series.\nPhotos: Occupy Wall Street\, 1 year later (credit Glenn Halog: 2012); Black Lives Matter (credit: Taymaz Valley 2020) \nConvened by Steve Backman and Rebecca Minnich
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/if-we-burn-political-strategy-for-21st-century/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Organizing,Political Strategy,Reading Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ifweburn2.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240428T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240428T123000
DTSTAMP:20240511T141953Z
CREATED:20231216T174301Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240511T141953Z
UID:10007951-1714302000-1714307400@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Reading Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks - Spring 2024
DESCRIPTION:In this ongoing weekly reading group\, we continue to read and learn from Gramsci’s Selections from the Prison Notebooks.  Led by Piruz Alemi\, we explore key themes and concepts related to politics and civil society\, including race\, class and gender\, religion\, linguistic and other methods of analysis\, critical theory\, mass media\, the arts and cinema\, hegemony\, and subaltern studies. Reading with a “Gramscian Past and Present” approach\, we consider how intellectuals and organizers discover new\, transformative methods and languages for the struggles of today. \nThroughout these sessions\, we connect our own cultures and life experiences with contemporary struggles including the unfolding in the Woman\, Life\, Freedom movement in Iran. \nParticipation in previous sessions is not a requirement; all are welcome.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/reading-antonio-gramscis-prison-notebooks-winter-2024/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Reading Group
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WoodcutGramsci.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240124T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240124T143000
DTSTAMP:20240315T141946Z
CREATED:20231214T224445Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240315T141946Z
UID:10007949-1706101200-1706106600@marxedproject.net
SUMMARY:Multispecies Marxism: Reading and Reflecting on Animals and Capital
DESCRIPTION:An eight-session reading and discussion group on the central role of nonhuman animals in the capitalist economy\, historically and today. Led by anthropologist Gizem Haspolat and visual artist Terike Haapoja\, this class continues our successful sessions on animals and capitalism in 2022 and 2023\, this time looking through a multispecies lens at key concepts of Marxism\, such as ‘value’\, ‘primitive accumulation’\, ‘species being’\, ‘circulation’\, and ‘resistance.’ We will explore the potential and limits of Marxist theory for addressing the roles and fates of nonhuman animals\, as well as ways to connect anticapitalist struggles to animal liberation and environmental justice. The main reading will be Animals and Capital (2023) by Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel (available in paperback and eBook formats from various online outlets). Participation in previous sessions is not required. \nGizem Haspolat is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Rice University. Her areas of interest are critical animal studies\, animal geographies\, and human–nonhuman animal relations. In her ongoing research\, she explores live animal trade as a site that intensifies the translations between ‘animal’ and capital\, through an investigation of Turkey’s live cattle imports. \nTerike Haapoja is a visual artist based in Berlin. Her interdisciplinary practice includes installations\, videos\, writings\, and collaborative projects that explore our relationship with the more-than-human world. Her current research on animal labor and multispecies anticapitalist struggle\, with an extensive open bibliography\, can be found on animalcapitalism.org.
URL:https://marxedproject.net/event/multispecies-marxism/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Agribusiness,Animals and Capital,Capital Studies,Classes/Events,Ecosocialism,Food and politics,Reading Group
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