Marx and Liberalism: An interview with Domenico Losurdo
Pam C. Nogales C. and Ross Wolfe
On March 17, 2012, Ross Wolfe and Pam Nogales of the Platypus Affiliated Society interviewed Domenico Losurdo, the author, most recently, of Liberalism: A Counter-History (2011). What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation…

Changes in art and society: A view from the present
Mary Jane Jacob, Robert Pippin, and Walter Benn Michaels
On 31 March 2012, the Platypus Affiliated Society invited Mary Jane Jacob (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Robert Pippin (University of Chicago), and Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois at Chicago) to speak on the theme of “Changes in Art and Society: A View from the Present” at the 2012 Platypus International Convention held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago… The panelists were asked several questions in order to flesh out the uneven and at times obscure relationship that art has with a society that is constantly in flux… What follows is an edited transcript of the event…

Splits, regroupments, war, and revolution in Germany, 1914–1920: A conversation with Ben Lewis
Spencer A. Leonard and Watson Ladd
Last winter, on their radio show Radical Minds on WHPK-FM Chicago, Spencer A. Leonard and Watson Ladd interviewed Ben Lewis, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and co-author and translator, together with Lars T. Lih, of Zinoviev and Martov: Head to Head in Halle (2011). The interview originally was broadcast on June 12, 2011. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation…

The Last Party 2000

play trailer

Actors and political activists come together to take a long, hard look at the State of the Union during the 2000 U.S. Presidential election in this documentary, a follow-up to 1993′s The Last Party. In The Last Party 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman visits the 2000 Democratic and Republican National Conventions and talks to politicians and activists both famous and obscure as a pitched battle is fought between supporters of democratic candidate Al Gore, republican nominee George W. Bush, and the many voices who believed neither candidate represented a worthwhile or reasonable choice. Along with Downey and Hoffman, celebrities speaking out on the issues in this film include Courtney Love, Rosie O’Donnell, Reese Witherspoon, and David Crosby; the rock band Stone Temple Pilots also appear at a political rally. The Last Party 2000 was directed by actor and musician Donovan Leitch, who served as a producer on the first film.

05.02 Wednesday, 7PM Kimmel Center NYU, room 907
60 Washington Sq. South, NYC

WHAT IS THE #OCCUPY MOVEMENT? pt. 3
Platypus at NYU presents a roundtable discussion on the MAY 1st General Strike.

Since November of 2011, and with the help of working groups and organizers of OWS,  Platypus has been hosting a series of roundtable discussions reflecting on the obstacles and possibilities, political content, and potential future of the #Occupy movement. These have taken place in New York, Chicago, Boston, Halifax (Canada), London (UK). We welcome any and all who would like to be a part of this project of self-education and potential rebuilding of the Left to join us in advancing this critical moment.

The Platypus Affiliated Society, established in December 2006, organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today. newyork.platypus1917.org | www.platypus1917.org

On Monday, May 7th, Richard Wolin, distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center, sat down with us to discuss his recent book The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s.
 
 

]]> http://newyork.platypus1917.org/event-book-chat-with-richard-wolin-author-of-the-wind-from-the-east/feed/ 0 http://newyork.platypus1917.org/three-rs/ http://newyork.platypus1917.org/three-rs/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:43:31 +0000 Platypus NYC http://newyork.platypus1917.org/?p=1578

Thursday, April 26, 2012, 7:00 PM — 238 Thompson Street, Room 279 (NYU Global Center)

“After the failure of the 1960s New Left, the underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency, in a historical situation of heightened helplessness, became a self-constitution as outsider, as other, rather than an instrument of transformation. Focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the Fordist, late 20th Century world, the Left echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital: neoliberalism and globalization.

The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of ‘resistance.’ The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted, or of the politics of the resistance involved.

‘Resistance’ is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by the dynamic heteronomous order of capital. ‘Resistance’ is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of capital and its reconstitution of possibilities for both domination and emancipation, of which the ‘resisters’ do not recognize that that they are a part.”

— Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism” (Public Culture¸ 18.1: 2006)

Reform, revolution, resistance: what kind of weight do these categories hold for the Left today? How are they used, to where do they point, and what is their history? Join the Platypus Affiliated Society for a discussion concerning a question that has renewed immediacy in light of the #Occupy movement.

Speakers:

John Asimakopoulos (Institute for Transformative Studies)

Todd Gitlin (Columbia University)

Tom Trottier (Workers’ International Committee)

Ross Wolfe (Platypus Affiliated Society)

http://www.facebook.com/events/196015840510823/

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, March 30 – April 1, 2012 

The two decades of the 1990s 2000s form a cycle containing certain common as well as differing concerns. The second decade of the 21st century has begun under the mixed legacy of recent history, presenting important problems needing to be worked through, moving forward.

For Platypus’ 2012 international convention our panels asked speakers from various perspectives to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges.

_________________

AUDIO FILES

Workshops: Differing Perspectives on the Left

Inclusive Democracy (John Sargis)
First of May Anarchist Alliance (Peter Staudenmaier)
League of Revolutionaries For A New America (Nelson Peery)
News and Letters (Franklin Dmitryev)
Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada) – Parti communiste révolutionnaire
The Communist Party of Great Britain (Ben Lewis)
The International Marxist Tendency (John Peterson)
Phase 2 (Germany)
Occupy Chicago
International Bolshevik Tendency

Panel discussions: Lessons from the recent history of the Left 

Whence Anarchism? The historical conjuncture of #Occupy
Lenin and the Marxist Left after #Occupy
Defining Democracy: The Labor Movement and #Occupy
G8 and NATO: Rulers, Domination, and Emancipation
The 90s and 00s Left Today
Changes in Art and Society: A view from the present

March 16-18 at Pace University

Session 1 W402 Finance Capital and Occupy: Marxist Perspectives Sat 10:00am

Session 3 W623 Impossible Occupations: Marxism and Psychoanalysis Sat 03:00pm

Session 3 W605 The Significance of Art in the Occupy Movement Sat 03:00pm

Session 3 W617 Arab Spring into Winter? Challenges to the Left one year on Sat 03:00pm

Session 5 E308 2011, 1999, 1968 — and 2012? The history of the Left and #Occupy Sun 10:00am

Session 5 E329 Technology, Un/Employment, and the Left: From Future Shock to OWS Sun 10:00am

Session 5 E326 The Environmentalism of Occupy Sun 10:00am

Session 7 E320 Third Parties and the Left: Problems and Prospects Sun 03:00pm

Drop by the Platypus table! 

What is the #Occupy movement?
An roundtable discussion
Late in 2011, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a series of roundtable debates on the #Occupy Wall Street Movement. Speakers at the event held on December 9, 2011 at New York University included Hannah Appel (OWS Think Tank Working Group), Erik Van Deventer (NYU), Nathan Schneider (Waging Nonviolence), and Brian Dominick (Z Media Institute), with Jeremy Cohan (Platypus Affiliated Society) moderating…

Marx at the margins
An interview with Kevin Anderson
Last summer, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed Kevin Anderson, author of Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism (1995) and Marx at the Margins (2010). The interview was broadcast on August 2, 2011 on the radio show Radical Minds on WHPK–FM Chicago. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation…

Occupy everything… and?
Reflections on the problems and possibilities of a movement by David Bush
My initial reaction to the occupation of Wall Street was generally positive. But soon that feeling gave way to doubt and unease. I still find much hope in so many people taking to the streets, but I’ve become less certain of what, exactly, is going on. From Naomi Klein and Michael Moore to Chris Hedges and David Graeber, and Slavoj Žižek—and even Kanye West—every lefty public intellectual and several celebrities have come out in support of Occupy Wall Street and its progenitors. There seems to be a left cheerleading section that has developed around Occupy, which makes me wonder why I still have doubts. Am I some sort of political dinosaur who simply doesn’t get it? Can I not see revolution when it is thrust into my face(book)? Or is the Occupy Everywhere movement (OE, henceforth) itself ambiguous in ways that raise legitimate doubts?…

an evening of modernist readings, featuring:

G o e t h e   |   H ö l d e r l i n   |   R e n a r d   |   K l e i s t   |   W a l s e r   |   V a l e r y   |   B e c k e t t    |   K a f k a    |   S t e v e n s   |   Y e s e n i n   |   B a u d e l a i r e   |   M y a k o v s k y   |   C e l a n

friday, 03.02, 7pm | nyu kimmel, rm 909, 60 washington sq s

if you would like to volunteer to read one of the selections or have any questions about the event, please contact nyu@platypus1917.org.

fbinvite

Kimmel Center, 7th floor lounge: 60 Washington Square South

Contact: Pac Pobric (zpobric@gmail.com)

10 sessions of readings introducing the raison d’être of the Platypus project.
(Please see the Platypus introductory readings part I before proceeding as follows.)

• required / + recommended readings

Essential background reading:
• Leszek Kolakowski, “The Concept of the Left”

Recommended winter break readings:
+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889-1914 (1966)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19 (1968)

Week 1

• Chris Cutrone, “The Marxist hypothesis: a response to Alain Badiou’s ‘communist hypothesis’”
+ Kant,  “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” (1784)
+ Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns” (1819)
+ Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754)
+ Rousseau, selection from The Social Contract (1762)

Week 2

Screening: Margarethe von Trotta, dir., Rosa Luxemburg (1986 film)

Week 3

• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915)
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890-1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889-1914 (1966)

Week 4

• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)

Week 5

• Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)

Week 6

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

Week 7

• Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)

Week 8

• Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918), “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19 (1968)

Week 9

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
+ Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

Week 10

• Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “Towards a New Manifesto?” (1956)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)