Each semester, Platypus organizes Reading Groups on campuses in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Greece and India. In Boston, reading groups meet at Harvard University and MassArt. In the face of the catastrophic past and present, the first task for the reconstitution of a Left as an emancipatory force is to recognize the reasons for the historical failure of human emancipation and to clarify the necessity of a Left for the present and future. — If the Left is to change the world, it must first transform itself!
Join us for a weekly discussion-based reading group working through the historical concept of the Left and the problems that it confronts. Readings consist mainly of transcripts from public fora intersecting the activist and academic left concerning questions raised by the disorientation of the present. What has the Left been, and what can it yet become?
Please find reading list below. Notifications are also posted on our Facebook page.
When: Every Tuesday 6:30 PM
Where: Tower Building Rm. 555
MassArt
621 Huntington Avenue,
Boston, MA 02115
Map: http://g.co/maps/qvtrn
• 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 {Feb. 7}
• 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 {Feb. 14}
Screening: Margarethe von Trotta, dir., Rosa Luxemburg (1986 film)
Week 3 {Feb. 21}
• 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 {Feb. 28}
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)
Week 5 {March 13}
• Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
Week 6 {March 27}
• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
Week 7 {April 3}
• Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
Week 8 {April 10}
• Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918), “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19 (1968)
Week 9 {April 17}
• Theodor W. Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
+ Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
Week 10 {April 24}
• Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “Towards a New Manifesto?” (1956)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)