Join us for the beginning of our main syllabus: What is Marxism? What is the Left? We'll go through the theory of the Left, read Marx himself, as well as the texts of Revolutionary Marxist's like Lenin and Luxemburg. Any and all are welcome with no prior experience or history of the Left required, we are an EDUCATIONAL project!
Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history
• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)
They are all short essays or aphorisms so not much to read for this week. We'll gather in Foster Court room 215 at 6pm, hear some presentations on the texts by two students and then go into a discussion with breaks in between.
To find the PDFs and the broader syllabus see: https://platypus1917.org/2025/07/09/platypus-primary-marxist-reading-group-summer-and-fall-2025-winter-2026/
See you all there!