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Winter 2007
Marx's Capital, Volume I Andrew Kliman Thursdays, Feb. 15 – May 24, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. (No Class March 22) Tuition: $150 – $180, sliding scale
Dialectics, the Algebra of Revolution: An Examination of Hegel's Logic Tuesdays, Feb. 27 – May 8, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. (no class April 3) Tuition: $120 – $150, sliding scale
Fighting Suppression of Dissent: Another Left is Possible Andrea Fishman, Joshua Howard, Anne Jaclard, Andrew Kliman, and Seth G. Weiss Alternate Tuesdays, March 13 – April 24, 6:00 – 7:30 P.M. Tuition: $45 – $60, sliding scale
Fall 2006
Reason in History: Hegel and Marx Reply to their Post-Rational Critics Alex Steinberg 8 Sessions Tuesdays: 7:30 – 9:00 p.m., Oct. 24 – Dec. 12 Tuition: $90 – $115, sliding scale
Prefigurative Politics: Workers Self-Management from Argentina to the Balkans
8
Sessions: Tuesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Oct. 24 – Dec. 12
Fighting Suppression of Dissent: Another Left is Possible Andrea Fishman, Joshua Howard, Anne Jaclard, Andrew Kliman, and Seth G. Weiss Alternate Thursdays, Nov. 2 – Dec. 14, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Tuition: $45 – $60, sliding scale
Foucault and the Iranian RevolutionA talk by Kevin B. AndersonWednesday, October 25 at 7:00 p.m. Suggested Donation: $7 - $10, sliding scale
Spring 2006
Classes
Darwin
and the Left Alex Steinberg Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.
– 9:00 p.m. 7 sessions: March 28
– May 16 Tuition: $90 - $115,
sliding scale We will explore the
work of Charles Darwin in the context of today's culture wars, including the
“Intelligent Design” controversy. This will not be simply another class
demonstrating how evolution is correct and creationism is wrong and
reactionary, but a critical examination from a Left perspective of Darwin and
his legacy. We will undertake a reading of Darwin,
focusing on the theoretical and historical background of his Origin of the
Species, and move on to an examination of some of the current discussion
of Darwinism and its philosophical and political implications in the
contemporary world. We will also explore the corrections to Darwin offered by
Stephen Jay Gould and others whom we can identify as Left Darwinists. For this series, we will primarily draw
upon an excellent and inexpensive anthology, the Norton Critical Edition
of Darwin, which includes much of the text of Origin of the Species and
many other primary works and critical commentaries. Alex Steinberg taught
a course on Hegel’s Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
last Fall at the New SPACE. Steinberg is facilitator of a philosophy
and literature discussion group in Brooklyn and author of several essays,
including "The Case of Martin Heidegger." He has also served as a
member of the WBAI Local Station Board (2004) and as Chairperson of the WBAI
LSB Programming Committee. Marx's
Capital, Volume III Andrew Kliman Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m.
– 7:30 p.m. 8 sessions: March
15 – May 17 (No class March 22
and April 12) Tuition: $100 – $120,
sliding scale (This is the
second semester of a two-semester course on Volumes II and III. If you
did not attend the first semester on Volume II, please consult with the
instructor at Andrew_Kliman@msn.com before registering for the second
semester.) Volume III of Marx’s Capital
endeavors to show that real-world phenomena do not contradict, but are “forms
of appearance” of, the “essential” relations and categories developed in
Volume I. We will concentrate on the appearance of surplus-value as
profit; the distribution of surplus-value within the capitalist class; Marx’s
law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit and crisis theory; and his
argument that capitalism’s production relations (not only its relations of
income and wealth distribution) are historically specific and
transitory. We will also critically examine critics’ persistent efforts
to prove that Marx’s account of the transformation of values into production
prices, and his theory of the falling rate of profit, are internally
inconsistent. In our study of
Volume III, we will emphasize how a rigorous theoretical understanding of the
capital relation can aid ongoing challenges to global capitalism. Registered students
will have access to a draft of a study guide and commentary on both Volumes
II and III – which includes weekly study suggestions and questions – that the
instructor is currently writing. Use of the Penguin or Vintage edition
of Volume III, translated by David Fernbach, is strongly suggested. Andrew Kliman has
taught courses on Volume I and Volume II of Marx's Capital
and John Holloway’s John Holloway
’s Change the
World Without Taking Power
at the New SPACE. A professor of economics at Pace University, he has
published extensively on Capital, crisis theory, and value theory.
Co-editor of The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics
(2004), he has recently finished a book that reclaims Capital from the
myth of internal inconsistency. Many of Kliman's writings are available at
his website: http://akliman.squarespace.com. From
Dada To Anthropofferjism Erika Biddle Alternate Tuesdays,
6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. 6 Sessions: January
31, February 28, March 14, 28, April 4
and 18 Tuition: $75 - $100,
Sliding Scale (The instructor is
permitting late registration for this course. Tuition will be prorated to the
number of remaining sessions.) Dada spoke of the
violence of everyday life, of disrupting and destructing history; this
destruction is a desire to change the world. Dada was a movement that
obliterated its memory but left traces of influence that are visible in the
practices of aesthetic revolutionaries throughout the 20th century and today.
In this course, we will explore both the Dadaist movement, birthed in Zurich
midst the horrors of World War I, and its traces of influence in
anti-capitalist artists' groups and cultural projects that exist outside
of "the art world" and the apparatus of the state. We will survey the
work of the Lettrists and Situationists; Gustav Metzger’s theories on
auto-destructive/auto-creative art; the LPA (London Psychogeographic
Association); Neoism & the Neoist Alliance; Situ-inspired projects;
Surrealism in Chicago; "culture jamming" projects; and the
"tactical media" and "technologies of resistance" of
groups like RtMark and the Critical Art Ensemble. Erika Biddle is an
artist, editor and writer living in New York City. A founding member of
Artists in Dialogue, which is committed to the co-articulation of art and
politics, she also works with the radical book publisher Autonomedia. Her
video work has been shown in such venues as White Box, Capsule Gallery,
Artists’ Space, Diorama Arts Center, the Cinema Nouvelle Generation Film
Festival, Guestroom, and the DUMBO Short Film and Video Festival. Spring
2006 Talks
Time for
a Radical Party? A talk by
Stanley
Aronowitz Thursday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m. Suggested Donation: $7 - $10, sliding
scale The Left is fragmented into a
large number of single issue movements around solidarity, against the
Iraq war, and in community organizations, and others who either try to push
the Democratic Party to the Left or work in small organizations that often
call themselves parties or projects. The United States does not have a
radical political formation dedicated to linking the movements and addressing
broad national and global questions. Aronowitz will argue that such a
formation is especially vital in this period of growing authoritarianism, the
lack of a visible opposition, the decline of the labor movement and absence
of alternatives to capitalist domination. This talk will outline the
problem, discuss a specific proposal and make suggestions about how to achieve
it. Global
Balkans: Revolutions in the Balkans and Eastern Europe A talk by Andrej Grubacic Thursday, March 16 at 7:00 p.m. Suggested Donation: $7 - $10, sliding
scale The Iraqi Freedom
Congress & Iraq’s Civil Resistance A talk by Houzan
Mahmoud
Tuesday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m. Suggested Donation: $7 - $10, sliding
scale International
Solidarity with Iraq’s Freedom Struggles A Film Screening & Discussion with Bill Weinberg Thursday, April 6 at
7:00 p.m Suggested donation:
$7 - $10, sliding scale The
Wholesale Criminalization of Immigrant Communities: Mass
Detentions, Torture and Exile A talk by Jeannette
Gabriel Thursday, April 20 at
7:00 p.m. Suggested donation:
$7 - $10, sliding scale Human
Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery in New York City Human trafficking,
often referred to as "sex trafficking" or “modern-day slavery,” is
the worst form of labor abuse existing in NYC today. The workers
who fall prey to traffickers are not only women, but also men, children and
transgendered people. Many were victimized while trying to emigrate to
the U.S. to find work, lacking any options in their own countries. They
are then forced into a variety of jobs under threats of violence, and
frequently suffer actual violence. Survivors of trafficking face
continuing problems when they try to leave their situations. Most of the stories
we see in the media about trafficked workers are ill-informed at best, and
created for dramatic effect at worst, rather than representing the issues
truthfully. What kinds of jobs
are being done by trafficked people? Who is benefiting? Why does it often
look like feminists and Republicans are on the same side of the
issue? What does this form
of exploitation and struggle mean for social justice and labor
movements? We will also discuss
concrete actions that individuals and groups can take to combat human
trafficking and to aid its survivors. Winter
2006 Classes The Spirit of
Utopia
Alex Steinberg
Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. 8 sessions: January 25 - March 15 Tuition: $90 - $115, sliding scale Oscar Wilde famously
said, "a map of the world without Utopia on it is not worth looking at.”
Does Wilde’s impulse still have resonance in a culture that rejects the
possibility of a better society, let alone a perfected one? How can we
still envision a Golden Age or a New Jerusalem at a time when the utopian
imagination is being indicted for everything from Nazism to Stalinism and
fundamentalist-inspired terror? We will reflect on
the classics as well as contemporary sources of utopian literature and
politics in an attempt to answer these questions. We will consider ancient
and medieval discussions of a Golden age and an Ideal City, how these were
transformed into visions of bounty and cooperation in the age of Enlightenment,
and the further evolution of utopian ideas into the political movements for
socialism in the 19th century. We will also look at the
growth of utopian communities in the United States such as Oneida and Brook
Farm and their ideals of open sexuality and communal living
arrangements. We will look especially at the confluence and conflict
between Marxism and Utopianism. How and why did the scientific, socialist,
anarchist and feminist visions of utopia in the early part of the 20th
century give way to dystopian literature and politics? We will also
consider the last great Utopian movement of recent times, the 1960’s student
rebellion and counter culture and its aftermath. Alex Steinberg taught
a course on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit last Fall at
the New SPACE. Steinberg holds an MA in Philosophy from the New School for
Social Research; he left the PhD program after participating in the student
takeover of the New School following the Kent State massacre in 1970.
Steinberg is facilitator of a philosophy and literature discussion group in
Brooklyn and author of several essays, including "The Case of Martin
Heidegger" and "From Alienation to Revolution: A Defense of Marx's
Theory of Alienation". He has also served as a member of the WBAI Local
Station Board (2004) and as Chairperson of the WBAI LSB Programming
Committee. Marx's
Capital, Volumes II and III Andrew Kliman Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m.
- 7:30 p.m. 15 sessions: January
25 - May 17 (except for March 22 and April 12) Tuition: $150 - $180,
sliding scale (Vol.
II only: $75 - $100; Vol. III only: $100 - $120) If you’ve read Volume I of Capital and want to know how
the book turns out, this is the course for you! In this 15-week course,
we will emphasize how a rigorous
theoretical understanding of the capital relation can aid ongoing challenges
to global capitalism. Volumes II and III
of Capital complement and complete the analysis begun in Volume
I. Volume II situates Volume I’s analysis of the immediate process of
capitalist production within the circulation and reproduction
processes. Volume III endeavors to show that real-world phenomena do
not contradict, but are “forms of appearance” of, the “essential” relations
and categories developed in Volume I. We will begin with
a 6-week survey of Volume II, focusing on the circuits of capital, the
concept of productive labor, and the reproduction schemes. In
connection with the latter, we will also discuss the debate over
underconsumptionism, from Luxemburg to Hardt & Negri. The remaining
9 weeks, devoted to Volume III, will concentrate on the appearance of
surplus-value as profit; the distribution of surplus-value within the
capitalist class; Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit and
crisis theory; and his argument that capitalism’s production relations (not
only its relations of income and wealth distribution) are historically
specific and transitory. We will also critically examine critics’
persistent efforts to prove that Marx’s account of the transformation of values
into production prices, and his theory of the falling rate of profit, are
internally inconsistent. Registered students
will have access to a draft of a study guide and commentary on Volumes II and
III – which includes weekly study suggestions and questions – that the
instructor is currently writing. Use of the Penguin or Vintage edition
of Volumes II and III, translated by David
Fernbach, is strongly suggested. Andrew Kliman has taught courses on Capital, Volume I and John
Holloway’s Change the
World Without Taking Power at the New SPACE. A professor
of economics at Pace University, he has published extensively on Capital,
crisis theory, and value theory. Co-editor of The New Value Controversy
and the Foundations of Economics (2004), he has recently finished a book
that reclaims Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency. Many of
Kliman's writings are available at his website: http://akliman.squarespace.com. Erich Fromm’s Encounter with Marx and Freud
Charles Herr Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. 6 Sessions: January 31 - March
7 Tuition: $75 - $100, sliding
scale In
the 1930’s, Erich Fromm, as a member of the Frankfurt School, was one of the first
to try to integrate insights from Marx and Freud. His writings analyzing the
psychological roots of authoritarian socio-political systems, such as fascism
and Nazism, remain seminal. In this course, we will explore the contemporary
relevance of Fromm’s ideas for understanding fundamentalist movements and
systems. We will also explore his concepts of social character and the social
unconscious; that is, how social structures may mold people to "want to
do" what they "have to do" and how strivings for freedom may
become largely unconscious – and yet continue to exist. A central question
will be: How can these concepts contribute to understanding current social
realities and to efforts to create social conditions that support the full
development of, as Marx put it in 1844, "a really individual communal
being" for whom "the greatest wealth" is "the other
person"? Readings will include Fromm’s
classic work, Escape from Freedom, and Beyond the Chains of
Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud. Charles Herr, a
graduate of the William Alanson White Institute’s Program in Psychoanalysis,
is a clinical psychologist and interpersonal psychoanalyst. He has
life-long interests in the work of Erich Fromm, the humanism of Marx, and the
radical transformation of society. He is also involved in studying the
work of Raya Dunayevskaya, Paulo Freire, Eugene Gendlin and Marshall
Rosenberg.
From Dada To
Anthropofferjism
Erika Biddle
Alternate Tuesdays, 6:00
p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
6 Sessions: January 31, February 14, 28, March 14, 28 and April 4 Tuition: $75 - $100, Sliding Scale Dada spoke of the
violence of everyday life, of disrupting and destructing history; this
destruction is a desire to change the world. Dada was a movement that
obliterated its memory, but left traces of influence that are visible in the
practices of aesthetic revolutionaries throughout the 20th century and today.
In this course, we will explore both the Dadaist movement, birthed in Zurich
midst the horrors of World War I, and its traces of influence in
anti-capitalist artists' groups and cultural projects that exist outside
of "the art world" and the apparatus of the state. We
will survey the work of the Lettrists and Situationists; Gustav Metzger’s
theories on auto-destructive/auto-creative art; the LPA (London
Psychogeographic Association); Neoism & the Neoist Alliance;
Situ-inspired projects; Surrealism in Chicago; "culture jamming"
projects; and the "tactical media" and "technologies of
resistance" of groups like RtMark and the Critical Art Ensemble. Erika Biddle is an
artist, editor and writer living in New York City. A founding member of
Artists in Dialogue, which is committed to the co-articulation of art and
politics, she also works with the radical book publisher Autonomedia. Her
video work has been shown in such venues as White Box, Capsule Gallery,
Artists Space, Diorama Arts Center, the Cinema Nouvelle Generation Film
Festival, Guestroom, and the DUMBO Short Film and Video Festival. Winter
2006 Talks The
East Asian Class Struggle in World Perspective A talk by Loren
Goldner Tuesday, January 24
at 7:00 p.m. Suggested Donation:
$7 - $10, sliding scale According to a New
York Times article of December 2004, there were 74,000 riots in China in
that year. The Chinese countryside, and the floating population of 100
million peasants driven off the land to seek work in the cities, is a powder
keg, and the Chinese state is using every means at its disposal to keep the
outbursts local, so far with success. This talk will
present a perspective on the recent development of class struggle in East
Asia, focusing on South Korea (the country with which the speaker is most
familiar) and China, with passing reference to Japan (where little open
struggle has taken place in recent years). In both South Korea and China
(countries obviously at very different stages of development) the working
class has lately been very much on the defensive. In China, in spite of a
capitalist boom extending back to the “market socialist” turn of 1978, the
industrial working class has lost 22 million jobs in the past decade. In
South Korea, after the explosive strikes of the late 1980’s, the working
class has been rolled back, above all since the Asia crisis and IMF bailout
of 1997-1998. Today, casualized workers make up more than 50% of the work
force, and, at this writing, the Korean parliament is pushing through a new
labor law to extend casualization even further. The gap between the declining
minority of well-organized, well-paid workers with “permanent” contracts (for
now) and the majority of casualized temps is almost as dramatic, for strategy
and tactics, as the confrontation of the class as a whole with capital and
the state. These developments
are closely intertwined with geopolitical realities of world import. The U.S.
is widely perceived as a declining power in Asia, and has been using every
tool at its disposal to keep the region off balance, from the Taiwan question
to confrontation with North Korea to the growing nationalisms in China, Korea
and Japan. These simmering class
and geopolitical contradictions have to be seen in the context of the larger
“great game” in Eurasia, which sees a U.S. strategy aimed at the control of
the perimeters of Russia and China, from the Baltic to Japan, and of which
the biggest stakes are the possible emergence of an independent East Asian
economic powerhouse capable of throwing off U.S. influence. While the recent
ASEAN conference in Malaysia, to which the U.S. was pointedly not invited,
was a symbolic gesture and East Asia is still far from overcoming national
antagonisms, virtually every thread of the contemporary world situation
passes through the class struggle there. The region, led by China, may well
be to the world revolution of the 2lst century what Russia was to the 20th.
Loren Goldner is a
writer and activist living in New York City. He spent the fall of 2005 in
South Korea preparing a short history of the Korean working class since the
1980's. Goldner's work is available at the Break Their Haughty Power web
site: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner. Fall
2005 Classes Reading
John Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power Andrew Kliman Wednesdays, 6pm --
7:30pm 6 Sessions: Oct. 5
& 19, Nov. 2, 16 & 30,
Dec. 14 Tuition: $75 -- $100,
sliding scale Revolution has
frequently been identified with the capturing of state power. This
notion is now discredited. But the idea of revolution itself will also be
discredited unless a different concept of revolution that can replace it is
worked out concretely. In Change the World Without Taking Power: The
Meaning of Revolution Today (Pluto, 2002), John Holloway argues that
genuine revolution cannot be a process of capturing power – not even in
order to abolish state power and other relations of domination. Power must be
dissolved.
Banking
and Investments Howard F.
Seligman Tuesdays, 6pm --
7:30pm This course will
explore banking, investment, and financial markets. We will begin with an
introduction to financial accounting and discounted cash flow in order to
construct a toolkit for further analysis. Howard F. Seligman
taught a course on taxation and
finance last Spring at the New SPACE. He
has been a self employed financial and tax consultant since 1984. Howard's
practice specializes in the arts and entertainment fields, and he serves as
the treasurer to more than fifteen arts and cultural organizations. Howard
has taught accounting and finance at The Pratt Institute. His hobbies include
playing Howie Solo, a singer and stand up comedian who can host your local
fundraising event. He is currently researching a book on the history of the
Jewish gangster in America. A
Reading Of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit Alex Steinberg 12 Sessions,
beginning October 4 Tuition: $150 --
$180, sliding scale The True is the
Bacchanalian revel in which no member is not drunk. Preface to the Phenomenology
of Spirit It has been said that
one cannot understand much of what has transpired in terms of art, culture,
politics or philosophy in the last 200 years without having read Hegel's Phenomenology
of Spirit. For good reason, many have considered this work to be the
culmination of the Western philosophical tradition that began in ancient
Greece.
Fall
2005 Talks The
Politics of the Anti-War Movement A talk by Bill
Weinberg
Wednesday, September
21 at 7:30 p.m. Suggested Donation:
$7 - $10, sliding scale Hard-left elements of
the anti-war movement affirm the abstract right of the Iraqi people to resist
the occupation, but fail to grapple with the realities of Iraq's
actually-existing armed resistance. The more moderate elements dodge the
question entirely. Yet there is an active left opposition in Iraq that
opposes the occupation, the regime it protects, and the jihadi and Baathist
"resistance" alike. It is this besieged opposition, under threat of
assassination and persecution, which is fighting to keep alive elementary
freedoms for women, leading labor struggles against Halliburton and other US
contractors, and demanding a secular future for Iraq. For all the incessant
factional splits in the US anti-war movement, providing this real,
progressive Iraqi resistance concrete solidarity is not even on the agenda.
How can we build an effective anti-war movement which is based on principles
of international solidarity, and loan a voice to our natural allies in Iraq?
Join us in a discussion with award-winning journalist Bill Weinberg. The
Ecosocialist Vision A talk byJoel Kovel Wednesday, November 2 at 7:30pm Suggested Donation: $7 - $10,
sliding scale We are presently
undergoing a profound crisis in the relations between humanity and nature --
the outcome of which will determine the shape of the future. It is quite
clear, although near-universally denied, that this "ecological
crisis" is primarily being driven by the force of capital accumulation.
It is also clear that this objectively redefines the mission of radical-left
politics, inasmuch as capital is both profoundly ecodestructive and unable to
correct itself. Hence a new socialism is needed -- an ecosocialism that
combines "red" and "green" political agendas. To do this,
however, a new sense of vision is required, one capable of imagining the
contours of such a socialist world despite the failings of twentieth century
socialism and the hegemonic power of capitalism. Joel Kovel is
presently Editor-in-Chief of Capitalism Nature Socialism and Professor
of Social Studies at Bard College. He is the author of nine books, the most
recent being The Enemy Of Nature (Zed, 2002). He ran for US Senate
from NY in 1998 on the Green Party line, and for the Green Party Presidential
nomination in 2000. The People's Pension: The Anarchist Origins of Social
Security and Today's Battle Over Its Future A talk by Eric Laursen Wednesday, November
16 at 7:30 pm Suggested Donation:
$7 - $10, sliding scale One of the hottest US domestic
political debates today is over the future of Social Security. The crown
jewel of the New Deal, Social Security is the basic old-age income protection
program for elderly and disabled American workers. It's also the most successful
anti-poverty program in US history, and has always been overwhelmingly
popular. Eric Laursen is an independent
journalist, activist and anarchist living in New York City. He has written
for a wide variety of publications including Practical Anarchy, the Village
Voice, In These Times, The New Formulation, The Nation,
Institutional Investor, the AICPA Journal of Accountancy, and
the forthcoming issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. He has
worked with the NYC Direct Action Network, the International Solidarity
Movement, NoRNC Coalition, and other activist networks and alliances. Laursen
is currently completing a history of the Social Security privatization wars. |