[URPE] [NYC] Brecht Forum Intensive: Does Marx Matter?

[urpe-moderator at lists.econ.utah.edu]

See the Brecht Forum Website for more info:
http://www.brechtforum.org/

************************************

DOES MARX MATTER?

27th Annual Intensive Introduction to Marxist Theory

WHAT:
A 4-DAY INTENSIVE STUDY OF MARXISM 

WHEN:
Opening: July 20, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Sessions: July 21-24, 9:30 am to 6:30 pm
Registration: July 20th at 6:00 pm (preregistration advised).

WHERE:
At the Brecht Forum's New York Marxist School, 451 West Street, New York 
City.
 
For Out-of-towners:
If you are planning to attend from out of town and need a place to stay, 
please check our list of low-cost lodgings and hostels. To insure 
low-cost housing, it is important to make your reservations early.

For more information call,
(212) 242-4201.

At the beginning of the 21st Century, it is becoming obvious to many 
that capitalism is an obstacle to the kind of world we want and need. 
The world is marked by war and repression. More than two billion people 
subsist on less than $2 per day, while the assets of the three 
wealthiest individuals surpasses the GDP of the 48 poorest nations.

But these times don't seem to make any sense. If we want to change 
things, we need to understand how capitalism works. Can Marxism help us 
to grapple with the roots and branches of today's problems? ...or is it 
just, as some maintain, a relic of the past?

Join other activists and critical thinkers for a provocative 4-day 
summer session at the Brecht Forum, a leading center for activist 
education. Through lectures, readings and lively discussion, in an 
adamantly non-sectarian and open-minded environment, participants will 
become familiar with some of the major concepts in marxist thought and 
examine whether-and in what respects--they are still relevant today.

Our perspective will be that of Marx himself, who argued that capitalism 
was both productive and destructive at the same time. With all of its 
dehumanizing features, he believed that it opened possibilities to go 
beyond capitalism to the complete abolition of class domination and the 
full flowering of our individual and social capacities.

Marx did not view his work as either a blueprint for change or a dogma 
that excludes other traditions. He cautioned his readers to "doubt 
everything." Further, he always assumed that those engaged in struggle 
would have to continually analyze their changing situations.
 
We will also look at how three contemporary theorists have built on the 
Marxist tradition, particularly to flesh out the interdependence of 
capital with colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.:

. Walter Rodney, whose classic work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 
examined the workings of colonialism within the capitalist system.

. Ted Allen , author of the path breaking study, The Invention of the 
White Race, which traced the origins of racism based on skin color and 
its particular place in U.S. history.

. Silvia Federici who documents what it took to submit women to the 
capitalist system in Caliban and the Witch

We will place a special emphasis on Marx's Capital, his historical 
method and cutting through the dominant ideology and forms of social 
control that permeate the history of capitalism. In the process, we hope 
to find tools of analysis that can help us think more strategically and 
act more effectively.

Participants will be encouraged to bring questions from their own 
activist practice and reading.


Registration & Fees
Sliding Scale: $85/$125
Registration: Wednesday, July 20, 6:00 pm
Partial scholarships are available.
Pre-registration is advised.

Teachers
(Partial list)

Ellen Braune works as a media consultant with New Channels 
Communications. She has developed media campaigns for such groups as 
Demos-USA and the National Labor Committee where she was involved in the 
year long Gap campaign and the Kathy Lee Gifford/Wal/Mart expose.

Humberto Brown is International Secretary of the Black Radical Congress 
and a Brecht Forum Board Member.

Steve Duncombe, author of Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics 
of Alternative Culture and editor of the Cultural Resistance Reader, 
teaches at New York University.

Silvia Federici is author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and 
Primitive Accumulation, and editor of Enduring Western Civilization : 
The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its "Others."
 
Anna Maria Flores teaches at the Borough of Manhattan Community College 
and was a friend and colleague of the late Ted Allen.
 
Randy Martin is Associate Dean of Faculty of Interdisciplinary Programs 
at New York University and a professor of Art and Public Policy. He is 
author, most recently, of On Your Marx and The Financialization of Daily 
Life.

Annette Rubinstein a member of the Brecht Forum Advisory Board, is the 
author of American Literature: Root and Flower and The Great Tradition 
in English Literature from Shakespeare to Shaw.

Lincoln Van Sluytman was a coordinator of Groundings, a commemoration of 
the life of Walter Rodney held in Guyana in June 2005. He has been a 
political activist for many years and has worked closely with the 
Working People's Alliance of Guyana.

Richard Wolff teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts. 
Among other works, he is the author, with Stephen Ressnick, of Knowledge 
and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy, and Class Theory and 
History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR.

& Others TBA