Chicago Platypus chapters at The School of the Art Institue of Chicago, University of Chicago, Loyola University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago
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[Live Broadcast] The relevance of Lenin today
![[Live Broadcast] The relevance of Lenin today](http://chicago.platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LeninBannerchicago1-150x67.jpg)
Live broadcast: www.livestream.com/platypus1917 Saturday, December 17, 2011 9AM U.S./Canada PST / 10AM MST / 11AM CST / 12PM EST; and 17:00 London / 18:00 Frankfurt and Berlin / 19:00 Thessaloniki / 22:30 Delhi / 02:00 Seoul If you are in Chicago: Saturday, 11am | 17 December 2011 |School of the Art Institute of [...]
Film Screening Series: The Battle on Wall Street?
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) “Want to know what the mother of all bubbles was? Came out of nowhere, by chance. They called it the Cambrian Explosion. It happened around 530 million years ago. And, over the next 70-80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated so fast that we came along, the human [...]
Platypus @ Occupy Chicago
Platypus in Chicago will be giving a series of talks on The Relevance of Marxism Today at Occupy Chicago, look out for the banner, “The Left is Dead! Long Live the Left!”, and come join us for discussion. Teach-in: Does Marxism Matter? In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto [...]
Intro to Platypus Reading Group
U of Chicago: Wednesdays @ 6:00 pm | Harper Memorial Library, Room 151 | 1116 E. 59th St. Contact: uofc@platypus1917.org SAIC: Fridays @ 4:30 pm | Caffe Baci | 20 N. Michigan Ave. Contact: saic@platypus1917.org 10 sessions of readings introducing the raison d’être of the Platypus project. Week 1 • Cutrone, “Symptomology: Historical transformations in [...]
Platypus Coffee Breaks
Our weekly Coffee Breaks are a great way to meet Platypus members and fellow travelers, and to get to know the Platypus project. It’s an opportunity to discuss issues raised in the latest issue of the Platypus Review, consider the state of the Left, and just hang out with people who have similar political interests. [...]
History of Marxism Reading Group
I. What is the “Left?” — What is “Marxism?” Saturdays 1-4pm Starting Sat. Sept. 10: School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) | 112 S. Michigan Ave. room 920 Starting Sat. Oct. 1: University of Chicago (UChicago) | The Reynolds Club 2nd floor South Lounge | 5706 S. University Ave. • required / + recommended reading Marx and [...]
Platypus Review #40 | October, 2011
The Marxist turn: The New Left in the 1970s On May 19, 2011, Platypus invited Carl Davidson, formerly of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Guardian Weekly, Tom Riley of the International Bolshevik Tendency, and Mel Rothenberg, formerly of the Sojourner Truth Organization, to reflect on “The Marxist turn: The New Left in [...]
The Communist Manifesto: A Teach-in
The Communist Manifesto: A Teach-In Wednesday, September 28 · 5:00pm 701 S Morgan St. UIC Stevenson Hall, Room 304 In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a ‘specter’ was haunting Europe— the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is ‘Marxism’ itself that haunts us.In the 21st [...]
PR Issue 32 Online
Platypus Review Issue 32 is now available. This month’s issue includes: Which Way Forward for Sexual Liberation? A transcript of a panel held at New York University on the possibilities for sexual liberation today. Panelists were Gary Mucciaroni, professor of Political Science at Temple University, Sherry Wolf, author of Sexuality and Socialism and organizer for [...]
Spring Reading Group Begins
Platypus Primary Marxist Reading Group for Spring 2011 begins Saturday, January 29 at 1pm at SAIC and University of Chicago.
PR Issue 30 Online
The Platypus Review Issue 30 is now available for your reading pleasure. This month we have: Up in the Air: The Legacy of the New Communist Movement Spencer Leonard interviews Max Elbaum, author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che, on the turn to “Marxism-Leninism” in the New Left. [...]
Take the Democratic Revolution to the End!
Were the Bolsheviks the highest expression of Marxism? Did the Bolshevik project discredit other competing forms of Marxism? Or did the October Revolution change the meaning of Marxism itself? Is it necessary today to return to the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, and Vladimir Lenin? Or would it be better to skip over the [...]
Rethinking the New Left Audio
Audio from the Platypus forum Rethinking the New Left, hold on November 19. 2010.
“A Black Man Speaks of Marx”: The Sartre-Fanon Dialogue of the 1940s and 50s
In the years immediately following World War II French intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon turned their attention to racism, anti-semitism and anti-black racism. Both men were engaged with both. Neither wrote from identity, but rather both sought to link their reflections to Marxism, to its failure and possible reconstitution.
Audio for Which Way Forward for Sexual Liberation
Last Monday, November 8, Platypus New York hosted a forum on sex, politics, and freedom entitled Which Way Forward for Sexual Liberation? An audio recording of the event is available here. Event information: With roots in earlier radical traditions, movements that sought to radically redefine the relationship of sex, politics, and freedom erupted onto the [...]
PR Issue 29 Online
The November 2010 issue of the Platypus Review is now available online. The Marxist Hypothesis Chris Cutrone Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek have promoted the idea of the “Communist Hypothesis,” the “pure Idea of equality” that has been a counterpoint to civilization since its beginning. Chris Cutrone offers a different idea: a “Marxist Hypothesis” that [...]
A Discussion with Tim Wohlforth
Join us for an interview and discussion with Tim Wohlforth. This follow-up event to the “Rethinking the New Left” panel at the University of Chicago will allow for a broader and more intimate conversation with an important, former leader within American Trotskyism. Mr. Wohlforth began his political career during McCarthyism as a youth member of [...]
Rethinking The New Left
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH 6:00 PM INTERNATIONAL HOUSE ASSEMBLY HALL 1414 EAST 59TH STREET SPEAKERS: Mark Rudd Alan Spector Osha Neumann Tim Wohlforth MODERATOR: Spencer A. Leonard The memory of the 1960s, which has long kindled contestation and debate on the means and ends of freedom politics, is rapidly fading into the political unconscious. The election of [...]
An Incomplete Project? Art and Politics After Postmodernism
Postmodernism challenged the institutionalized modernism of the mid-20th century, offering more radical forms of social discontents and cultural practice. It meant unmasking the values of progress as involving ideologies of the political status-quo, the problems of which were manifest to a new generation in the 1960s. But, more recently, postmodernism itself has begun to age, [...]
Capitalism and Gay Identity–A Teach-in at the University of Chicago
Join Platypus for a teach-in and group discussion on the historical character of sexual identity and the character of freedom that capitalism presents. Thursday, October 21 at 6pm Harper Library, University of Chicago, 1116 E. 59th St. Suggested Reading: John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity” RSVP for the event on Facebook
Socialism, Feminism and the New Left: a teach-in at UIC
Socialism, feminism and the New Left Juliet Mitchell and the recovery of Marxism A teach-in hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society “Socialism will be a process of change, of becoming. A fixed image of the future is in the worst sense ahistorical. . . . As Marx wrote: ‘What is progress if not the absolute [...]
WHAT IS LEFT, AND WHERE TO BEGIN?
Saturday and Sunday: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 112 S. Michigan Ave. The Platypus Affiliated Society is proud to announce its second annual international convention, What is Left, and where to begin? Platypus has organized four days of activities. Starting on Wednesday May 26th with a film screening at University of Chicago’s Woodlawn [...]
Women the Longest Revolution: A Teach-In by Chris Cutrone
Platypus presents: Tuesday, May 18th 8:00 PM 5710 S. Woodlawn Featuring a presentation by Chris Cutrone on Juliet Mitchell’s “Women: The longest revolution” (1966) Join us for dinner and discussion “Socialism will be a process of change, of becoming. A fixed image of the future is in the worst sense ahistorical. . . . As [...]
Adorno’s political relevance today: A teach-in led by Chris Cutrone.
The Platypus Affiliated Society at Woodlawn Collaborative present… When:Saturday, May 8 1:30pm – 3:00pm. Where: Woodlawn Collaborative 6400 S. Kimbark Ave., John Knox Hall. The German Marxist critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69) is known, along with his friend and mentor Walter Benjamin, for the critique of mid-20th century art and culture. What is less well [...]