Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
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platypusgeorgetown.bsky.social
Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
@platypusgeorgetown.bsky.social
6 followers 48 following 63 posts
Follows =/= endorsements. The Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University organizes public fora on tasks inherited from the Left. https://platypus1917.org https://forms.gle/bwgiRgufnhfgJQeH8
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The article, "What is a platypus?" from our About page. Find the rest of the Platypus Affiliated Society's founding documents here: platypus1917.org/about/

"A story is told about Karl Marx's collaborator and friend Friedrich Engels, who, in his youth, as a good Hegelian idealist..."
What was the appeal of "sectarianism", Marxism, and rebellion in the 1970s and 80s, after the New Left?

"You can have a rebellious spirit and be capable of growing out of idiocy, but you can’t have a reactionary spirit and develop towards Marxism." -A. Dent/Langer
platypus1917.org/2024/09/01/r...
This week's coffee break! What did "sectarianism" have to do with the Left, and the New Left? How does it appear today? (Plus: Mamdani and the Left?)

Join Platypus at Georgetown Tuesday, November 4th at 5:00 PM in the ICC to think "against the grain." All our events are open to the public.
Our reading group discussion on "What is the Left? What is Marxism?" continues today at 2 PM in New North 204 at Georgetown University. This week: why did the revolution in 1848 for socialism (and democracy?) result in the election of an emperor? What did it mean for Marx's critique of the Left?
How do Marx and Engels continue their critical participation in the Left through the revolution internationally in 1848? What potentials about capitalism did socialism reveal?

This Sunday, November 2nd, 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Thursday, 6 PM
Der Marxismus und Ferdinand Lassalle (Teach-in, in German)
Warum bewerteten die revolutionären Marxisten der II. Internationale Lassalle so fundamental anders als es jene tun, die sie in ihrem Marxismus beerben wollten?
Details: sites.google.com/view/whatsle...
Friday, 3 PM
The American Revolution and Europe (teach-in)
The United States continues to transform Europe and the world. What is the significance of the American Revolution for a European Left? And why is it still necessary to ask this question at all?
Details: sites.google.com/view/whatsle...
Friday, 6 PM
The Legacy of the French Revolution (panel)
Speakers:
- Dominique Pagani (author of Féminité et communauté chez Hegel)
- Mike Macnair (Communist Party of Great Britain, author of Revolutionary Strategy)
- Richard Rubin (founding member of Platypus Affiliated Society)
- tba
Saturday, 2 PM
Workshops by Leftist groups
- Licht und Luft
at Haus 1 Turm, T-1001
- Ingar Solty on his book series Marxismen
at Haus 1 Turm, T-1003
- tba
at Haus 1 Turm, T-1004 / Haus 1 Turm, T-1006
Details: sites.google.com/view/whatsle...
Saturday, 6 PM
What is Europe to the Left?
Description: sites.google.com/view/whatsle...
Speakers:
- Dominique Pagani (author of Féminité et communauté chez Hegel)
- Ingar Solty (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, author of Marxismen)
- Ruth Kinna (co-founder of Anarchism Research Group)
- tba
From November, Thursday 13th to Saturday 15th, chapters of the Platypus Affiliated Society in Europe will be holding a public conference titled: "What's Left of Europe?"

Find details below & at sites.google.com/view/whatsle... and Platypus Leipzig on Instagram: www.instagram.com/platypus_lei....
Reposted by Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
How do Marx and Engels continue their critical participation in the Left through the revolution internationally in 1848? What potentials about capitalism did socialism reveal?

This Sunday, November 2nd, 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
What is the Left? What is Marxism?
docs.google.com/document/u/1...
Marx, Engels
Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League
Letter to Weydemeyer (Class struggle and mode of production)
The tactics of social democracy
The Class Struggles in France
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
How do Marx and Engels continue their critical participation in the Left through the revolution internationally in 1848? What potentials about capitalism did socialism reveal?

This Sunday, November 2nd, 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Join us today, October 28th at 5 PM in the foyer of Georgetown University's ICC to talk about the news, politics, the Left, and Marxism from a critical angle! This week: platypus1917.org/2019/05/01/r... How does the 20th century appear today? What would Marxism have to say about it?
Reposted by Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
This week's coffee break! Where is the Left after the 20th century? What will be remembered and forgotten about early 21st-century Leftism? What would Marxism have to say?

Join Platypus at Georgetown Tuesday, October 28th at 5:00 PM in the ICC to think "against the grain."
Is Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election the historical legacy of the Millennial Left? What would this mean? How do neoliberalism, capitalism, and socialism relate?

"Where has the original “anarchist” spirit of the Millennials gone?"
platypus1917.org/2019/05/01/r...
This week's coffee break! Where is the Left after the 20th century? What will be remembered and forgotten about early 21st-century Leftism? What would Marxism have to say?

Join Platypus at Georgetown Tuesday, October 28th at 5:00 PM in the ICC to think "against the grain."
Our reading group discussion on "What is the Left? What is Marxism?" continues today at 2 PM in New North 204 at Georgetown University. This week: how does capitalism shape labor, socialism? How does Marx's critique of socialism advance the possibilities to overcome socialism?
This week: How did socialism create and register the destructive potential of capitalism in theory and practice? What was Marx's immanent dialectical critique of it?

This Sunday, October 26th, 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Readings by Marx/Engels:
1844 Economic and philosophic manuscripts
The Manifesto of the Communist Party
The coming upheaval (The Poverty of Philosophy)
This will be the first of five discussions on Marx and Marxism in our reading group. New participants welcome!
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
This week: How did socialism create and register the destructive potential of capitalism in theory and practice? What was Marx's immanent dialectical critique of it?

This Sunday, October 26th, 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Come join our coffee break today, Tuesday 10/21 at 5:00 PM in the ICC at Georgetown University!

No specific topic this week: bring anything you're thinking about! Coffee breaks are an open space to critically reflect on news, the Left, Marxism, history, and politics "against the grain."
Our reading group discussion on "What is the Left? What is Marxism?" continues today at 2 PM in New North 204 at Georgetown University. This week: what is the Left? What is the Right? In what way is this distinction in their relationship to history? New participants welcome!
This week: what is the Left? What differentiates it from the Right? What is the historical nature of such a distinction: what is the subjective factor in history?

This Sunday, October 19th at 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Reposted by Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
This week: what is the Left? What differentiates it from the Right? What is the historical nature of such a distinction: what is the subjective factor in history?

This Sunday, October 19th at 2:00 PM in New North 204, Platypus at Georgetown University's reading group continues!
Reposted by Platypus Affiliated Society at Georgetown University
www.instagram.com/platypusgmu/
What were Marxism's points of departure concerning radical possibilities for freedom that might yet speak to the present?

This Friday October 17th 5:00-7:00 PM in Horizon Hall Room 3001 at George Mason University, a teach-in on Capital in History.
"The Left gives forth utopias just as the pancreas discharges insulin-by virtue of an innate law... Still, utopia is a tool of action upon reality and of planning social activity... For this reason the Left can have a political ideology, while the right has nothing but tactics." -Kolakowski
Readings:
Kolakowski, The concept of the Left
Horkheimer, selections from Dawn/Dammerung
Adorno, Imaginative Excesses
Marx, To make the world philosophical, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Ruge)
Marcuse, Note on dialectic
docs.google.com/document/d/1...