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The following is based on a presentation given on January 11, 2014 in Chicago. György Lukács in 1913 The role of “critical theory” Why read György Lukács today?1 Especially when his most famous work, History and Class Consciousness, is so clearly an expression of its specific historical moment, the aborted world revolution of 1917–19 in which he participated, attempting to follow Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. [Read More]

ON A MAY NIGHT IN 2012, Sotheby’s sold a version of Edvard Munch’s *The Scream* for 119.9 million dollars, setting a new record for the price paid for a single work of art. Meanwhile, union art handlers, locked out in a months-long dispute over a new contract, picketed the auction house along with Occupy Museums activists. While this sad little snapshot of art world disparity is not exactly new, the past few years have seen this type of excess thrown into sharp relief – against the background of the 2008 financial crisis and, to a lesser extent, the Occupy movement. [Read More]

SINCE THE NAZI SEIZURE OF POWER eighty years ago anti-fascism has been integral to left-wing politics. The struggle against fascists and Nazis is morally self-evident, so that political anti-fascism seems to be similarly self-evident. Yet in past periods of history, the politics of anti-fascism was completely different, as was the understanding of what it contributed to leftist politics more generally. Still certain continuity can be discerned in anti-fascism’s retention of anti-capitalist claims. [Read More]