Platypus Introduction to the History of Marxism Readings


A series of 10 sessions introducing Platypus’s approach to the history of Marxism.

  • * required / • recommended

Essential background reading

• Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

• James Joll, _The Second International 1889-1914_ (1966)

• Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19(1968)

Week 1

• Cutrone, “The Left is dead! — Long live the Left!” Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and the possibilities for emancipatory social politics today

• Kant, “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” (1784)

• Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns” (1819)

•• Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754)

•• Rousseau, selection from The Social Contract (1762)

Week 2

Week 3

•• James Joll, _The Second International 1889-1914_ (1966)

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

•• Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19(1968)

Week 8

Week 9

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

Week 10

• Adorno and Horkheimer, “Towards a New Manifesto?” (1956)