Benjamin Blumberg

A panel hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society, in conjunction with the SVA Black Student Union, on 11 March 2015, at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Benjamin Blumberg (Platypus Affiliated Society) Eljeer Hawkins (Socialist Alternative/CWI) Dread Scott (Artist) Moderated by Allison Hewitt Ward (Platypus). Introduced by Tiffany Freeman (SVA Black Student Union). Description The widely publicized killings of black men by police and the resulting movement with its slogan “Black Lives Matter” puts back on the agenda of a beleaguered American Left a seemingly perennial question, one that evokes a long history of struggle, longing, and disappointment. [Read More]

A talk and guided discussion held at Left Forum 2013, at Pace University, on June 8, 2013. Video Recording Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Benjamin Blumberg Victoria Campbell Chris Mansour Description If it is true that the ‘commodity-structure’ (Lukács) is the defining feature of modern capitalism down through the present, then it stands to reason that it has no less impacted the way art is produced, consumed, circulated, and exchanged. [Read More]

A panel event held at New York University on April 18, 2013. Video Recording Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcripted in Platypus Review #57 Panelists Paul Demarty (CPGB) Bhaskar Sunkara (Jacobin) Benjamin Blumberg (Platypus) Description Recently, a series of exchanges between the Communist Party of Great Britain (PCC), the International Bolshevik Tendency, and the Platypus Affiliated Society has unfolded, mapping a field of positions and historical perspectives whose contours trace some of the most provocative contemporary perspectives on Marxism, socialism, and democracy. [Read More]

Video Recording Panelists Siyaves Azeri is the spokesperson of the Committee of International Relations of the Worker-communist Party of Iran. He is also a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston Canada. Azeri has taught as an assistant professor at Koc University in Istanbul; he has also taught at University of Ottawa and as a guest lecturer at Istanbul Technical University. Maria Rohaly is a coordinator for Mission Free Iran, an international organization that emerged during the 2009 uprising in Iran to amplify the demands and struggle for the goals and objectives of the revolution: freedom, equality, and humane society. [Read More]

A panel discussion organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society held on March 20, 2011, at Left Forum, Pace University. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Benjamin Blumberg - University of Chicago Nathan Smith - The Platypus Affiated Society Pam Nogales - New York University Richard Rubin - Platypus Tana Forrester - The Platypus Affiliated Society Description Marx and Engels were not the preeminent socialists but rather socialism’s greatest critics, distinguishing their “communism” from “reactionary,” “bourgeois” and “democratic” socialism. [Read More]

Platypus panel held at Left Forum 2010 in New York City, Pace University, March 20, 2010. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Benjamin Blumberg’s comments are transcribed in Platypus Review #19 Panelists Tim Barker, Columbia University Benjamin Blumberg, Platypus Affiliated Society Pamela Nogales, Platypus Affiliated Society Chris Cutrone, Platypus Affiliated Society, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago Description One catch-phrase that has flown in the wake of the successful election of Barack Obama is “post-racial,” raising the question of the degree to which America has overcome racism. [Read More]

Panel presentation by the Platypus Affiliated Society at Left Forum 2009: “Turning Points,” Pace University, NYC, April 17-19, 2009. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript Panelists Benjamin Blumberg (Chair) Chris Cutrone Atiya Khan Spencer A. Leonard Richard Rubin Description The panelists elucidate significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice in the 20 and 21st Century history of Leftist politics: 2001 (Spencer A. [Read More]