Notes on philosophy

 October 1, 2017  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

The following short article was originally published in the Brandeis University Yearbook for 1963. Marcuse taught at Brandeis as Professor of Politics and Philosophy from 1958 to 1965. During those years he wrote and published his most famous work, One-Dimensional Man (1964), which, though largely forgotten today, served as a major touchstone for the New Left. Marcuse, together with a handful of other professors, wrote his essay in response to a general solicitation by the yearbook committee. [Read More]
Herbert Marcuse  Philosophy  New Left 

The New Left zombie is dead! Long live Occupy!

 April 1, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE, Marx disagrees with Hegel’s famous quote about history when he writes, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce…”1 Occupy is not a return to the New Left, a farce of the sixties. Usually history becomes codified once the right academic authorities have made their case most palatable to other academic authorities. [Read More]
C. Wright Mills  Eighteenth Brumaire  Karl Marx  New Left  OWS  Occupy  Slavoj Žižek  David Haack  PR Occupy 

Black nationalism and the legacy of Malcolm X

 November 1, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

LAST FALL, EDITOR SPENCER A. LEONARD interviewed Michael Dawson, Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. The interview, which centered around a discussion of Manning Marable’s new biography of Malcolm X, was broadcast on September 30, 2011 on the radio show Radical Minds on WHPK – FM Chicago. What follows is a revised and edited transcript of the interview. SL: Like many others in recent months, you have contributed to the controversy raging around Manning Marable’s book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. [Read More]
Michael Dawson  Black Nationalism  Malcolm X  Manning Marable  Michael Dawson  New Left  Radical Minds  Race  Marcus Garvey 

The Marxist turn

The New Left in the 1970s

 September 26, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

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 1970s.” The original description of the event, which was moderated by Spencer A. Leonard at the University of Chicago, reads: “The 1970s are usually glossed over as a decade of the New Left’s disintegration into sectarianism, triggered by the twin defeats of Nixon’s election and the collapse of SDS in 1968–69. [Read More]
1970s  New Left  Public fora 

Rethinking the New Left

 December 1, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

_ON NOVEMBER 9, 2010, Platypus hosted the public forum, “Rethinking the New Left,” moderated by Spencer A. Leonard. The panel consisted of Osha Neumann, a former member of the New York anarchist group in the 1960s, Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers; Mark Rudd, former member and national secretary of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later a member of the Weather Underground; Tim Wohlforth, founder and national secretary of the Young Socialist Alliance in 1959; and Alan Spector, a full-time organizer for SDS for more than five years in the 1960s. [Read More]
Che Guevara  James P. Cannon  Max Shachtman  New Left  Progressive Labor Party  SDS  SNCC  Socialist Workers Party  The Motherfuckers  Weather Underground  Young Socialist Alliance 

Rethinking the New Left (Chicago, 11/9/10)

 November 9, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Public forum organised by the Platypus Affiliated Society on November 9th 2010 at the University of Chicago. Co-sponsored by The Global Voices Lecture Program of International House, with the support of the University of Chicago Student Activities Fund Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Mark Rudd Alan Spector Osha Neumann Tim Wohlforth Moderated by Spencer A. Leonard Description 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. [Read More]
1960s  Anarchism  Marxism  Movement  New Left  Politics  SDS  Socialism 

New Left Regress

The Militant Turn in the Late 1960s

 May 29, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel discussion held on May 29, 2010 at the second Platypus International Convention at SAIC. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Greg Gabrellas Pam C. Nogales C. Spencer A. Leonard Description The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the rise of a new militancy and sectarianism on the Left. Whether in the case of the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Gay Liberation Front, or many other currents on the Left, developments from that time did much to shape the New Left’s legacy as it comes down to the present. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2010  1960s  1970s  Black Panthers  Gay liberation front  New Left  Weather Underground 

Disappearances

Reflections on the collapse of honey bees and the Left

Disappearances

 May 9, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A bustling city at dawn. Industrious workers set out from their homes, coming and going in a perfect and productive ballet. But by evening the workers vanish. No trace of foul play. No bodies left behind. Mass disappearances like this have recently occurred across the globe, not of humans, but of millions of honey bees.1 THE OMINOUSLY TITLED 2007 PBS documentary Silence of the Bees begins with a montage of the streets of a major U. [Read More]
Bees  Freedom  History of the Left  New Left  Regression  environmentalism  ecology 

Adorno's Leninism

 April 21, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A talk given by Platypus member Chris Cutrone at Loyola University, on April 21st, 2010. Cosponsored by Pi Sigma Tau, STAND, and SAF. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #37 Description 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 understood is the specific character of Adorno’s Marxism, how his political perspective related to his philosophical concerns. [Read More]
1920s  1930s  1940s  1960s  Vladimir Lenin  New Left  Old Left 

2001

The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century: Toward a Theory of Historical Regression

2001

 November 18, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά, Deutsch

ON APRIL 18, 2009, the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted the following panel discussion at the Left Forum Conference at Pace University in New York City. The panel was organized around four significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice over the course of the 20th century: 2001 (Spencer A. Leonard), 1968 (Atiya Khan), 1933 (Richard Rubin), and 1917 (Chris Cutrone). The following is an edited transcript of the 2001 presentation by Spencer A. [Read More]
Afghanistan  Fred Halliday  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Iran  Iranian Revolution  Michel Foucault  Moishe Postone  New Left  Stalinism  Left Forum  Theodor W. Adorno