What does it mean to say that Platypus is the psychoanalyst of the Left?

What does it mean to say that Platypus is the psychoanalyst of the Left?

 April 1, 2019  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY that Platypus is the psychoanalyst of the Left? Thinking through this analogy can provide some clarity about the Platypus project and its relationship to the existing Left. Freud never had a prescriptive conception of health. In fact, for Freud, mental health existed on a spectrum, and was not a difference in kind. In other words, for Freud, the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy psyche was not a difference in two kinds of psyches, but a difference in how the psyches expressed degrees of mental illness on a spectrum. [Read More]
Platypus  The Left  Psychoanalysis  Sigmund Freud 

Platypus Nashville Reading Group - Fall 2016

 September 30, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Summer and Fall/Autumn 2016 – Winter 2017 Every Monday, 7:00-9:00 pm Bongo Java, 2007 Belmont Blvd.  I. What is the Left?—What is Marxism? • required / * recommended reading Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)  Week A. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 8, 2016 Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. [Read More]
critical theory  History of the Left  Marxism  Platypus  Socialism 

What is Platypus Doing?

 July 18, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel event held at the Inaugural European Conference of the Platypus Affiliated Society on July 18, 2014 at Goldsmiths College, London. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Lucy Parker (London) Jan Schroeder (Frankfurt) Nikos Manousakis (Thessaloniki) Questions What have been some of the more significant engagements in your chapter with the Left? Why was this important for the development of your chapter and, what has this engagement taught us about the nature international Left? [Read More]
Inaugural European Conference  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society  Platypus Frankfurt  Platypus London  Platypus Thessaloniki 

Democratic Socialists of America

Differing Perspectives on the Left

 April 5, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A workshop with the Democratic Socialists of America (Joseph Schwartz (Temple University) and Bill Barclay) held on April 5, 2014, at the Sixth Platypus International Convention. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Every year at the Platypus International Convention, speakers from various perspectives are asked to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges as part of the “Differing Perspectives on the Left” workshop series. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2014  Democratic Socialists of America  Marxism  Platypus  Socialism 

Conversations on the Left

Paul Demarty (CPGB), Bhaskar Sunkara (Jacobin), and Benjamin Blumberg (Platypus)

 April 18, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

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]
CBPG  Communist Party of Great Britain  IBT  International Bolshevik Tendency  Jacobin  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society  Weekly Worker 

What is Imperialism? (What Now?)

 April 6, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel held on April 6 2013, at the 2013 Platypus International Convention at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcribed in Platypus Review #59 Panelists Larry Everest (Revolutionary Communist Party) Joseph Green (Communist Voice) Paul Demarty (Communist Party of Great Britain) Description Ten years on from the US invasion of Iraq, are we any closer to understanding what Imperialism is and why we are against it? [Read More]
Platypus International Convention  Platypus International Convention 2013  Communist Party of Great Britain  Communist Voice  CPGB  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society  Revolutionary Communist Party 

Why I Joined Platypus

 April 11, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

“Why I joined Platypus” was the Sunday Plenary panel at the Platypus Affiliated Society’s 4 Annual International Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, March 30 to April 1, 2012. In this panel four members reflect on why they joined Platypus, and what this decision has meant for them. This panel took place on April 1st, 2012, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. [Read More]
About Platypus  Left Forum  Left Forum 2012  Platypus International Convention 2012  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society 

The 90s and 2000's Left Today

 March 31, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Daniel Dulce (Crimthinc) Thodoris Velissaris (Platypus) Nick Kreitman (Platypus, Formerly new SDS) Mike Ely (Kasama) Joshua Moufawad-Paul (Supporter, Parti communiste revolutionnaire - Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada) Description The two decades of the 1990s-2000s form a cycle containing certain common as well as differing concerns. [Read More]
Occupy  Platypus International Convention 2012  1990s  /2000s  90s  Black Bloc  Communisation  Crimthinc  Empire  Kasama  Neoconservatism  Neoliberalism  New SDS  Parti communiste revolutionnaire  Platypus  RCP Canada  Resistance  Revolution Communist Party -- Canda  Rhizomatic  Rhizome  SDS  Social justice 

Platypus Discussion of Mike Macnair's Critique

 June 4, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

June 4, 2011 discussion of Mike Macnair’s critique of Platypus for the Communist Party of Great Britain in The Weekly Worker (see links below to articles under discussion, especially the May 19 article by Macnair, “Theoretical dead end”). Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description “Platypus: Is it a sect? Is it an academic grouping? Is it a theoretical dead end?” The Communist Party of Great Britain’s Mike Macnair’s critique of Platypus in their paper The Weekly Worker is based on a conception of Marxism as practical politics that we don’t share. [Read More]
About Platypus  Communist Party of Great Britain  CPGB  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society  Weekly Worker 

Badiou and Post-Maoism

Marxism and Communism Today

 April 30, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel discussion at the 3 annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, April 30, 2011. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Chris Cutrone (Platypus) Mike Ely (Kasama Project) Joseph Ramsey (Kasama Project) John Steele (Kasama Project) How does the prominence of Alain Badiou’s approach to communism today speak to the present historical moment and its emancipatory possibilities? [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2011  Alain Badiou  Jacques Lacan  Kasama Project  Louis Althusser  Platypus  Platypus Affiliated Society