The Politics of Work, UMass Amherst

 September 20, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

The second of a panel series with thinkers, activists and political figures focused on contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class. Subsequent panels will be held internationally in Halifax, Chicago, London, and Toronto in Fall 2013. Held at UMass Amherst on 13 September 2013. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcribed in Platypus Review #62 [Read More]
The Politics of Work  Capitalist production  Employment  Full employment  Karl Marx  Marxism  Mikhail Bjorge  Work  Working class 

Left behind

The working class in the crisis

Left behind

 July 1, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON APRIL 23, 2009, a panel discussion titled Left Behind: The Working Class In The Crisis was held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The panelists were Abraham Mwaura of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, who has worked as an organizer at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory; Aaron Hughes, representative at the International Labor Conference, Arbil, Iraq, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; James Thindwa, Executive Director of Chicago Jobs with Justice; and Chuck Hendricks, an organizer for the labor union UNITE HERE. [Read More]
Exchanges  History of the Left  Labor  Left Behind  Unions  Working class 

Left Behind: The Working Class in Crisis

 April 23, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

The Platypus Affiliated Society presents a moderated panel discussion and audience Q & A addressing issues of global capital, trade unions, workers rights, international solidarity, and immigration, in light of recent economic and political change. Held on Thursday April 23, 2009, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #13: Panelists Abraham Mwaura, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, organizer at the Republic Windows & Doors Factory. [Read More]
Machine Workers of America  Capital  Capitalism  Chicago Jobs with Justice  Global capital  Immigration  International Labor Conference  International solidarity  Radio  Trade unions  Unite Here  United Electrical  Workers  Workers rights  Working class 

To the victor, the spoils

Review of Artforum's May 2008 issue May '68'

 September 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

We succeeded culturally. We succeeded socially. And we lost politically… I always say: ‘thank God!’ —Daniel Cohn-Bendit in interview on 1968, conducted by Yascha Mounk for The Utopian (2008) [O]ne asks with whom the adherents of historicism actually empathize. The answer is inevitable: with the victor… Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. [Read More]
1968  /20th Century  Anti-capitalism  Antonio Negri  Art  Artforum  Barbarism  Capitalism  Critical theory  Daniel Cohn-Bendit  Difference  History  Labor  Marxism  Multitude  Paris  Philosophy  Postmodern  Proletariat  Society  Students  Theory  Transformation  Utopian  Walter Benjamin  Working class 

Interview: Ernesto Laclau

 December 1, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

CONFRONTING THE CONFUSION and fragmentation that wrought progressive politics in recent decades, Ernesto Laclau’s work attempts to theorize the path to the construction of a radical democratic politics. Drawing on Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to devise his own theory by that name, Laclau describes the processes of social articulation that creates popular political identities. By redefining democratic politics as the construction of hegemony, Laclau reminds political actors of the work necessary to construct the plurality of democratic structures vital to any emancipatory political project. [Read More]
1930s  Anti-globalization  Capitalism  Co-optation  Commodity form  Communist party  Culture  De-radicalization  Democratic  Economics  Emancipation  Emancipatory  Equivalential  Ernesto Laclau  Feminism  Freedom  Hegemony  History  Identity  Industrial  Institutionalization  Italy  Labor  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Movements  Participation  Particularity  Plurality  Politics  Popular  Production  Progressive  Proletarian  Radical  Reification  Revolution  Surplus value  Theory  Union  Universality  Workers  Working class  WWII