The Marx Lounge - Marx Series

Tuesday 19 April: International Socialists: ‘Marx and democracy’, led by Pepijn Brandon.

The International Socialists are a revolutionary-socialist organisation: “We are anti-capitalists and believe that a different world is possible. But this will not happen by itself. Therefore we are part of campaigns against cutbacks, war, racism, climate change and oppression, an therefore we are building an organisation of activists.” On 21 and 22 May the International Socialists are organising the Marxism Festival.

Starting 7:00 p.m. Maximum: 20 participants. Conducted in Dutch. Participants are themselves responsible for acquiring the recommended reading materials.

“For Europe, 1848 was the year of the democratic revolutions, just as 2011 is for the Arab world. But the tide was turned back quickly, in France by the authoritarian populist Napoleon III rising to power. In reaction to this Marx wrote his caustic Achttiende Brumaire van Louis Bonaparte. This masterpiece of historical-journalistic writing will be the focus during this reading group.”

Reading material: Marx, Karl. De achttiende brumaire van Louis Bonaparte. Amsterdam: Pegasus, 1976.

Tuesday 3 May: International Socialists: ‘Marx’s method: historical materialism’, led by Sara Murawski.

The International Socialists are a revolutionary-socialist organisation: “We are anti-capitalists and believe that a different world is possible. But this will not happen by itself. Therefore we are part of campaigns against cutbacks, war, racism, climate change and oppression, an therefore we are building an organisation of activists.” On 21 and 22 May the International Socialists are organising the Marxism Festival.

Starting 7:00 p.m. Maximum: 20 participants. Conducted in Dutch. Participants are themselves responsible for acquiring the recommended reading materials.

“De Duitse Ideologie is an exciting text by Marx and Engels about the question of how our thinking relates to the society in which we live. The work is packed with polemic rhetoric aimed at their contemporaries, but with its essential insights also offers a sensible look at complex social questions, including today's populism. In passing there will also be an attempt made to show how Marx sought to 'stand Hegel on his head’ in this text.”

Reading material: Engels, Friedrich & Marx, Karl. De Duitse ideologie, Deel 1: Feuerbach. Nijmegen: Van Tilt, 2009.

Tuesday 10 May, starting 8:00 p.m. ‘Money: returning to the accident from which it came' close-reading group with Zachary Formwalt. Programme in English.

A close reading of chapter 8 of Kojin Karatani's Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money, specifically in relation to his reading of Marx's description of the emergence of money in Capital. Karatani suggests that by beginning with the "simple, isolated, or accidental form of value", Marx reveals a reversibility between figure and ground in the emergence of the money form. Such a reversible relation between figure and ground can also be found in the emergence of the photo-illustrated press. What could this parallel mean for the photographic representation of political economy? This intensive reading group will be immediately involved with the first part of Formwalt’s book Reading the Economist. Zachary Formwalt investigates in works like In Place of Capital (2009, which was part of the exhibition 'Monumentalism' in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Through a Fine Screen (2010), the development of modernity and economic events. The ideas of Marx are included in this perspective. Formwalt studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, the School of the Arts Insitute in Chicago and Northwestern University in Illinois, and took part in the Critical Postgraduate Program at the Malmö Art Academy.

Monday 16 May, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Open UvA work group with Dr. Johan Hartle. ‘Considerations on Impertinence and Inverted Institutional Critique’ with artist Rainer Ganahl. There are 10 places available for this session. Programme in English.

This session is the final meeting of the work group series ‘Art as institution and its critique’, which Dr. Hartle has been leading at the UvA. The Austrian artist Rainer Ganahl, living in New York, discusses his work with the students of the University of Amsterdam, and other attendees will have the opportunity to join in the conversation. The focus of the discussion is the question of institutional critique (as in the tradition of the historic avant-garde between the World Wars and conceptual art in the 1960s) and the predicament of political art in general. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Johan Frederik Hartle.

Tuesday 17 May, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ‘Marx Reading’ by Rainer Ganahl. Maximum 20 participants. Nota bene: Ganahl will be filming the session. Programme in English.

The Austrian Rainer Ganahl is a multi-faceted conceptual artist who often incorporates political ideologies, and particularly the work of Marx, into his work. Ganahl’s artwork Reading Karl Marx was to be seen in 1999 in New York, and resulted in a publication in 2001.

This reading group will be filmed and photographed by Ganahl as a part of his work, and is to be seen in relation to his project Seminars/Lectures. Ganahl started the Seminars/Lectures project in 1995, documenting his contacts with speakers and knowledge acquired by means of photographs of lectures and meetings.

Note: For this reading group the participants do not have to read texts in advance; Ganahl will provide material to the participants during the session.

Monday 23 May, 7:00-8:00 p.m. A lecture by Lucia Pradella on the relevance of Marx’s Capital for the analysis of globalization and the current crisis. Conducted in English.

In this seminar Pradella presents her book L’attualità del Capitale, and touches upon the questions of colonialism, neocolonialism, international investments and the global restructuring of industrial production and migration. The starting point is Marx's Capital and his writing on colonialism, from this point Pradella discusses movements of resistance as well.

Lucia Pradella is a Researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Recently she is undertaking her Doctoral work in the University of Naples Federico II and at Paris X Nanterre. She has contributed to the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) and is the author of L’attualità del Capitale. Accumulazione e impoverimento nel capitalismo globale (Il Poligrafo, 2010) and various papers in Italian and English. Pradella is editor for the Historical Materialism Journal as well.

Tuesday 24 May: International Socialists: ‘Introduction to Das Kapital’, led by Joost Ploeger.

The International Socialists are a revolutionary-socialist organisation: “We are anti-capitalists and believe that a different world is possible. But this will not happen by itself. Therefore we are part of campaigns against cutbacks, war, racism, climate change and oppression, an therefore we are building an organisation of activists.” On 21 and 22 May the International Socialists are organising the Marxism Festival.

Starting 7:00 p.m. Maximum: 20 participants. Conducted in Dutch. Participants are themselves responsible for acquiring the recommended reading materials.

“Where the established economic theories are impotent to explain the present crisis in the system, Marx's magnum opus provides indispensable insights into the rise, operation and contradictions in capitalism. But they are not just there for the taking. Friedrich Engels, Marx's political soul mate, has done us the favour of writing a short summary of the first part of Das Kapital.”

Reading material: Engels, Friedrich. ‘Het Kapitaal’ van Karl Marx. Amsterdam: Pegasus, 1974. + Ploeger's article: ‘Marx' Kapitaal, de actualiteit van een meesterwerk’

Tuesday 31 May: International Socialists: ‘The relevance of Marx today’, led by Maina van der Zwan.

The International Socialists are a revolutionary-socialist organisation: “We are anti-capitalists and believe that a different world is possible. But this will not happen by itself. Therefore we are part of campaigns against cutbacks, war, racism, climate change and oppression, an therefore we are building an organisation of activists.” On 21 and 22 May the International Socialists are organising the Marxism Festival.

Starting 7:00 p.m. Maximum: 20 participants. Conducted in Dutch. Participants are themselves responsible for acquiring the recommended reading materials.

“The Communist Manifesto is undoubtedly one of the most discussed, quoted, admired, vilified and influential texts of the past century-and-a-half. People reading it today will be struck not only by its poetic power, but also by the topicality of the questions that are addressed: economic globalisation, the disruption of the relation between man and nature, recurrent crises, the role of competition and the outbreak of revolution. It forces us to face the question of Marx's relevance for the 21st century.”

Reading material: Engels, Friedrich & Marx, Karl. Het communistisch manifest. Amsterdam: Pegasus, 2007. + Van der Zwan's article:‘Wil de echte Marx opstaan?’

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