Reading Group Syllabus

Fall Quarter: The reading group takes place 6:30PM - 8:30PM on Tuesdays at Harper 135.

Winter Quarter: The reading group takes place 6:30PM - 8:30PM on Tuesdays at Harper 135.

Spring Quarter: The reading group takes place 6:30PM - 8:30PM on Tuesdays at Harper 135.

Fall Quarter

Oct 7. Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Sep. 27, 2025

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)

Oct 14. What is the Left? I. Capital in history

• Max Horkheimer, “The little man and the philosophy of freedom” (1926-31)
• Epigraphs on modern history and freedom:
  • Louis Menand, on Marx and Engels
  • Karl Marx, on “becoming” (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
  • Peter Preuss, on history
• Chris Cutrone, “Capital in history” (2008)
• Cutrone, “The Marxist hypothesis” (2010)
• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)

Supplementary resources

• G.M. Tamas, Telling the truth about class (2007)
• Robert Pippin, On critical theory (2004)
• Rainer Maria Rilke, Archaic torso of Apollo (1908)
• Cutrone, Capital in history, video (2011)
• Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
• Being and becoming chart of terms
• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Oct 21. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)
• Theodor Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1968)
• Herbert Marcuse, “Note on dialectic” (1960)
• Karl Marx, To make the world philosophical from Marx’s dissertation, (1839–41)
• Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843)

Supplementary resources

• Dialectical critique chart of terms

Oct 28. What is Marxism? I. Socialism

• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844)
• Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
• Marx, The coming upheaval [html] from The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

Supplementary resources

• Commodity form chart of terms

Nov 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848

• Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850)
• Marx, Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218–220
• Engels, The tactics of social democracy (1895)
• Marx, selections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850)
• Marx, selections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

Nov 11. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism

• Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864)
• Marx, selections from The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels’s 1891 Introduction)
• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
• Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)

Supplementary resources

• Karl Korsch, The Marxism of the First International (1924)
• Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

Nov 18. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy

The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . Perfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.

— Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935

• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293
• Marx, “The fetishism of commodities” from Capital, Vol. 1 (1867)

Noc 25 Thanksgiving Break. No session

Dec 2. What is Marxism? V. Reification

• Georg Lukács, The Phenomenon of Reification

Dec 9. Finals Week. No session

Winter break readings

• Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution/Lenin for Beginners (1977)
• Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19 (1968)
• James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
• Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
• J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966), [Vol. 1], [Vol. 2]
• Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

Winter Quarter

Janurary 7. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness

• Lukács, Class consciousness (1920)
• Lukács, Original preface (1923)
• Lukács, What is Orthodox Marxism? (1919)
• Lukács, History and class consciousness (1923)

Supplementary resources

• Herbert Marcuse, Note on dialectic (1960)
• Marx, Preface to the first German edition and Afterword to the second German edition of Capital (1867)
• Reification chart of terms
• Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Janurary 14. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy

• Korsch Marxism and philosophy (1923)

Supplementary resources

• Herbert Marcuse, Note on dialectic (1960)
• Marx, To make the world philosophical (1839-41)
• Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, 1843)
• Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (1845)
• Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Jan 21. Revolutionary leadership

• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915) [HTML]
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)

Jan 28. Reform or revolution?

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)

Supplementary resources

• Eugene Debs, “Competition versus Cooperation” (1900)

Feb 4. Lenin and the vanguard party

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

Feb 11. What is to be done?

• V. I. Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902)

Feb 18. Mass strike and social democracy

• Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)

Supplementary resources

• Luxemburg, “Blanquism and Social Democracy” (1906)

Feb 25. Permanent revolution

• Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906)

March 4. State and revolution

• Lenin, The state and revolution (1917)

Supplementary resources

• Lenin, Socialism and War, Ch. 1 The principles of socialism and the War of 1914–15 (1915)

Mar 18. Spring Break. No session

Spring Quarter

March 25. Imperialism

The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!

— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)

• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)

Supplementary resources

• Lenin, Socialism and War, Ch. 1 The principles of socialism and the War of 1914–15 (1915)

April 1. Failure of the revolution

• Luxemburg, “What does the Spartacus League Want?” (1918)
• Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme” (1918)

Supplementary resources

• Luxemburg, “German Bolshevism” (AKA “The Socialisation of Society”) (1918)
• Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918)
• Luxemburg, “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919)
• Eugene Debs, “The Day of the People” (1919)
• Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

April 8. Retreat after revolution

• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Supplementary resources

• Lenin, “Notes of a Publicist” (1922)

Apr 15. Dialectic of reification

• Lukács, “The Standpoint of the Proletariat” (Part III of “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” 1923). Available in three sections from marxists.org: section 1 section 2 section 3

Supplementary resources

• Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
• Commodity form chart of terms
• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms + Organic composition of capital chart of terms
• Reification chart of terms
• Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

Apr 22. Lessons of October

• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924) [PDF]
• Trotsky, “Stalinism and Bolshevism” (1937)

Apr 29. Trotskyism

• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (AKA The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, 1938)

Supplementary resources

• Trotsky, “To build communist parties and an international anew” (1933)
• Trotsky, “If America should go communist” (1934)
• Trotsky, “Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay” (1940)
• Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)

May 6. The authoritarian state

• Friedrich Pollock, “State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations” (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, “The Authoritarian State” (1942) [PDF]

Supplementary resources

• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

May 13. On the concept of history

• Epigraphs on modern history and freedom:
  • Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels)
  • Peter Preuss (on history)
• Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History” (AKA “Theses on the Philosophy of History”) (1940) [PDF]
• Benjamin, Paralipomena to “On the Concept of History” (1940)

Supplementary resources

• Charles Baudelaire, from Fusées [Rockets] (1867)
• Bertolt Brecht, “To posterity” (1939)
• Walter Benjamin, “To the planetarium” (from One-Way Street, 1928)
• Benjamin, “Fire alarm” (from One-Way Street, 1928) [JPG] [PDF]
• Benjamin, “Experience and poverty” (1933)
• Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
• epigraphs by Hegel and W.E.B. DuBois on history
• Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Benjamin, Arcades Project Convolute N, “On the theory of knowledge, theory of progress” (see especially p. 471 [N8,1] on Horkheimer on unredeemablility of past suffering)
• Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

May 20. Theory and practice

• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)

Supplementary resources

• Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
• Commodity form chart of terms
• Reification chart of terms
• Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Adorno’s critique of actionism chart of terms
• Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
• Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
• Organic composition of capital chart of terms
• Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
• Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
• Adorno, Interview with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)