NYC SPACE, Winter Courses 2006
The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)
Winter 2006 Courses
THE SPIRIT OF UTOPIA
Alex Steinberg
Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
8 sessions: January 25 - March 22
(no class February 8)
Tuition: $90 - $115, sliding scale
MARX'S _CAPITAL_, VOLUMES II AND III
Andrew Kliman
Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
15 sessions: January 25 - May 17
(except for March 22 and April 12)
Tuition: $150 - $180, sliding scale
(Vol. II only: $75 - $100; Vol. III only: $100 - $120)
ERICH FROMM'S ENCOUNTER WITH MARX AND FREUD
Charles Herr
Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
6 Sessions: January 31 - March 7
Tuition: $75 - $100, sliding scale
FROM DADA TO ANTHROPOFFERJISM
Erika Biddle
Alternate Tuesdays, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
6 Sessions: January 31, February 14, 28,
March 14, 28 and April 4
Tuition: $75 - $100, Sliding Scale
See course descriptions below. Please see the New SPACE website for
additional information on courses and registration.Winter 2006 Talks
THE EAST ASIAN CLASS STRUGGLE IN WORLD PERSPECTIVE
A talk by Loren Goldner
Tuesday, January 24 at 7:00 p.m.
GLOBAL BALKANS:
REVOLUTIONS IN THE BALKANS AND EASTERN EUROPE
A talk by Andrej Grubacic
Thursday, March 16 at 7:00 p.m.
THE WHOLESALE CRIMINALIZATION OF IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES:
MASS DETENTIONS, TORTURE, AND EXILE
A talk by Jeannette Gabriel
Thursday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Please see the New SPACE website for additional talks.
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THE SPIRIT OF UTOPIA
Alex Steinberg
Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
8 sessions: January 25 - March 22
(no class February 8)
Tuition: $90 - $115, sliding scale
Oscar Wilde famously said, "a map of the world without Utopia on it is not
worth looking at.” Does Wilde’s impulse still have resonance in a culture
that rejects the possibility of a better society, let alone a perfected
one? How can we still envision a Golden Age or a New Jerusalem at a time
when the utopian imagination is being indicted for everything from Nazism
to Stalinism and fundamentalist-inspired terror?
We will reflect on the classics as well as contemporary sources of utopian
literature and politics in an attempt to answer these questions. We will
consider ancient and medieval discussions of a Golden Age and an Ideal
City, how these were transformed into visions of bounty and cooperation in
the age of Enlightenment, and the further evolution of utopian ideas into
the political movements for socialism in the 19th century. We will also
look at the growth of utopian communities in the United States such as
Oneida and Brook Farm and their ideals of open sexuality and communal
living arrangements. We will look especially at the confluence and
conflict between Marxism and utopianism. How and why did the scientific,
socialist, anarchist and feminist visions of utopia in the early part of
the 20th century give way to dystopian literature and politics? We will
also consider the last great utopian movement of recent times, the 1960’s
student rebellion and counter culture and its aftermath.
Alex Steinberg taught a course on Hegel’s _Phenomenology of Spirit_ last
Fall at the New SPACE. Steinberg holds an MA in Philosophy from the New
School for Social Research; he left the PhD program after participating in
the student takeover of the New School following the Kent State massacre
in 1970. Steinberg is facilitator of a philosophy and literature
discussion group in Brooklyn and author of several essays, including "The
Case of Martin Heidegger" and "From Alienation to Revolution: A Defense of
Marx's Theory of Alienation". He has also served as a member of the WBAI
Local Station Board (2004) and as Chairperson of the WBAI LSB Programming
Committee.
MARX'S _CAPITAL_, VOLUMES II AND III
Andrew Kliman
Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
15 sessions: January 25 - May 17
(except for March 22 and April 12)
Tuition: $150 - $180, sliding scale
(Vol. II only: $75 - $100; Vol. III only: $100 - $120)
If you’ve read Volume I of _Capital_ and want to know how the book turns
out, this is the course for you! In this 15-week course, we will emphasize
how a rigorous theoretical understanding of the capital relation can aid
ongoing challenges to global capitalism.
Volumes II and III of _Capital_ complement and complete the analysis begun
in Volume I. Volume II situates Volume I’s analysis of the immediate
process of capitalist production within the circulation and reproduction
processes. Volume III endeavors to show that real-world phenomena do not
contradict, but are “forms of appearance” of, the “essential” relations
and categories developed in Volume I.
We will begin with a 6-week survey of Volume II, focusing on the circuits
of capital, the concept of productive labor, and the reproduction schemes.
In connection with the latter, we will also discuss the debate over
underconsumptionism, from Luxemburg to Hardt & Negri. The remaining 9
weeks, devoted to Volume III, will concentrate on the appearance of
surplus-value as profit; the distribution of surplus-value within the
capitalist class; Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit
and crisis theory; and his argument that capitalism’s production relations
(not only its relations of income and wealth distribution) are
historically specific and transitory. We will also critically examine
critics’ persistent efforts to prove that Marx’s account of the
transformation of values into production prices, and his theory of the
falling rate of profit, are internally inconsistent.
Registered students will have access to a draft of a study guide and
commentary on Volumes II and III – which includes weekly study suggestions
and questions – that the instructor is currently writing. Use of the
Penguin or Vintage edition of Volumes II and III, translated by David
Fernbach, is strongly suggested.
Andrew Kliman has taught courses on _Capital_, Volume I and John
Holloway’s _Change the World Without Taking Power_ at the New SPACE. A
professor of economics at Pace University, he has published extensively on
Capital, crisis theory, and value theory. Co-editor of _The New Value
Controversy and the Foundations of Economics_ (2004), he has recently
finished a book that reclaims Capital from the myth of internal
inconsistency. Many of Kliman's writings are available at his website:
http://akliman.squarespace.com.
ERICH FROMM'S ENCOUNTER WITH MARX AND FREUD
Charles Herr
Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
6 Sessions: January 31 - March 7
Tuition: $75 - $100, sliding scale
In the 1930’s, Erich Fromm, as a member of the Frankfurt School, was one
of the first to try to integrate, insights from Marx and Freud. His
writings analyzing the psychological roots of authoritarian
socio-political systems, such as fascism and Nazism, remain seminal. In
this course, we will explore the contemporary relevance of Fromm’s ideas
to understanding fundamentalist movements and systems. We will also
explore his concepts of social character and the social unconscious; that
is, how social structures may mold people to "want to do" what they "have
to do" and how strivings for freedom may become largely unconscious – and
yet continue to exist. A central question will be: How can these concepts
contribute to understanding current social realities and to efforts to
create social conditions that support the full development of, as Marx put
it in 1844, "a really individual communal being" for whom "the greatest
wealth" is "the other person"?
Readings will include Fromm’s classic work, _Escape from Freedom_, and
_Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud_.
Charles Herr, a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute’s Program
in Psychoanalysis, is a clinical psychologist and interpersonal
psychoanalyst. He has life-long interests in the work of Erich Fromm, the
humanism of Marx, and the radical transformation of society. He is also
involved in studying the work of Raya Dunayevskaya, Paulo Freire, Eugene
Gendlin and Marshall Rosenberg.
FROM DADA TO ANTHROPOFFERJISM
Erika Biddle
Alternate Tuesdays, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
6 Sessions: January 31, February 14, 28,
March 14, 28 and April 4
Tuition: $75 - $100, Sliding Scale
Dada spoke of the violence of everyday life, of disrupting and destructing
history; this destruction is a desire to change the world. Dada was a
movement that obliterated its memory, but left traces of influence that
are visible in the practices of aesthetic revolutionaries throughout the
20th century and today. In this course, we will explore both the Dadaist
movement, birthed in Zurich midst the horrors of World War I, and its
traces of influence in anti-capitalist artists groups and cultural
projects that exist outside of "the art world" and the apparatus of the
state. We will survey the work of the Lettrists and Situationists; Gustav
Metzger’s theories on
auto-destructive/auto-creative art; the LPA (London Psychogeographic
Association); Neoism & the Neoist Alliance; Situ-inspired projects;
Surrealism in Chicago; "culture jamming" projects; and the "tactical
media" and "technologies of resistance" of groups like RtMark and the
Critical Art Ensemble.
Erika Biddle is an artist, editor and writer living in New York City. A
founding member of Artists in Dialogue, which is committed to the
co-articulation of art and politics, she also works with the radical book
publisher Autonomedia. Her video work has been shown in such venues as
White Box, Capsule Gallery, Artists Space, Diorama Arts Center, the Cinema
Nouvelle Generation Film Festival, Guestroom, and the DUMBO Short Film and
Video Festival.
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New SPACE classes and talks meet at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural &
Educational Center: 107 Suffolk Street, NYC (located between Rivington and
Delancey Streets). F train to the Delancey Street station or J, M, Z to
Essex Street station. See the New SPACE website for a map.
The New SPACE
(The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)
http://new-space.mahost.org
new-space@mutualaid.org
Tel: 1 (800) 377-6183
Mail: P.O. Box 19, Planetarium Station
New York, NY 10024-0019
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The New SPACE teachers, speakers, and organizers include:
Stanley Aronowitz, Erika Biddle, Roz Bologh, Jack Z. Bratich, Stephen
Eric Bronner, Andrea Fishman, Jeannette Gabriel, Loren Goldner, David
Graeber, Andrej Grubacic, Robin Hahnel, Jesse Heiwa, Charles Herr,
Joshua Howard,Anne Jaclard, Andrew Kliman, Louis Kontos, Joel Kovel,
Raymond Lampe, Eric Laursen, Len Mell, Alan W. Moore, Bertell Ollman,
Howard Seligman, Stevphen Shukaitis, Tom Smith, Alex Steinberg,
Bill Weinberg, Seth G. Weiss
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New SPACE Mission Statement
The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education (New SPACE) is a
new anti-capitalist educational project dedicated to developing and
advancing ideas for liberatory social change. Together with the new
movements for global justice, we believe that "another world is possible"
- a world free from the domination of capital and free for the flowering
of human powers and talents.
The New SPACE holds that free dialogue and the protection ofdissenting
views are essential for the development of liberatory ideas and for
forging real unity among those struggling for liberation. We reject the
suppression of dissenting views and individuals in the name of "unity,"
convinced that such suppression is antithetical to the working out of real
unity. "Freedom," as Rosa Luxemburg reminds us, "is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks differently." Accordingly, one
distinguishing aspect of our mission is to create an educational space -
not existent at present - in which pluralistic dialogue and dissident
perspectives are respected and encouraged.
The New SPACE will be a place for exploring challenging questions that
today's movements confront, such as: How do we build non-hierarchical
movements that can sustain themselves? How can such movements safeguard
grassroots democracy? How do consciousness and ideas relate to movements
for social transformation?
Resolutely anti-authoritarian and non-sectarian, the New SPACE brings
together anarchists, humanist Marxists, and others. All those who share
our mission and goals are invited to join us as students, teachers, and
partners in the development of this project. In particular, we will
encourage and facilitate the participation of women, people of color, GLBT
people and others who face exclusion and discrimination. We also envision
a new space that young people, without ties to the old Left, will find
welcoming. We seek, through our classes and other activities, to create an
environment in which youth, working people from diverse backgrounds,
intellectuals, and activists can dialogue and collaborate in order to make
sense of, and transform, our world.
