Course Guide for lectures on Marx’s Capital 2013

Lecture course on Marx’s “Capital” at Goldsmiths: everybody is welcome

Capitalism and Cultural Studies – Prof John Hutnyk:

tuesday evenings from january 8, 2013 – 5pm-8pm Goldsmiths Room RHB 309. Free – all welcome.

No fee (unless, sorry, you are doing this for award – and that, friends, is Willetts’ fault – though the Labour Party have a share of the blame too).

****** weekly course reading guide is here: Cap and cult studs outline013********

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This course involves a close reading of Karl Marx’s Capital (Volume One).
90 minute lectures, 60 minutes discussion
The connections between cultural studies and critiques of capitalism are considered in an interdisciplinary context (cinema studies, anthropology, musicology, international relations, and philosophy) which reaches from Marx through to Film Studies, from ethnographic approaches to Heidegger, from anarchism and surrealism to German critical theory and poststructuralism/post-colonialism/post-early-for-christmas. Topics covered include: alienation, commodification, production, technology, education, subsumption, anti-imperialism, anti-war movement and complicity. Using a series of illustrative films (documentary and fiction) and key theoretical texts (read alongside the text of Capital), we examine contemporary capitalism as it shifts, changes, lurches through its very late 20th and early 21st century manifestations – we will look at how cultural studies copes with (or does not cope with) class struggle, anti-colonialism, new subjectivities, cultural politics, media, virtual and corporate worlds.
****** weekly course reading guide is here: Cap and cult studs outline013********

The lectures/seminars begin on Tuesday 8th January 2011 between 5 and 8pm and will run for 11 weeks (with a week off in the middle) in the Richard Hoggart Building (Room 309), Goldsmiths College. You are required to bring their own copy of the Penguin, International Publishers/Progress Press or German editions of Karl Marx Capital Vol I. We are reading about 100 pages a week. (Please don’t get tricked into buying the abridged English edition/nonsense!)

8 thoughts on “Course Guide for lectures on Marx’s Capital 2013”

  3. what is meant by saying; “you are required to bring Penguins version”. Cn’t we just turn up with another version of Capital? (at least for the first week?)

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  4. Love what you are doing with Marx’s Capital! I have created a website (readingmarx.net) for a Reading Group on “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” starting Feb 28 – can we exchange links? Thanks ;-)

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  5. Thanks a lot John for your patience and support John – much appreciated. Details are as follows:

    We will be reading Karl Marx’s “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (hereafter the CCPE), in fortnightly reading sessions beginning at the end of February. The CCPE is, of course, one of Marx’s few texts published during his lifetime. For those relatively unfamiliar with Marx’s oeuvre, and for whom the three volumes of Capital might represent too monumental a challenge, the CCPE offers a digestible introduction to the core of Marx’s theory of value and money. Indeed it may plausibly be asserted that this was Marx’s intention as well since he published it a few years before the first volume of Capital. For those who have read Marx’s more well-known texts, the group offers the opportunity to renew and extend their acquaintance with Marx’s exposition of commodity, value and money.

    As far as logistics are concerned the group traditionally used to meet at UCL but unfortunately it looks like there will be no rooms available from March. So we are in the process of discussing which venue to use – among the suggestions so far has been hiring a pub (cost to be shared between all members of the group) and using the Mayday Rooms if open by March. Of course to some extent the venue is decided by the number of people we would expect to attend and it is important for people to register their interest to give us some idea of numbers. There is a google group where the members of the group post announcements – the “London Marx Reading Group” at this url:

    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/london-marx-reading-group

    There is also a website which hosts presentation notes from previous Reading Group sessions as well as a forum to discuss text-related questions. The website can be accessed at the following url:

    http://www.readingmarx.net

    At this stage it is envisaged that we can cover this (relatively, by Marx’s standards!) ‘small’ text in a matter of 6 fortnightly reading group sessions spread over two months or so. I look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to the group! :-)

    Biswadip Dasgupta
    (on behalf of the London Marx Reading Group)

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