Symposium: Marx Now

Co-presented with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

Karl Marx is 200 years old. And yet, whenever Marx seems dead and buried, a new moment of economic or political crisis brings Marx’s critical understanding of capitalism back to the fore. In Marx Now, a two-day symposium co-presented by the Goethe-Institut New York and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, leading scholars, activists, and artists will discuss, in a series of panels and learning sessions, why Marx endures: how does Marx speak to our moment of extraordinary inequality, political upheaval, fractured identity, ecological degradation, technological acceleration, alienation, and exhaustion? To answer, presenters and audience members will draw from stories, objects, scholarship, art works, and the lessons of contemporary politics.

SATURDAY, MAY 5

6:00pm
Welcome and Opening Remarks

6:15pm
Opening Panel: Why Marx Now?
Featuring Kali Akuno, Chiara Bottici, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Drucilla Cornell, Benjamin Kunkel, Anwar Shaikh, and McKenzie Wark

8:00pm
Reception

SUNDAY, MAY 6

10:00am
Coffee and Bagels

10:30am-12:30pm
Panel: Marx and Political Identity
Featuring Kali Akuno, Ravi Ahmed, Shuja Haider, Suzanne Schneider, and Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo

11:00am-12:30pm
Learning Session 1: The Early Marx and Alienation
Led by Michael Stevenson

12:30pm
Lunch Break

1:30pm-3:30pm
Panel: Capitalism, Ecology, and Technology
Featuring Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Michelle Miller, and Stephanie Wakefield

2:00pm-3:30pm
Learning Session 2: Marx on Slavery and the American Civil War
Led by Jude Webre

3:30pm
Coffee Break

4:00-6:00pm
Panel: The Poetics and Aesthetics of Marx
Featuring Malik Gaines, Rebecca Ariel Porte, Juliana Spahr, and McKenzie Wark

4:30-6:00pm
Learning Session 3: Marx and the Caribbean
Led by Anjuli Raza Kolb

6:00pm
Closing Panel: What is to be Done?
Featuring Raphaële Chappe, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Erica Smiley, Marshall Steinbaum, and Maria Svart

7:30pm
Closing Reception

This symposium is part of Marx Now, a three-week series of events organized by the Goethe-Institut New York in partnership with Anthology Film Archives and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. For a full calendar of events, please click here.