2014 Upstate NY Marxist Conference

Save the Date for the 2014 Upstate NY Marxist Conference

Saturday, November 15th at RIT
Eastman Building 1, Room 2000

Sessions start at 11:00am

  Marx's ideas remain just as relevant and revolutionary as when he wrote them over 150 years ago. Join the International Socialist Organization and other activists from around Upstate New York for a day of revolutionary politics and marxism! This public day school will offer an in-depth examination of marxism in four parts and discussion of its relevance for activists today.

How to get to the Conference once on RIT's Campus

Recommended Reading Material for each session

• Session 1 - Why the Working Class is Central to Changing Society
• Hal Draper, “Why the working class
• First two chapters from Kim Moody's, In Solidarity
• Chapter 1: “Marx’s Theory of Class and the World Today”
• Chapter 2: “Unions, Strikes, and Class Consciousness Today.”
• Session 2 - Race, Class, and Revolution
• Ahmed Shawki, Black Liberation and Socialism, Chapter 7
• Keeanga Taylor, Race, Class, and Marxism
• Eugene Debs, “Danger Ahead,” 1903
• “The Black Question” from the 4th Congress of the Comintern (November 30, 1922)
• Philip S. Foner and James S. Allen, eds., “Introduction,” American Communism and Black Americans, 1919-1928
• Trotsky On Black Nationalism, Discussion with American Trotskyists, 1933-1939. “
• CLR James, “The Revolutionary Answer to the NegroProblem in the USA” (July, 1948)
• Session 3 - US imperialism in the Age of Obama
• Achcar, Balance Sheet of US imperialism 
• Phil Gasper, Obama, Imperialism, and Capitalism 
• Ashley Smith, Rehabilitating US Imperialism 
• Ashley Smith, Crisis in Iraq, Bitter Fruit of war and occupation