Marxist Group
When I first joined the University of Nottingham's Department of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies to start my PhD research in 2006 I was keen to build on my reading of Frankfurt School ciritcal theory (my MA at the University of Warwick focused exclusively on critical theory). My friend and fellow first-year PhD student Dr Alexander Dunst and I set up the Marx Reading Group, which I'm delighted continues unabated into its 6th year, and has grown into a popular postgraduate series and social network. The group is currently co-ordinated by the extremely hard-working Stefanie Petschick.
During the years that I co-organised the group (2006-2009), we read through Marx's early writings in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The German Ideology, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the Grundrisse, and Capital Volume One; selected writings of Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution, Lenin's What is to be Done?, Trotsky's Literature and Revolution and Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks; as well as a year exploring Marxist history through writings on the Paris Commune, the English Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Vietnam Revolution and the Cuban Revolution.
Image by Joseph Morris under a CC BY-NC-ND license.
Dr Caroline Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research and teaching specialisms are in 21st century literature and critical theory, science fiction and post-apocalyptic narratives, Marxist aesthetics, and utopianism.
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