Département de philosophie

2023-2024 – Semestre 2

Reading Marx Today

(Chaire Internationale)

 

Marx, Mario Tronti wrote in the early 1960s, must not be confronted with his age but rather with our present. And Das Kapital must be evaluated with respect to today’s capitalism. Methodically inspired from such statement, the seminar will propose a reading of Marx guided by an analysis of the mutations of capitalism and of the global turmoil that make up the present conjuncture. To do that, however, there is a need to flesh out the peculiarity and historicity of Marx’s texts, to grasp their potentialities for a critical understanding of the present. Moving from a discussion of Marx’s materialism and theory of history, the seminar will focus on the critique of political economy (Grundrisse and Capital) and will end discussing some texts of the “late Marx.” Such notions as the “world market” and “aggregate capital” will be studied to make sense of the global dimensions of contemporary operations of capital, while Marx’s definition of capital as a social relation will provide a guiding thread for the whole seminar. A focus on the subjective figures that compose the social relation of capital will consequently be at the center of the proposed reading of Marx.

 

Preliminary bibliography : Sandro Mezzadra, In the Marxian Workshops. Producing Subjects. London : Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.

A full reading list will be provided with the syllabus before the beginning of the seminar.

 

1. Monday, 26 February 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

2. Monday, 4 March 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

3. Monday, 11 March 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

4. Monday, 18 March 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

5 Monday, 25 March 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

6. Monday, 8 April 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

7. Monday, 22 April 2024, from 3pm to 5pm

8. Monday, 29 april 2024, from 3pn to 5pm