Lecturer is Dr Rick Kuhn: room 2135 Copland Building, 6125-3851.
Course guide is available through Web-CT and at the first lecture.
Contact hours are one one-hour lecture plus one two-hour seminar per week.
Lectures will be 9.00-10.00 am on Tuesdays.
Seminars start in week 1, sign up in lecture 1.
Outline
Marx developed an understanding of how capitalism works as a guide to political action. He analysed the relationships between economic and political power, class and inequality, accumulation and globalisation, exploitation and oppression, struggle and social change—issues that are still relevant, despite changes in technologies and the details of capitalist organisation of production (whose dynamics he considered).
Through the course we develop our understanding of key Marxist concepts and their application to current problems. In seminars we discuss important Marxist texts, mainly by Marx and Engels, their historical context and contemporary relevance. Lectures provide background to these texts and their relationship to Marxist theory and practice. Issues we cover include: the Marxist conception of socialism as the self-emancipation of the working class; Marx’s integration of earlier radical democratic and socialist traditions; the place of revolution in Marx’s approach to the supersession of capitalism.
