Welcome to Marx 13/13! 

The website for Marx 13/13 with videos, articles, readings, and resources is here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu 

The YouTube playlist for Marx 13/13 with all video recordings is here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pJgpthYlJfnrKzgHx5SDSrq1A1GRbjD&si=QQAKK_2ttwXHaCT5

Description of Marx 13/13: 

Karl Marx’s writings contain many of the most impactful ideas that have transformed—and still today continue to transform—the course of human history. Marx’s ambition for philosophy, namely to change the world, has inspired critical thinkers and activists for over a century now and around the globe. His ideas have motivated social movements and stirred political action in progressive directions ranging from revolutionary class struggle and worker autonomy movements to feminist, Black, queer, transgender, and other forms of Marxist and progressive thought.

Today, there is still so much more to mine in Marx’s work for the advancement of solidarity, equality, social justice, and cooperation. In these times of crisis, with the mounting threat of right-wing extremism, the weakness of liberal centrist parties, and the cataclysmic risks associated with global climate change, it is essential to return to Marx to rethink and catalyze what is to be done and how to move forward.

In Marx 13/13, we turn to Marx’s key texts and read them through the lens of world-historical interpretations that pushed Marxian thought and praxis in new directions: toward operaismo or workerism, Black Marxism, feminist, queer and transgender theories, postcolonialism, cultural studies, Freudian or Foucauldian strands of Marxism, as well as Leninist, Maoist, and social democratic forms of Marxism. 

This public seminar series will reread the original Marx texts chronologically, in conversation with formative interpretations of the texts that have shaped different branches of Marxism or progressive thought, with the guidance of brilliant contemporary critical philosophers, including Amy Allen, Cinzia Arruzza, Étienne Balibar, Tithi Bhattacharya, Bruno Bosteels, Jean Louise Cohen, Jules Joanne Gleeson, Michael Hardt, Rahel Jaeggi, Sandro Mazzadra, Nancy Fraser, Judith Revel, Martin Saar, Renata Salecl, Gayatri Spivak, Brandon Terry, and Kendall Thomas.

Let us now return to Marx’s writings to continue the work of not just interpreting but transforming the material reality of human existence.

Welcome to Marx 13/13!

Season 2: Marx 13/13 | Critical Texts for Critical Times

Bernard E. Harcourt introduces the new seminar series Marx 13/13. 

This seminar series is part of the "13/13 Seminars" hosted by the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought at Columbia University.

Information about Marx 13/13 is available at https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu.

General Introduction to Marx 13/13

Bernard E. Harcourt introduces Marx 1/13 on Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach and Ernst Bloch’s Commentary from The Principle of Hope, with the philosopher Étienne Balibar @CGCParis. 

Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-13/ 

The full text of this introduction to Marx 1/13 is here: https://the1313.law.columbia.edu/2024...

The video recording of the seminar Marx 1/13 with Étienne Balibar can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/live/x7jOhfgF... 

Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/
Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten...

Ludwig Feuerbach’s writings served both as a foil and a springboard for Marx to develop his radical philosophical approach. Feuerbach was a pivotal thinker, for Marx, who put him on the path to a new materialism having the standpoint of “human society, or socialized humanity,” as Marx wrote in Thesis #10. Feuerbach turned idealist systematicity on its head in order to focus attention on the being of humans (what was called human essence, human nature, species being). Although Feuerbach did not complete that turn to the satisfaction of Marx, Feuerbach launched a movement that would give Marx momentum.

Marx wrote extensively about Feuerbach in the years 1844-1845 in The Holy Family: A Critique of Critical Criticisms (1844) and The German Ideology (unpublished, 1845). In 1888, Frederick Engels published Marx's jottings from a notebook under the title "Theses on Feuerbach" as an appendix to his book, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (1888).

Engels' publication of the Theses on Feuerbach has been a source of controversy and commentary since, with the Theses themselves entering what Étienne Balibar calls the pantheon of "emblematic formularies of Western philosophy." With that, of course, comes the risk of distortions or misreadings or projections or, as well, excellent commentaries on such emblematic formulas. Engels had a project in mind when he published the Theses, possibly to systematize Marx's thought, perhaps to solidify his interpretation of historical materialism. Was that Marx's project as well?

In this seminar, the philosopher Étienne Balibar rereads the Theses in conversation with Ernst Bloch's commentary on the Theses from The Principle of Hope. Balibar uses the Theses as an entry point for our study of Marx this year.

Why start with Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach? you may ask. How does Ernst Bloch's commentary reorient the interpretation of Marx and shape a style of Marxism? Please join us for the seminar to hear Étienne Balibar address these questions.

Welcome to Marx 1/13!

Readings for Marx 1/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-1...

Introduction to Marx 1/13 on the Theses on Feuerbach and Ernst Bloch

Bernard E. Harcourt introduces Marx 2/13 on Marx’s 1842 articles on the Debates on the Law on the Thefts of Wood and Michel Foucault's 1973 lectures on The Punitive Society, with the philosopher Judith Revel @CGCParis. Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/2-13/ 

The full text of this introduction to Marx 2/13 is here: https://the1313.law.columbia.edu/2024...

The video recording of Marx 2/13 with Judith Revel can be watched here: https://youtube.com/live/8uQ2LPyrbtE

Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/

Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten...


Marx’s series of articles on the thefts of wood (1842) has been a touchstone to critical legal scholars, critical sociologists of crime, and radical lawyers since the early 1970s. The British social historians, E. P. Thompson, Peter Linebaugh, and the group that collectively assembled the classic work Albion’s Fatal Tree, wrote extensively about the articles. In France, the renowned critical jurist and penologist, Pierre Lascoumes, edited and presented the Marx texts in an important volume titled Marx: du “vol de bois” à la critique du droit (1984), and the critical legal scholar, Mikhaïl Xifaras, published a lengthy significant treatment of the articles. The Italian critical criminologist, Dario Melossi, marshalled Marx’s articles in his landmark work on penality and capitalism. In the legal academy in the United States, Marx’s articles on the theft of wood became a reference point within Critical Legal Studies in the 1970s.

Michel Foucault was steeped in these debates, especially of the historians, when he turned in 1973 to explore the construction of the “delinquent” and disciplinary power in his lectures at the Collège de France, The Punitive Society. The year before, in his lectures on Penal Theories and Institutions, Foucault had dedicated the first half of his yearly teaching to a detailed analysis of the Nu-pieds rebellion in Normandy in 1639 and to its repression by Richelieu and the Chancellor Séguier. Foucault had negotiated the querulous territory of historians—the vast literature on seventeenth-century popular uprisings, including the quarrels between a leading French historian of the ancien régime, Roland Mousnier, and the Soviet historian Boris Porchnev, a specialist of French popular uprisings during the period 1623-1648. Foucault read and admired the English historians around E.P. Thompson.

Immersed in this literature, Foucault threw himself into studying the birth of the penitentiary and what he would call “the punitive society.” In that enterprise, Marx’s articles on the thefts of wood would serve as a stepping stone for the development of his theories of “illégalismes,” of the subjectivation of the “criminal” subject, of the development of nineteenth century theories of the “criminal as social enemy.” Foucault refers explicitly to Marx’s articles in his lectures, The Punitive Society, on January 24, 1973, and draws on them in Discipline and Punish to formulate a theory of “illégalismes.” Foucault pushed Marx’s texts in a uniquely productive direction.

In Marx 2/13, the philosopher Judith Revel will discuss these texts. 

This is the full introduction to the seminar. 

Welcome to Marx 2/13!

Introduction Marx 2/13 on the Thefts of Wood and Michel Foucault's Punitive Society

This is the seminar Marx 1/13 with the philosopher Etienne Balibar and Bernard E. Harcourt on Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach and Ernst Bloch’s Commentary from The Principle of Hope @CGCParis.

Read more here: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-13/

The full text of this introduction to Marx 1/13 is here: the1313.law.columbia.edu/2024...

The video recording of the seminar Marx 1/13 with Étienne Balibar can be watched here: https://youtu.be/gAB6FveTjEc?si=ERuOf5jssUdvDwY3

Information about Marx 13/13: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/
Information on the 13/13 series: cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten...

Ludwig Feuerbach’s writings served both as a foil and a springboard for Marx to develop his radical philosophical approach. Feuerbach was a pivotal thinker, for Marx, who put him on the path to a new materialism having the standpoint of “human society, or socialized humanity,” as Marx wrote in Thesis #10. Feuerbach turned idealist systematicity on its head in order to focus attention on the being of humans (what was called human essence, human nature, species being). Although Feuerbach did not complete that turn to the satisfaction of Marx, Feuerbach launched a movement that would give Marx momentum.

Marx wrote extensively about Feuerbach in the years 1844-1845 in The Holy Family: A Critique of Critical Criticisms (1844) and The German Ideology (unpublished, 1845). In 1888, Frederick Engels published Marx's jottings from a notebook under the title "Theses on Feuerbach" as an appendix to his book, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (1888).

Engels' publication of the Theses on Feuerbach has been a source of controversy and commentary since, with the Theses themselves entering what Étienne Balibar calls the pantheon of "emblematic formularies of Western philosophy." With that, of course, comes the risk of distortions or misreadings or projections or, as well, excellent commentaries on such emblematic formulas. Engels had a project in mind when he published the Theses, possibly to systematize Marx's thought, perhaps to solidify his interpretation of historical materialism. Was that Marx's project as well?

In this seminar, the philosopher Étienne Balibar rereads the Theses in conversation with Ernst Bloch's commentary on the Theses from The Principle of Hope. Balibar uses the Theses as an entry point for our study of Marx this year.

Why start with Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach? you may ask. How does Ernst Bloch's commentary reorient the interpretation of Marx and shape a style of Marxism? Please join us for the seminar to hear Étienne Balibar address these questions.

Welcome to Marx 1/13!

Readings for Marx 1/13: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-1...

Marx 1/13 Seminar with Etienne Balibar on Marx's Theses on Feuerbach and Ernst Bloch

This is the Marx 2/13 seminar with philosopher Judith Revel and Bernard E. Harcourt on Marx’s 1842 articles on the Debates on the Law on the Thefts of Wood and Michel Foucault's 1973 lectures on The Punitive Society @CGCParis. 

Read more here: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/2-13/

The full text of this introduction to Marx 2/13 is here: the1313.law.columbia.edu/2024...

The video recording of Marx 2/13 with Judith Revel can be watched here: https://youtu.be/pY_T7rdQYvc?si=bCMA4SvmeTwS2fb_

Information about Marx 13/13: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/

Information on the 13/13 series: cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten...

Marx’s series of articles on the thefts of wood (1842) has been a touchstone to critical legal scholars, critical sociologists of crime, and radical lawyers since the early 1970s. The British social historians, E. P. Thompson, Peter Linebaugh, and the group that collectively assembled the classic work Albion’s Fatal Tree, wrote extensively about the articles. In France, the renowned critical jurist and penologist, Pierre Lascoumes, edited and presented the Marx texts in an important volume titled Marx: du “vol de bois” à la critique du droit (1984), and the critical legal scholar, Mikhaïl Xifaras, published a lengthy significant treatment of the articles. The Italian critical criminologist, Dario Melossi, marshalled Marx’s articles in his landmark work on penality and capitalism. In the legal academy in the United States, Marx’s articles on the theft of wood became a reference point within Critical Legal Studies in the 1970s.

Michel Foucault was steeped in these debates, especially of the historians, when he turned in 1973 to explore the construction of the “delinquent” and disciplinary power in his lectures at the Collège de France, The Punitive Society. The year before, in his lectures on Penal Theories and Institutions, Foucault had dedicated the first half of his yearly teaching to a detailed analysis of the Nu-pieds rebellion in Normandy in 1639 and to its repression by Richelieu and the Chancellor Séguier. Foucault had negotiated the querulous territory of historians—the vast literature on seventeenth-century popular uprisings, including the quarrels between a leading French historian of the ancien régime, Roland Mousnier, and the Soviet historian Boris Porchnev, a specialist of French popular uprisings during the period 1623-1648. Foucault read and admired the English historians around E.P. Thompson.

Immersed in this literature, Foucault threw himself into studying the birth of the penitentiary and what he would call “the punitive society.” In that enterprise, Marx’s articles on the thefts of wood would serve as a stepping stone for the development of his theories of “illégalismes,” of the subjectivation of the “criminal” subject, of the development of nineteenth century theories of the “criminal as social enemy.” Foucault refers explicitly to Marx’s articles in his lectures, The Punitive Society, on January 24, 1973, and draws on them in Discipline and Punish to formulate a theory of “illégalismes.” Foucault pushed Marx’s texts in a uniquely productive direction.

In Marx 2/13, the philosopher Judith Revel will discuss these texts.

This is the full seminar.

Welcome to Marx 2/13!

Marx 2/13 Seminar with Judith Revel on Marx's 1842 articles on Thefts of Wood and Michel Foucault

Bernard E. Harcourt introduces the final session of the Marx 13/13 seminars on the Late Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and Letters to Vera Zasulich (1881)) with the philosopher Étienne Balibar @Columbia. Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/13-13/ 

The full text of this introduction to Marx 11/13 is here: https://tinyurl.com/IntroMarx1313

The video recording of the seminar Marx 13/13 with Étienne Balibar is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/5nwOCRrql4w?si=vskXmMsLgZeVrZs6

Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/
Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/content/13-13 

*****
This is the full-length introduction to the final session of Marx 13/13 at which we read and discuss Marx's last writings, including his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), his conspectus and critique of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and his letter and drafts to the Russian revolutionary, Vera Zasulich (1881).

What makes these final texts so utterly fascinating and important is that they encapsulate Marx’s post-economic political thought: his political  thinking after he had fully developed and articulated his mature political-economic theories. These political texts of the Late Marx—by contrast to the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Eighteenth Brumaire (1852), or the earlier articles on the thefts of wood (1842)—formulate political views within the framework of Marx’s mature economic thinking.

What we have, in effect, here, is the unwritten final political volume of Capital.

In this political moment, it is especially important to end here, on these political writings, in this last seminar of Marx 13/13, in order to discuss their contemporary relevance. We will study them at the seminar Marx 13/13 with the philosopher Étienne Balibar, with whom we began this seminar series eight months ago and who has been a constant companion on this journey—perhaps since at least the early 1960s.

Let me here introduce these final texts in this video before turning to our seminar with Étienne Balibar. 

Welcome to Marx 13/13!

Intro to Marx 13/13 on the Last Marx (Gotha, Bakunin, Zasulich) with Étienne Balibar

From Bernard E. Harcourt at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, Critical Theory: The Podcast explores the front lines of critical thought.