Category: Graduate Courses

Despite the predictions that consigned it to eternal oblivion, Karl Marx’s thought has returned to the limelight in recent years. Faced with a deep new crisis of capitalism, many are again looking to an author who in the past was often wrongly associated with the Soviet Union, and who was too hastily dismissed after 1989. After the waning of interest in the 1980s and the “conspiracy of silence” in the 1990s, new or republished editions of his work have become available almost everywhere. The literature dealing with Marx, which all but dried up twenty-five years ago, is showing signs of revival in many countries.
Marx’s writings are presently being published in German under the auspices of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA²) project, the critical historical edition of the complete works of Marx and Engels, which resumed serial publication in 1998. The purpose of this course is to reconstruct the stages of Marx’s thought in the light of the textual acquisitions of MEGA², and hence to provide a more exhaustive account of the formation of Marx’s conceptions than has previously been offered.
The great majority of researchers have considered only certain periods, often jumping straight from the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 to the Grundrisse (1857-58). The study of priceless manuscripts, and of interesting interim results, has remained the preserve of a narrow circle of scholars capable of reading the German-language volumes of MEGA². One of the aims of this course is to make these texts more widely known, and to debate on the genesis and unfinished character of Marx’s works.
Altogether, the Marx that emerges from this examination of his work in the areas of post-Hegelian philosophy, the materialist conception of history, scientific method, alienation and political thought at the time of the International Working Men’s Association is a thinker very different from the one presented for such a long time by his detractors as well as many ostensible followers.
If we bear in mind not only the well-known works, but also the manuscripts and notebooks of extracts in MEGA², the immensity and richness of Marx’s theoretical project appear in a clearer light. The notebooks of excerpts, and the recently published preparatory drafts of Capital, show the huge limitations of the “Marxist-Leninist” account – an ideology that often-depicted Marx’s conception as something separate from the studies he conducted, as if it had been magically present in his head from birth – but also of the debate in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the participants in that debate could not consider the totality of Marx’s texts, and even some of these they treated as thoroughly finished works when that was far from being the case.
At a time when Marx’s ideas have finally been liberated from the chains of Soviet ideology, and when they are again being investigated for the sake of analyzing the contemporary world, a more faithful account of the genesis of his thought may not be without important implications for the future – not only for Marx studies, but also for the re-founding of a critical thought that aims to transform the present.

This course deals with the development of sociological theory in the major foundational thinkers of the 19th and early 20th century. Much of classical sociological theory was focused upon growing awareness of society, as such, being the subject of profound change. Central questions addressed by its main authors were “What is the nature of the society emerging in 19th century Europe?” and “What is its significance with respect to the development of humanity?” Differences of opinion and profound debate have been characteristic of sociological theory, and have widely been recognized as contributing to its development.

This course deals with the developments of some of the most significant international social movements from the end of Ancien Régime to the fall of Berlin Wall (1789-1989). These include social movements that were formed around the French Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the birth of Soviet Union, the Chinese Revolution, the anticolonialist process in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the protests of 1968, as well as Socialist Feminism. These movements will be critically analysed, both in terms of history of ideas and of their major socio-political characteristics.
This course is taught in weekly seminars. Attendance is strongly recommended and students are expected to participate actively in class discussion.

The course will examine some of the most important writings of the major German authors of the first half of the Nineteenth Century, who transformed irreversibly the philosophical and the political thought. The first part of the seminar will focus on two of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s main works: the Phenomenology of the Spirit and the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, which will also be considered in relation to the most important Marxist secondary literature on Hegel written in German (Herbert Marcuse, György Lukács and Ernst Bloch) and writings that played a big role in the French controversy on the relation between Hegel and Karl Marx ( Alexandre Kojève and Jean Hyppolite).

The course will then concentrate on some of the key members of the Left Hegelian school, in particular Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Marx and Max Stirner, through the analysis of their most influential works (among them Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity and Principles of Philosophy of the Future; Marx’s Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology – written with Engels; and Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own). In addition one will take up some of the debates of the time, like those on the critique of Christianity, the critique of the speculative thought, the overturning of Hegelian philosophy, materialism, atheism, and the role of the individual.

The main aim of the seminar will be reconstructing the elaboration of Marx’s thought in its early stages. The path “from Hegel to Marx” will be investigated not solely philosophically but through an inter-disciplinary approach, i.e., analyzing the philosophical writings of the time, but vis-à-vis with Marx’s discovery of political economy and Socialism. Therefore, besides philosophical and political themes like species-being, human emancipation, and the relation between State and civil society, one will discuss other significant theoretical acquisitions by Marx, like the critique of alienated labour, the understanding of the revolutionary role of the proletariat, the adhesion to Communism, and the development of a materialist conception of history. This will be facilitated by highlighting Marx’s decisive encounter with political economy – first through the writings of Friedrich Engels, Moses Hess and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and then Adam Smith and David Ricardo -, and by examining the influence that the early Socialists Henri de Saint Simon, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen had on the development of his ideas.

The final class of the course will look critically at the most influential Marxist writings published in the 1960s and 1970s on the “young Marx” versus “mature Marx” debate, revealing some of their textual limitations and interpretative mystifications. This will be pursued by through attention to the latest philological acquisitions related to Marx’s works (the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology will be reconsidered on the basis of their new editions) and the most recent secondary literature on the Left Hegelians.

Two decades after 1989, when he was too hastily consigned to oblivion, Karl Marx has returned to the limelight. In the last few years Capital has not merely received the attention of university professors, but has also been the focus of widespread interest prompted by the international financial crisis, as leading daily and weekly papers throughout the world have been discussing the contemporary relevance of its pages. Furthermore, the literature dealing with Marx, which all but dried up 20 years ago, is showing signs of revival in many countries; and there are now, once again, many international conferences and university courses dedicated to his analysis of capitalism.

Though among the most important books of the last 150 years, Karl Marx’s Capital nevertheless represents an incomplete project. Marx himself was only able to publish the first volume (1867) in his lifetime; volumes two (1885) and three (1894) were prepared for publication by Friedrich Engels. Moreover, after Engels’ death, many of Capital’s preparatory manuscripts were published by others, still some of which provided valuable further elucidations of Marx’s theoretical project, sometimes significantly changing previous interpretations (e.g., Theories of Surplus Value, edited by Karl Kautsky, in three volumes between 1905 and 1910, and the Grundrisse, published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute of Moscow between 1939-41).

Marx’s notebooks of excerpts and preparatory manuscripts for the second and third volumes of Capital are now being published in German under the auspices of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA²) project. The former include not only material from the books he read but also the reflections they stimulated in him; they reveal the trajectory of his thought and the sources on which he drew in developing his own ideas. The publication of all the Capital manuscripts, and all the editorial revisions made by Engels (to be completed in German in 2012), enable a reliable critical evaluation of the extent of Engels’s input into the published editions of Volumes Two and Three.

In the light of the philological acquisitions of MEGA², this course aims to reconstruct all the stages of Marx’s critique of political economy (starting from Parisian studies of 1843-44), and, particularly, the making of Capital through the various drafts, like the Grundrisse (the interpretation of which will be emphasized), the Theories of Surplus Value and the ‘Results of the Immediate Process of Production’, better known as the ‘Unpublished Chapter VI’. Similar attention will be devoted to Marx’s 1850s journalism for the New-York Tribune, in which he dealt with topics beyond those explored in Capital and his scholarly manuscripts, which are important sources for every serious scholar of Marx.

Two decades after 1989, when he was too hastily consigned to oblivion, Karl Marx has returned to the limelight. In the last few years Capital has not only received the attention of university professors, but has also been the focus of widespread interest prompted by the international financial crisis, as leading daily and weekly papers throughout the world have been discussing the contemporary relevance of its pages. Furthermore, the literature dealing with Marx, which all but dried up 20 years ago, is showing signs of revival in many countries; and there are now, once again, many international conferences and university courses dedicated to his analysis of capitalism. Though among the most important books of the last 150 years, Marx’s Capital nevertheless represents an incomplete project. Marx himself was only able to publish the first volume (1867) in his lifetime; volumes two (1885) and three (1894) were prepared for publication by Friedrich Engels. Moreover, after Engels’ death, many of Capital’s preparatory manuscripts were published by others still, some of which provided valuable further elucidations of Marx’s theoretical project, sometimes significantly changing previous interpretations (e.g., the Grundrisse, published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute of Moscow in 1939, and translated into English only in 1973).

The first part of this course aims to reconstruct all the stages of Marx’s critique of political economy (starting from Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844), and, particularly, the making of Capital, Volume I through its various preparatory drafts, like the Grundrisse (the interpretation of which will be emphasized), the Theories of Surplus Value and the ‘Results of the Immediate Process of Production’, better known as the ‘Unpublished Chapter VI’.

The second part of the seminar will be dedicated to a close reading of Capital, Volume I, with particular attention to the following topics: a) the transformation of money into capital; b) the analysis of absolute and relative surplus-value; c) the primitive accumulation of capital; and d) Marx’s conception of post-capitalistic society as it appears in the most political sections of his opus magnum.

The final class of the course will look critically at the readings of Capital elaborated by some of the main schools of Marxism of the Twentieth Century, and consider the most important works published in recent years on the continuing relevance of Marx’s Capital for an understanding of the contemporary world and its problems.

Programa de Clases y lecturas

Abril 23 Introduccion al Curso

Abril 30 Globalización: pasado y presente

Mayo 7 Una mapa de los problemas

Mayo 14 Las instituciones de la Globalización

Mayo 28 La economia globalizada

Junio 4 Globalización y precariedadlaboral

Junio 11 Desarrollo o decrescimiento?

Junio 18 Globalización y pobreza

Junio 25 El debate sobre el destino del E stado – nación

Julio2 Globalización como occidentalizacion

Julio 9 Apologeticos y criticos

Julio 16 Los varios rostros del anti-globalismo

Julio 23 Trabajo Social, cuestion social y globalizacion

Julio 30 Globalizacion: tensiones y desafiospara el Trabajo Social

Agosto 6 Consideraciones Finales

En este curso serán examinadas algunas de las principales concepciones de democracia en la edad moderna y contemporánea. Su objetivo fundamental, siguiendo un enfoque interdisciplinario, es ofrecer un panorama general de la elaboración de este concepto en el pensamiento filosófico-político occidental. En particular, el tema que guiará el curso será la crisis de la democracia, o sea un ahondamiento sobre los factores – económicos, sociales y políticos – que, en distintas épocas y sociedades (en el Siglo XVI como en el Siglo XX; y en Europa como en Estados Unidos o en Rusia), han determinado la crisis de los modelos democráticos existentes y el comienzo de nuevas temporadas políticas.

“¿En qué consiste la democracia?”. “¿Cuales son las más importantes distinciones entre la teoría clásica, medieval y moderna de democracia?”. “¿Cuando un sistema político puede ser definido como verdaderamente democrático?”. “¿Y cuales son las principales teorías de democracia que se han confrontado en el Siglo XX y que siguen siendo actuales para resolver los problemas de nuestra sociedad contemporánea?”. Serán estas las preguntas a las cuales, con el auxilio de escritos fundamentales del pensamiento filosófico-político moderno y contemporáneo, se dará respuesta en el curso.

En sus primeras cinco semanas, las lecturas se concentraran sobre la concepción de democracia surgida con el aparecer del Estado moderno. La relación entre religión y política, el ‘derecho de resistencia’ y la tradición iusnaturalistas (sobre todo en las elaboraciones de Althusius, de Hobbes y de Spinoza) representaran el focus central de las clases. La parte central del curso será dedicada a las origines de la concepción liberal de democracia (en particular Locke, Montesquieu, Kant, Constant y Tocqueville) y también a los dos eventos más importantes del Siglo XVIII: el Iluminismo y la Revolución Francesa (Rousseau y Robespierre).

Por fin, en las últimas cuatro semanas, se examinaran las mayores críticas a la concepción de democracia liberal: el socialismo en Europa (Marx y la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores) y Rusia (Lenin y la Revolución Soviética), la Teoría de las Elites (Mosca, Pareto, Michels y sus continuadores en Estados Unidos) y el Nazi-fascismo (las teorías de Schmitt).

Fri 30

Lecture 1: Different Marxes, Different Marxisms: The Odyssey of the Publication of Marx’s Oeuvre

Mon 2

Lecture 2: The Early Marx: From University Life to the Manuscripts and Notebooks of Paris (1835 – 1844)

Tue 3

Lecture 3: On “The German Ideology” and the Materialist conception of History (1845 – 1849)

Wed 4

Lecture 4: The Formation of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: From the “London Notebooks” to the “Grundrisse” (1850 – 1858)

Thu 5 Lecture 5: Karl Marx’s “Grundrisse”: Dissemination and Reception in the World