This workshop will introduce dialectical materialism, giving insight into the Marxist theory of change. Dialectics is a useful framework not simply for its explanatory power; this “theory is a weapon”, honed by revolutionaries seeking to transform oppressive systems over generations and across the world. After establishing a baseline of understanding, we’ll deploy dialectics to better grasp the nature of the developments in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, especially focusing on the period of struggle since October 2023.
Incarcerated and detained people have always played a complex role in the movement to end caging and free them all. This session brings together abolitionist organizers focused on permanently closing facilities without replacing them to discuss the process of building cross-walls solidarity beyond campaigns. Speakers will discuss how closure impacts those inside facilities, as well as lessons learned from responding to retaliation, censorship, and a constantly adapting carceral state.
Capitalism has never been just an economic system, but has instead always relied on the use of violence, law, and the state in a process Marx described as "so-called primitive accumulation," which reaches its height in colonialism and slavery. This participatory workshop will provide an introduction to this concept and its ongoing relevance, and guide a collective mapping of its relevance for the present.
Radical historian Howard Zinn changed the way Americans think about their history, but his life itself is a lesson in radical commitment. From the Great Depression to WWII to the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam war, he was part and parcel of the social movements that shaped our world. Join Dave Zirin, author of a new critically-praised book about Howard Zinn’s incredible life and author and actor Brian Jones (who played Marx in Zinn’s one man play ‘Marx in Soho’) for a conversation about the life of Howard Zinn and what his vision and work mean today.
