The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.

Platypus at UC San Diego

The Left is Dead! Long Live the Left! Come join our discussions on the history of the Left, current events and politics, and the possibilities of emanipatory politics today. Every week, we host a reading group working through the crucial texts in the history of Marxism Wednesdays, 6PM @ Groundwork Books.


Primary Reading Group

Wednesdays 6PM @ Groundwork Books, syllabus

Sep 24 Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. The Third Estate
Oct 1 Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Bourgeois society
Oct 8 Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Freedom in history
Oct 15 What is the Left? I. Captial in history
Oct 22 What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique
Oct 39 What is Marxism? I. Socialism
Nov 5 What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848
Nov 12 What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism
Nov 19 What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy
Break Supplementary readings
Jan 7 What is Marxism? V. Reification
Jan 14 What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness
Jan 21 What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy
Jan 28 Revolutionary Leadership
Feb 4 Reform or Revolution?
Feb 11 Lenin and the Vanguard Party
Feb 18 What is to be Done?
Feb 25 Mass strike and social democracy
Mar 4 Permanent revolution
Mar 11 State and revolution
Apr 1 Imperialism
Apr 8 Failure of the revolution
Apr 15 Retreat after revolution
Apr 22 Dialectic of reification
Apr 29 Lessons of October
May 6 Trotskyism
May 13 The authoritarian state
May 20 On the concept of history
May 27 Reflections on Marxism
Jun 3 Theory and practice



Panel Discussions