主持：
Nin Chan
(studied English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, where we fell in love with crust punk, heavy metal, cinema, Alfred Jarry and anarchism. He currently studies at HKU and spends a good deal of his time reading and writing about his many obsessions)
日期： 2010年9月17日（星期五）
時間： 晚上七時半開始
地點：艺鵠_书（灣仔軒尼詩道365號富德樓1樓）
查詢： 2893 4808 / http://aco.hk
廣東話英語雙語進行；費用全免，歡迎捐助；座位有限，請先報名
這個年代再重談馬克思（主義）還有什麼作用呢？上世紀的大事大非不是已經証實了這一套不行了嗎？前人或許錯讀了馬克思，以令後來者對馬克思提倡的精神價值或一知半解，或避而不談。在資本主義瀕臨破產的今天，讓我們把馬克思由歷史的廢墟堆中撿拾起來，第一次聚會就由我們一直以來對馬克思的理／誤解說起，以後讓我們組成一個小規模讀書會，定期圍讀馬克思，就由《資本論》第一卷開始吧。
Let us suppose that, having been laid off several months ago, you are staring insipidly at your computer screen in the hope that a miracle will materialize. The disorder of your desk incarnates your inner turmoil- interspersed between thick sheaves of overdue bills and Pizza Hut pamphlets are a number of dog-eared, half-digested self-improvement texts that span the range from elementary Chinese proverbs to transcendental meditation. Reaching haphazardly for yet another mug of coffee, you chance upon a book that you had no idea you owned, The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. Sensing a conspiracy of sorts, you scour your room for traces that would explain its mysterious appearance. Perhaps it was your little sister, your irritatingly demagogical sibling who harps endlessly about the niceties of ‘cultural studies’ and wastes her time ‘deconstructing’ the evening news, who left it here as a challenge and a mandate?
Desperately in need of a diversion, you scrape at the crust of dirt and bread crumbs that clings to the dust jacket before beginning to read. Yet is such a reading possible, let alone necessary? You are suddenly struck with the sense that, like the Bible, Shakespeare or the analects of Confucius, the Communist Manifesto is a book that everybody seems to have an opinion about, without actually having read a single word. Perusing the mildewed pages of the book, the corners of which have been gnawed through by mites, you feel as though you are handling an archeological find, an ancient relic. You scan the back cover, expecting to find an expiration date stamped upon the barcode. Time has passed this book by, sealed it shut before you have even begun. Wait a minute; what have you gotten yourself into? All you wanted was a pleasant distraction, and here you are foundering in the quicksand of thought, ruminating endlessly about the relationship between time and textuality. Yes, this book is unreadable precisely because it seems to have been read for you- as you cast your glance upon the opening sentence, the words buckle under the judgment of history; each utterance groans beneath the burden of guilt. The book has been tried, sentenced and guillotined; everything has been decided beforehand. You put the book back down, only to pick it up again, trying to summon the resolve to pry it open.
It is at this very point that your Blackberry starts ringing, imperiously wresting you from your reverie. Of course, you are disappointed to find that it is me on the other end, not a prospective employer. Slightly irritated, you make a perfunctory gesture of asking how I am while thumbing through the brittle pages of the Manifesto. I tell you, quite carelessly (for I have always known that you, despite being my very best friend, have little patience for my endless philosophical disquisitions) that I am at the ACO arranging an open seminar on Marx, in the hope of discussing his continued relevance to our ‘socio-political climate’ (classic academic gobbledygook, you think to yourself as you roll your eyes). To my surprise, you ask me about the details. Invigorated by your sudden interest, I ramble excitedly about Marx’s dialectics, his relationship with Hegel and Kant, historical materialism, Marx’s ontology, his challenge to classical epistemological categories, the ethics that he propounds, the demarcations between materialism and idealism that Lenin instituted…WAIT! Does he have anything to say about crises, you ask? What does he have to say about the fact that capitalism manages to survive despite the recurrence of crises, each more disastrous than the last? How do bankers get away with it all? Yes, yes, my friend, you’ve given me a brilliant idea, that’s precisely what the talk should be about: Crisis, Ideology and the Question of Utopia in Marx.
伸延閱讀｜of related interest
Karl Marx
Capital Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy
Paperback $160 (original price: $ 20.00 US)
ISBN: 9780140445688 Published 1992 by Penguin Books
This 1867 study—one of the most influential documents of modern times—looks at the relationship between labor and value, the role of money, and the conflict between the classes.
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140445688,00.html?...
Alain Badiou
The Communist Hypothesis
Hardcover $155 (original price: $ 19.95 US)
ISBN: 9781844676002 Published July 2010 by Verso
Alain Badiou’s formulation of the “communist hypothesis” has traveled around the world since it was first aired in early 2008, in his book The Meaning of Sarkozy. The hypothesis is partly a demand to reconceptualize communism after the twin deaths of the Soviet Union and neoliberalism, but also a fresh demand for universal emancipation. As “third way” reforms prove as empty in practice as in theory, Badiou’s manifesto is a galvanizing call to arms that needs to be reckoned with by anyone concerned with the future of our planet.
http://www.versobooks.com/books/484-the-communist-hypothesis
Karl Marx, David Fernbach (ed.)
The Revolutions of 1848: Political Writings
Paperback $165 (original price: $ 19.95 US)
ISBN: 9781844676033 Published August 2010 by Verso
Karl Marx was not only the great theorist of capitalism, he was also a superb journalist, politician and historian. In these brand-new editions of Marx’s Political Writings we are able to see the depth and range of his mature work from 1848 through to the end of his life, from The Communist Manifesto to The Class Struggles in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme. Each book has a new introduction from a major contemporary thinker, to shed new light on these vital texts.
Volume 1: The Revolutions of 1848: Marx and Engels had sketched out the principles of scientific communism by 1846. Yet it was from his intense involvement in the abortive German Revolution of 1848 that Marx developed a depth of practical understanding he would draw on in Capital and throughout his later career. This volume includes his great call to arms—The Communist Manifesto—but also shows how tactical alliances with the bourgeoisie failed, after which Marx became firmly committed to independent workers’ organizations and the ideal of “permanent revolution.” The articles offer trenchant analyses of events in France, Poland, Prague, Berlin and Vienna, while speeches set out changing communist tactics. In a new introduction the major socialist feminist writer Sheila Rowbotham examines this period of Marx’s life and how it shaped his political perspective.