Free Online Seminar: Marx’s Materialism

November 4, 2020 – February 12, 2021

Wednesdays 12.15 pm (CET) / 6.15 pm (EST)

Seminar Description: Marx’s critical project has arguably been the most influential body of philosophical work since Lao Tzu and Aristotle. At the heart of Marx’s critical philosophy is his materialism. This seminar aims to introduce the distinctive features and revolutionary essence of Marx’s materialism via analysis of primary texts, with a particular emphasis on Marx’s concepts of “praxis” as a philosophical category, “practical criticism,” and “practical materialism.”

15-week seminar; 10 ECTS Credits via Freie University Berlin

Seminar Leaders:

Saladdin Ahmed teaches political theory and international relations at Union College in Schenectady, New York, and he holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Ottawa. In his book Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura (SUNY, 2019), he investigates old versus new forms of totalitarianism. Currently, he is at work on a book project on revolutionary philosophy.

Siyaves Azeri is a professor of philosophy at the School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen in Siberia, Russian Federation. Following his dismissal from his position at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey and having been banned from public employment, by the decree law 679, alongside hundreds of other academicians, issued by the Erdogan administration on 6 January 2017, he worked as a visiting researcher at the École Normal Supérieure in Paris and the Université de Lorraine, Archives Henri-Poincaré-Philosophie et Recherches sur les Sciences et les Technologies (AHP-PReST) in Nancy, France. 

This online course is organized and funded by the Academic Freedom Network. The Academic Freedom Network was established by the partnership of the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Academics in Solidarity at FU-Berlin, Off-University, Einstein Fellows Research Group at HU-Berlin and The New University in Exile Consortium, The New School, NY, USA. The Academic Freedom Network is a project as part of the Berlin Center for Global Engagement (BCGE).