webinars and presentations
Clarifying the Struggle for Socialism: On the Uses and Misuses of Marx’s Capital
This webinar was organized by the International Manifesto Group, the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, and the Critical Theory Workshop and was co-sponsored by the Radical Education Department, Peace, Land, and Bread, and the Hampton Institute. It intervenes in this decisive debate by returning to Marx’s most developed analysis of capital, an analysis that was framed by the need for the revolutionary socialist struggle. We’ll focus on both the historical and contemporary burdens of misreadings of Capital and, just as importantly, the inspiring revolutionary applications of the text. Join us as we work to reclaim Capital as a weapon for the working and oppressed classes. It included presentations by Radhika Desai, Gabriel Rockhill, Megha Summer Pappachen, Alan Freeman, and Patricia Gorky.
Derek Ford & Jennifer Ponce de León, “Class Analysis versus Culturalism”
This discussion between Derek Ford and Jennifer Ponce de León, moderated by Gabriel Rockhill, took place at the Critical Theory Workshop‘s Summer School 2022 on July 5th. The full title was “Class Analysis versus Culturalism: From Identity Politics to Decolonial Theory, Afropessimism, and Beyond.” The background readings for the discussion were: Derek Ford & Nino Brown, “Teaching Politically and the Problem of Afropessimism” Adolph Reed, Jr., “Marx, Race and Neoliberalism” Elizabeth Portella, “The Weapon of Theory Reconsidered: Anti-Colonial Marxism and the Post-Cold War Imaginary.”
Leon Benson One Year After Exoneration: Book Launch and Panel
Leon Benson spent almost 25 years imprisoned–10 of them in solitary confinement, considered a human rights abuse by the international community–for August 8, 1998 murder of Kasey Schoen in downtown Indianapolis. When he was 47-years-old, he walked out of the notorious Pendleton prison on March 9, 2023 as a free man, exonerated on all charges. He spent over half his life locked up for a crime he didn’t commit because the police intentionally withheld evidence indicating another shooter and eyewitness testimony contradicting the narrative they wanted to frame. Now, for the first time since his exoneration, Benson returns to Indianapolis for a weekend of his “re-birth,” not to condemn those individuals who stole decades of his life and deprived his daughter, family, and our entire community of his beaming and positive presence, but to shed light on the countless others who are still locked up based on wrongful convictions. The panel features Kelly Bauder of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, Kolleen Schoen-Bunch, the sister of Kasey Schoen who Benson was wrongly imprisoned for killing, DePauw University Professor Derek R. Ford, and Liberation Center organizers Dani Abdullah and Queene Lewis. The event also served as the launch of Benson’s first monograph, “Letters of Gratitude: I Am Because We Are” (Iskra Books, 2024), which you can purchase on their website or at the Indy Liberation Store.
No War on the DPRK: Derek Ford – ANSWER Coalition
This event, moderated by Daniel Kovalik, an American human rights, labor rights lawyer, and political activist and hosted by the Pittsburgh Anti-Imperialist League, took place on November 17, 2017.
“Derek Ford of the ANSWER Coalition, led the last delegation of U.S. citizens to legally travel to the DPRK in 2017. He speaks first-hand about the situation in the DPRK, dispelling the lies regularly spread by the U.S. media, and humanizing the situation in stark contrast to all the U.S. government’s propaganda and rhetoric about DPRK.”
Epidemic of Racism: Three Police Killings in Indiana
The Movement now isn’t being placated by any promises. We’re demanding that the officers involved be named, fired, indicted and convicted. And we’ll stay in the streets until that happens. Hear PSL organizers speak on coronavirus and the epidemic of racism in capitalist America.