As Benjamin Davis discusses in his book, Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy (Chapter 5, pp. 93-94), Simone Weil escaped to New York City in July 1942 from Marseilles, France, and lived in an apartment at 549 Riverside Drive in Morningside Heights. She… Continue Reading
By William E. Scheuerman Commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Institute for Social Research—the Frankfurt School—have taken place around the world this year, many of them at prestigious universities and featuring key contemporary representatives. My general… Continue Reading
By Benjamin P. Davis Simone Weil’s personal notebooks contained several references to the soldier and historian Thucydides, whom she returned to in 1939. It is from his History of the Peloponnesian War that we can start to gain a sense… Continue Reading
By Bernard E. Harcourt “One cannot disregard the fact that all the political currents which now affect the masses, whether they style themselves fascist, socialist, or communist, tend towards the same form of State capitalism.” — Simone Weil,… Continue Reading
By Bernard E. Harcourt “Simone Weil’s critical relationship to collectivity and unyielding criticism of social life in her oppressive context stems not from genius, saintliness, or illness but from the fact that she was a philosopher.” — Benjamin… Continue Reading
Principal Primary Readings Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship (1941), p. 171-187. Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933–1944 (New York: Octagon Books, 1963). Please read pp. 221-8. This text is… Continue Reading
By Bernard E. Harcourt I was originally attracted to Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) because it is one of the largest social movements in Latin America, according to many reports, and places cooperation and forms of cooperative production at the… Continue Reading
By Étienne Balibar [1] This is one of Marx’s most celebrated sentences, which is to be found towards the end of Chapter 24 of section 7 in Capital, Volume One (first published in 1867) [ed note: Chapter 32 of section 8… Continue Reading