William Blake, The American Revolution And The Idea Of Freedom

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

HOW TO CELEBRATE JULY 4TH: WILLIAM BLAKE, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM

The great English poet William Blake's creative imagination addressed both the greatness and limits of the 1776 American Revolution. Karl Marx singled it out in Capital as the precursor to the great French Revolution, though more recently its importance is diminished by some to a mere counterrevolutionary institutionalization of slavery. Yet the enlightenment ideals that helped to shape 1776 not only animated the French Revolution of 1789 but also the Black Jacobins of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. The latter have been singled out as the inspiration for Hegel's foundational Master/Slave dialectic. The Master/Slave paradigm has been a critical take off point for liberatory thought from Kojeve and Sartre to Fanon and DeBeauvoir. We want to revisit how and if Blake, who was forever breaking "mind forged manacles," anticipated and deepened in the Idea of freedom in Hegel and Marx.
Discussion by Lew Finzel and Ron Kelch

Sun, July 1, 2018 – 10:30am-12:30pm
6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland (just North of Alcatraz Ave.)
Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
FREE - but hat will be passed for donations to NPML

About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.

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Call Gene Ruyle at 510-332-3865 or email: cuyleruyle [at] mac.com
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