Please join us for a lively discussion with Edward Baring on "Vulgar Marxism" and the history around it. For over a hundred years, intellectuals have decried what they called “Vulgar Marxism,” an indictment that has helped define Marxist theory ever since. At first glance, the criticism of “vulgarity” might suggest a refusal to engage with popular thinking, but a closer examination shows that it emerged in Marxist circles as a criticism of flawed approaches to worker education. Through this lens, Baring will draw our attention to this massive pedagogical project that shaped the work of influential thinkers in interwar Europe, and offers us new ways to read the history of Marxism in the twentieth century.
