Core Curriculum

The first project that the founding collective took on was to establish a core curriculum of key areas for marxist studies that, they believed, could help advance the school's mission. Below are ideas for exploration of these core areas that were written by Mary Boger, one of the School's founders, on the occasion of the Marxist School's 25th Anniversary:

Learning & Transforming Consciousness

I. What We Mean by Learning

  1. Let's begin by addressing the most fundamental question: how is learning related to our peculiar way of surviving in nature and reproducing our social existence? How does our understanding of ourselves and what it means to be human relate to the emancipatory project and to our educational orientations and activities?  imarvy [at] added-value.org
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Capital & Capitalism

"In my opinion, this is the principle reason why one should study Marxism: namely, that if it is so…that you can actually at a certain moment, given certain conditions, make a difference between victory and defeat, and not only for the working class but really humanity, with the power of ideas, then shouldn't we check these ideas out?

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The Development of Capitalism in the United States

This area addresses questions pertaining to the development of capitalism in the United States and the formation of the US working class. We are specifically interested in exploring issues relating to obstacles to class-consciousness and the manifold history of resistance to the variety of oppressions people experience.

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Culture: The Domain of Oppression & Liberation

"The School for Marxist Education is being established…for the purposes of advancing Marxist culture…and conscious political practice."
Statement of Principles, Fall 1975

The cornerstone of the Brecht Forum and New York Marxist School's educational conception situates movement-building within a transformative cultural process within society at large. From the beginning, our conception was based on the idea that a fundamental task of the left is to create, within existing society: a counter-hegemonic culture of working people and their allies, who are capable of:

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Science & Method

"Our attention here is on the counterposition of idealism and materialism in sofar as the latter can explain the former expressed as Mysticism, Religion and Ideology (false consciousness which bolsters a class system of domination).

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