The Young Congee Marx

Hello from Philly, Berkeley, and Pasadena!

This week, we talk about the Tokyo Olympics, food appropriation in Oregon, and Raoul Peck’s film The Young Karl Marx (2017).

* What are people protesting in Tokyo? In this pandemic moment, who are the Olympics for? Plus: props to young women weightlifters and skateboarders.

* Why are Asian Americans so mad about congee? (And why are white restaurateurs in Oregon so prone to getting in race trouble?)

* What did “The Communist Manifesto” mean in the time and place it was written? Does its analysis apply today? Why did Peck make this movie? (good film review here). Bonus: brief comparison to another origin-story biopic Amadeus (1984).

(For more on the women’s work around these famous men, Tammy recommends biographies of Eleanor Marx, Karl’s daughter, and the French film Mozart’s Sister.)

(And Andy laoshi suggests reading the original Marx from the film: Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1846) on the “young Hegelians”; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Proudhon; and ofc what we simply call “The Manifesto” (1848)).

We were stoked to meet so many of you at our recent IRL in Berkeley. If you want to take part in such events and our raging Discord, join our membership club at Substack or Patreon. And please get in touch via Twitter or email ([email protected]).

Thank you!

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