in-class discussion, 09.13.04

To begin today's discussion: please divide up into 4 groups by essay, such that all the As (who read the excerpt from Capital) meet up, and all the Bs, and so on. In those four groups, spend 20 minutes or so discussing the essay you read, with an eye toward understanding it well enough to explain it to your peers. What is the key argument of the essay? What are the key terms that the essay uses? How do those terms affect the development of the essay's argument?

After 20 minutes or so, I'll ask you to return to your usual small groups; in those groups, you'll spend the rest of class outlining the major concepts of each essay for your peers. Where are there clear conceptual overlaps among the essays? Where do you note differences?

Make note of any questions that you have as you discuss, such as terms or concepts that need definition; I'll collect those at the end of class today.

Marx; Marx & Engels

Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (1867), chapter 1, “Commodities”; chapter 6, “The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (1845-46), part I, section A, “Idealism and Materialism”
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), part III
Karl Marx, preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)