Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 29 November
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
‘Marxism exists in 19th-century thought like a fish in water: that is, it is unable to breathe anywhere else.’ Variations on this claim, made in 1966 by Michel Foucault, had decades of oxygen in the West.
But today, the work of Karl Marx is again breathing life into a range of Western movements. Within Black Lives Matter, Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour or Bernie Sanders’ ‘Revolution’, young people are repurposing thought long dismissed as antique.
In this discussion, hosted by Helen Razer, we’ll discuss the relevance of Marx today. Our panellists, including Alyx Gorman, Gary Foley and Nazeem Hussain, will describe their practical agreement – and their useful dispute – with this 19th-century European thinker.
This event will be Auslan interpreted.
Featuring
Helen Razer
Helen Razer was a broadcaster and is now a writer. Her appointments in radio were at the Triple J national network and ABC Melbourne. Her books include A Short History of Stupid, co-authored with national affairs correspondent Bernard Keane, a 2015 work on the history of bad Western thought shortlisted for the Russell Prize; and Total Propaganda, a popular work on Marxism recently published by Allen & Unwin.
Helen has written on social and political matters for the Age and Australian. She now contributes news and cultural analysis to outlets including Crikey, the Saturday Paper, Daily Review, Frankie, SBS and Atlantic digital publication Quartz.
Nazeem Hussain
Nazeem Hussain is the star of his own critically-acclaimed TV show, Legally Brown, which aired on SBS. The show broke ground with its boundary-pushing content, received wide spread critical acclaim and was nominated for Most Outstanding Comedy at the 2015 Logie Awards. Nazeem is also well known as a stand-up comedian, and until recently was part of political comedy duo Fear of a Brown Planet.
Alyx Gorman
Alyx Gorman attended her first demonstration in-utero; her parents, both avowed Marxists, met through the union movement. Alyx rebelled against her red nappy upbringing by becoming a lifestyle journalist. She has written for ELLE, Quartz and Sydney Morning Herald, and is currently the Editorial Director of Time Out Australia and Fashion Editor of the Saturday Paper.
Gary Foley
Gary Foley is an Australian Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s. He is currently a Professor of History at Victoria University.
Foley also co-wrote and acted in the first indigenous Australian stage production, Basically Black.