"How do we build a fighting left again?"

Marxist Day School held at Kimmel

The NYU Socialist Club and the New York City International Socialist Organization joined forces this past Saturday to hold the Marxist Day School at the Kimmel Center.

Information sessions took place in the form of mock classes, such as Dynamics of Modern Capitalism.

Jason Farbman, NYU Socialist Club treasurer and second-year graduate student at NYU's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, said the event was held to facilitate and support a resurgent wave of interest in the club.

"We found it very difficult to engage students in conversation in the past," Farbman said. "But the current semester brought about a massive sea of change in terms of club interest."

In bringing together socialists from all walks of life, Farbman hoped to "force people to ask big questions."

One such question and an over-arching theme of the event was: "How do we build a fighting left again?"

To answer this question and others like it, the event was divided into two tracks — Marxist Economics and Marx's Theory of Working Class Revolution. Each track held talks on relevant themes of Marxism and its applications to the modern world. Talks ran concurrently throughout the day and participants were able to choose between sticking to one track or switch back and forth from one to the other.

The event featured lively discussions at the end of each talk, during which audience members asked questions of the speakers and expounded their own personal views.

For Caitlin Stoltz, a first-year graduate student at NYU's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and a member of the NYU Socialist Club, the event was all about change.

"At this point, people are looking for change, particularly with the election coming about," she said. "As revolutionary socialists, we are essentially looking to change the government."

She added that there were also more scholarly convictions behind her decision to attend the event. Farbman had mentioned that "Marxism is a balance between theory and practice," and for Stoltz, this aphorism was precisely the point of the Marxist Day School.

"For me, this is an event where you can actually talk about and apply Marxism concretely," she said.

Jun Liang Yap is a contributing writer. E-mail him at campus@nyunews.com.