UMN offers ‘relevance’ of Marxism course

"Marx for Today's" course syllabus discusses the "political urgency" of issues such as "right-wing populism."

Berlin - March 2017: Karl Marx wax figure in Madame Tussaud's museum

The University of Minnesota is offering a course during the spring 2019 semester on Marxism and its “relevance” in today’s world.

UMN Senior Lecturer Meredith Gill is teaching a course this spring titled “Marx for Today.” The course introduces students to Marxist theory and draws heavy “attention to its relevance for the contemporary world.”

Through reading the texts of Karl Marx, the course aims to teach students the “origins of capitalism, exploitation, alienation… and class divisions” so that they can apply those concepts to “student debt, gender inequality, sexual identity, [and] race.”

The course syllabus cites the “political urgency” of issues including “racial injustice” and “right-wing populism.” The course syllabus also states that current “critical thinkers, political activists, and philosophers” are “resist[ing] under the banner of Marxism.”

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Megan Olson

Megan Olson is a 2020 graduate of the University of Minnesota with degrees in political science and history. She works in public affairs in addition to serving on the Legislative Advisory Council for School District 196. She is also on the school board for FIT academy, a charter school in Apple Valley.