The Center for Ethics and Human Values partners with the Department of Political Science's Political Theory Workshop to welcome Paul Reitter (Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State), the translator of the first new English translation of Marx’s Capital in 50 years, and William Clare Roberts (Associate Professor, McGill University), author of the new edition’s afterword as well as the Deutscher Memorial Prize-winning Marx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital, in a special session moderated by Emma Saunders-Hastings (Associate Professor of Political Science, Ohio State).
Karl Marx (1818–1883) was living in exile in England when he embarked on an ambitious, multivolume critique of the capitalist system of production. Though only the first volume saw publication in Marx's lifetime, it would become one of the most consequential books in history. This new edition of Capital -- the first translation into English to be based on the last German edition revised by Marx himself -- aspires to be a translation of Marx for the twenty-first century.
This panel discussion will consider questions of translation, history, and political theory. What challenges does translating Capital pose and what are their import for political theory? What are the book’s different analytic and stylistic modes and what are their stakes, both for the politics of Marx’s time and our own? What is the place of Capital in the history of politics and political thought? What does it mean to translate Marx into the 21st century?
Please contact Ben McKean with any questions.
