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Current News: We cannot thank you enough Howard Zinn for all you have done. |
LevyArts mission is to utilize theater and social theory to entertain, enlighten and stimulate a constructive and reflective dialogue about society |
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On the Director: Michael Fox Kennedy has returned to theater and writing after a 20-year career in the field of mental health. He has been performing his one-man play about Abraham Lincoln, “Even We Here,” and recently appeared with the Apron Theater as Robert, the Father, in David Aubern’s “Proof.” |
MORE ON HOWARD ZINN Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. He has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Auburndale, Massachusetts. (from howardzinn.org) Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, (From Wikipedia) |
Howard Zinn was interviewed at a ‘Marx in Soho’ showing in Cuba in May of 2004: ZINN: And I am going to try to prove it by bringing him back on the scene. And from there I’ll show the U.S. public what Marxism is really about. Marx himself would explain the difference between Stalinism and Marxism. I’ll remind people what Marx’s criticism of capitalism was. I would demonstrate that these ideas have much to with the United States today. In other words, that Marxist criticism today is exact and current. INTERVIEWER: One of your students, the well-known novelist Alice Walker, has defined the writer as a sort of medium ... How was Howard Zinn inspired to revive Karl Marx? ZINN: When I was 17, I began to read Marx and Engels. At 18 I began to work in a shipyard. Together with three other radical young people, I organized the Young Shipyard Workers Union. At that time, unions were very exclusive and young persons could not join them. The four of us became a team and met once a week. We read Marx and many years later, when I became a professor, I gave a seminar on Marxism. I read a lot of literature on Marx and became interested in his family life. For me to learn about him as a human being is as important as learning of his ideas. My first theater work was not about Karl Marx but about an anarchist and feminist, Emma Goldman. That play was shown in several cities of the US: New York and Boston, but also in London and Japan. Later, already interested in the theater, I decided to write a play about Marx. I made this decision after the fall of the Soviet Union because, after its fall, everyone thought that Marxism had died. So I tried to tell the US public: Marx is not dead and I am going to prove it by bringing him back to the scenario. From there I would teach this same public the difference between Stalinism and Marxism. I would remind them what Marxist criticism of capitalism consists of. I would demonstrate that these ideas have much to do about the US today. In other words, that Marxist criticism of capitalism is still exact and current today. Since I didn’t want to only represent ideas, I added information about the relationship between Marx and his family, a little bit of humor, and a vision of what a new society could be. That is why I have Marx speaking in the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune is a small light. INTERVIEWER: What has been the reception of Marx in Soho in the United States? Didn’t they confuse you with Groucho Marx? ZINN: The US people know more about Groucho Marx than about Karl Marx. The play has been shown in forty venues in the US, mostly for a university public. The number of spectators has fluctuated from three hundred to a thousand and the play has always been well-received, perhaps because it presents Marxist ideas clearly and simply. It is a question of common sense. The play is a combination of humor and experiences, human and family, and one can even laugh at Marx. It is what happens when Jenny laughs at him and Eleanor does the same. I think this is more attractive for the public. Marx doesn’t come on stage as someone who knows it all. INTERVIEWER: Is there a presence in US academies, the universities, is his work studied? ZINN: Sometimes. Perhaps in one out of every hundred universities there is a course on Marxism. There are many courses of political philosophy and perhaps a few days are set aside for Marx. Usually his ideas are not taught with exactness. |
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This project is done in collaboration with The Communal Spring. For info please check out their web site: |
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