Since this year marks Karl Marx 200th birthday, the Rosa Luxemburg Regional Office Palestine and Jordan, Goethe-Institut Ramallah, Birzeit University, Leuphana University and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center organized a three day Karl Marx conference with the title: “Karl Marx: The Untimely Contemporary” from 9t
h to 11th of December.
Reflecting on the political and theoretical challenges of biographical accounts, the opening lecture by Micheal Henrich at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center introduced Marx as a revolutionary thinker and scientific scholar who did not fully fit the context and constraints of his age. The second day, opened at Birzeit University, focusing on Marx’s relevance and legacy in contemporary critical theory and academic research, as several academics introduced papers including Jamil Khader from Bethlehem University, Sami Khatib from Leuphana University, Wasim Abu Fasheha, Anja Zorob and Alaa Azehaf from Birzeit University, and key note speaker Jodi Dean from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY state. The second day included an afternoon reading group event, that was hosted at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center revolving around selected passages from Marx’s writings.
Third and final day was held at the Rosa Luxemburg’s office in Ramallah focusing on Marx’s current political relevance in Palestine and beyond, and the relationship between Karl Marx thought and settler colonialism, as scholar Salman Fakherdein introduced a paper covering this topic.