status anxiety and other animations at The School of Life

The School of Life website was recently created to ostensibly address important things that are typically not taught in the formal process of schooling (see "about us"). The above video is among the rapidly growing TSL collection on YouTube. It defines what status anxiety is, why it's so common in modern societies, and concludes with suggestions about insulating oneself from its negative effects. An in-depth treatment of status anxiety is available in Alain de Botton's book of the same name, and his documentary film also available at the TSL site. Note: there are additional stratification-relevant videos at this site, including those on the works of Marx and Weber, and several on capitalism.

BBC's "a history of ideas" video series

Under its A History of Ideas series, BBC Radio 4 is distributing short, but instructive videos that address key ideas in philosophy and sciences. Above is a recent clip outlining Marx on alienation. (See YouTube for collection.)  

Karl Marx: masters of money

This fall, the BBC aired Masters of Money, a series about the three giants of economic thought who have shaped policy and action throughout the world: Hayek, Keynes, and Marx. 

I encourage anyone in the class to write a review of the episode devoted to Marx:
http://youtu.be/QdbyUy-DN80

Marx rolls over in grave

A Reuters release notes that bank cards with a likeness of Karl Marx have proven to be popular among those living in the former East Germany. A subsequent NPR story has generated some interesting twitter hashtags for suggested logos (e.g., Revolution of the Proletariat: Priceless. #marxcard).

Dean's ideology and consciousness via Super Bowl add

Paul Dean provides us with an excellent example relevant to our reading selection from Marx's German Ideology.  Please read his text from the Sociological Cinema and view the video in preparation for tonight's class.

The Communist Manifesto: a multimedia introduction

Political Affairs has published an informative overview and interpretation of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. For a text of their famous polemic, see http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html.