Welcome in the Internet-Embassy of the
Berlin Institute of Critical Theory (InkriT)

"Rich parents for everybody"     Student strike poster Berlin 2009    Foto: Marie Schubenz

Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism
Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus (HKWM)

Invitation to contribute

If you would like to be a contributing author for the HKWM, please look at the English lists of available entries for HKWM 8 and HKWM 9 and the "guidelines".

You may also suggest entries not yet included (see ABC).

Please include informations about your academic career and publications.

For more informations, inquire at:

hkwmred@zedat.fu-berlin.de

From the preface to HKWM I (1994)

I

This is not the first time that a new dictionary has emerged from the intention to translate, revise, or supplement a previous one. The most renowned reference book of the Enlightenment, Diderot’s Encyclopédie, grew out of a translation project. Joachim Ritter’s Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie began as a revision. The Historisch-kritische Wörterbuch des Marxismus resulted from the planning of supplementary volumes to a translation. These volumes were announced in the foreword to the German edition of the Dictionnaire critique du marxisme in 1983. They were intended to complement the French emphasis of this work with other emphases, notably German. Every critical direction linked to Marx was welcome among the contributions. When the project found itself blocked in then two-state Germany between dogmatic anathema on the one side and social-liberal fear of contact on the other, it became more international and, not least, sought collaboration as far as possible with intellectuals from the »tricontinent« of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The limits of the supplement form were soon exceeded, even by the merely external fact that the supplement had grown to a length which was many times that of the original.

full version

A message in the bottle for the future

Fredric Jameson (Duke University, USA)

full version

Invitation to Join the InkriT-Fellows

The Berlin Institute for Critical Theory (InkriT) sends out a worldwide invitation for scholars and students sharing its goals to become InkriT fellows.

Those interested send a formless application together with a curriculum vitae to the InkriT board (vorstand[at]inkrit.org).

For those earning 1500 Euros per month or less, the monthly contribution is between 5 and 10 Euros; those above 1500 Euros per month pay at least 20 Euros and, according to their income, more.

The InkriT will offer its website (http://www.inkrit.de) and also its English speaking section (http://www.hkwm-international.de) to present its fellows with their C/V's, and with a link to their personal site.

The fellows enjoy the privilege to participate at the international annual conferences without conference fee and can apply for a conference stipend.

During the annual InkriT conference, the fellows determine three speakers from their ranks.

In the framework of the InkriT and in cooperation with their speakers and the academic InkriT board, the fellows have the right to initiate research projects, seminars and other events corresponding with the goals of InkriT and to use for this purpose the InkriT communication channels.

The fellows attain privileged access to the online files of HKWM articles (both published and yet unpublished), to materials and texts from different InkriT sections and to the InkriT internet discussion group that is being prepared.

At a time when one so often hears a wholesale dismissal of Marxist ideas, the launching of this ambitious enterprise represents a bold challenge. Like the decision to continue with the publication of the MEGA, it is founded on a recognition that the ideas of Marx and Engels – »warts and all«, if you will – represent a precious part of our intellectual heritage. The two projects complement each other. The material appearing in the MEGA volumes is an important source drawn and referred to in the HKWM. The latter, with its strong conceptual, historical and philological characteristics, offers a quarry of knowledge and references of unique value to all making use of the MEGA for their researches.

Monty Johnstone, London, in MEGA-Studien 1995