MIdwestern Marx Staff |
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Editorial Board
Thomas Riggins - Chief Editorial Counselor
Thomas Riggins is a retired philosophy teacher (NYU, The New School of Social Research, among others) who received a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983). He has been active in the civil rights and peace movements since the 1960s when he was chairman of the Young People's Socialist League at Florida State University and also worked for CORE in voter registration in north Florida (Leon County). He has written for many online publications such as People's World and Political Affairs where he was an associate editor. He also served on the board of the Bertrand Russell Society and was president of the Corliss Lamont chapter in New York City of the American Humanist Association.
Carlos L. Garrido
Carlos is a Cuban-American Marxist who graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from Loras College and is currently a graduate student and Teachers Assistant in Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His area of specialization is Marxist Philosophy. His current research interests are in the history of American radical thought (esp. 19th century), and phenomenology . He also runs the philosophy YouTube channel Tu Esquina Filosofica and organized for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020.
Edward L. Smith
Edward is from Sauk City, Wisconsin and received his B.A. in Political Science from Loras College, where he was a former NCAA wrestling All-American, and an active wrestling coach. His main interest are in Geopolitics and the role of American imperialism with relation to socialist states, specifically China and Venezuela. He also worked for Bernie Sanders' campaign in 2020.
Alex Zambito
Alex Zambito was born and raised in Savannah, GA. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017 with a degree in History and Sociology. He is currently seeking a Masters in History at Brooklyn College. His Interest include the history of Socialist experiments and proletarian struggles across the world.
Mitchell K. Jones
Mitchell K. Jones is a historian and activist from Rochester, NY. He has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in history from the College at Brockport, State University of New York. He has written on utopian socialism in the antebellum United States. His research interests include early America, communal societies, antebellum reform movements, religious sects, working class institutions, labor history, abolitionism and the American Civil War. His master’s thesis, entitled “Hunting for Harmony: The Skaneateles Community and Communitism in Upstate New York: 1825-1853” examines the radical abolitionist John Anderson Collins and his utopian project in Upstate New York. Jones is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Writers
Ben Darr
Ben Darr teaches politics and international studies at Loras College, in Dubuque, Iowa. He went to college at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, and earned his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Iowa. His interests include global inequality, and U.S. foreign policy. He is currently working on a book on spectator sports as a model of neoliberal politics.
Sebastián León
Sebastián León is a philosophy teacher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where he received his MA in philosophy (2018). His main subject of interest is the history of modernity, understood as a series of cultural, economic, institutional and subjective processes, in which the impetus for emancipation and rational social organization are imbricated with new and sophisticated forms of power and social control. He is a socialist militant, and has collaborated with lectures and workshops for different grassroots organizations.
Timothy Russo
Tim Russo is author of Ghosts of Plum Run, an ongoing historical fiction series about the charge of the First Minnesota at Gettysburg. Tim's career as an attorney and international relations professional took him to two years living in the former soviet republics, work in Eastern Europe, the West Bank & Gaza, and with the British Labour Party. Tim has had a role in nearly every election cycle in Ohio since 1988, including Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. Tim ran for local office in Cleveland twice, earned his 1993 JD from Case Western Reserve University, and a 2017 masters in international relations from Cleveland State University where he earned his undergraduate degree in political science in 1989. Currently interested in the intersection between Gramscian cultural hegemony and Gandhian nonviolence, Tim is a lifelong Clevelander.
Garron Daniels
Garron is a Marxist Leninist from Northwest Missouri. He has previously worked with Students for a Democratic Society, Socialist Rifle Association, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. He is also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World and of the Religious Commission of the Communist Party USA. He has a B.S. Degree in Justice Systems from Truman State University and is currently obtaining his Masters in Divinity at the University of the South: School of Theology where he is a Postulant for the Holy Orders of the Episcopal Church.
Maddy Hughes
Maddy is a journalist, writer, and thinker based in Colorado where she works as a stringer for a small-town newspaper and has some odd jobs on the side. She is a member of the Democratic Socialist of America and is interested in bringing a lens of intersectionality to journalism and "pushing the envelope" to make people think critically about social issues. She love animals, music, food, creative writing, and the outdoors. She/her.
Jymee C
Jymee C is an aspiring Marxist historian and teacher with a BA in history from Utica College, hoping to begin working towards his Master's degree in the near future. He's been studying Marxism-Leninism for the past five years and uses his knowledge and understanding of theory to strengthen and expand his historical analyses. His primary interests regarding Marxism-Leninism and history include the Soviet Union, China, the DPRK, and the various struggles throughout US history among other subjects. He is currently conducting research for a book on the Korean War and US-DPRK relations. In addition, he is a 3rd Degree black belt in karate and runs the YouTube channel "Jymee" where he releases videos regarding history, theory, self-defense, and the occasional jump into comedy https://www.youtube.com/c/Jymee
Marco Fonseca
Marco Fonseca was born in Brazil, where he received his BA in linguistics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. After finishing his undergraduate studies, he moved to Japan where he received his MA, also in linguistics, from the University of Tokyo. He is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Illinois. Most of his research is on experimental and computational approaches to linguistics. He wishes to apply the critical thinking skills that he has been acquiring in different counties to impact social change.
Yanis Iqbal
Yanis Iqbal is an independent researcher and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India and can be contacted at yanisiqbal@gmail.com. His articles have been published in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and several countries of Latin America.
David Flora
David Flora is a bartender living in the South with a bachelors in political science and is currently seeking a masters in public policy. Much of his organizational work and praxis involves fellow restaurant industry workers. He believes the restaurant industry in particular is an important part of a revolutionary workers movement.
Cormac Kavanagh
Cormac Kavanagh is a history student in his final year of University. His main subject of interest is the history of Empire building in relation to Ireland and how it is historically used as a blueprint for later colonies. He is also interested in dissecting the role of the US in the world and how their efforts to thwart unionization and socialism both at home and abroad can be combatted. He is hoping to shine a light on Irish history in relation to Empire and on socialist movements in Europe, both in the past and present.
Greg Chung
Greg Chung is a Korean-American, born in New Jersey, but lived abroad for ten years in Vietnam and South Korea. He moved back to the states in 2018 to attend college in Iowa, where he became a community organizer for Iowa Student Action and later the Cornell College chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
Simon Miller
My name is Simon and I am a Marxist-Leninist born on the front range of Colorado. I currently live in Central Missouri and attend Camdenton Highschool. I am unusually young for the position of writer, which isn't an abnormality lost on me. I focus primarily on contemporary international issues with a particular focus on socialist states and their interactions. I hope to begin organizational work as soon as I am able.
Joseph Senecal McCann II
Joseph Senecal McCann II was born and raised in Tallahassee, FL and is an undergraduate student studying liberal arts at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL. He is currently applying to PhD programs in philosophy. His main interests are ideology, revolutionary history and theory, structuralism, poststructuralism, and the relationship between existentialism and Marxism. His personal views are influenced by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Benedict Spinoza.
Jared Yackley
Jared Yackley is an undergraduate student of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. With his primary focuses in epistemology, history, and political philosophy, Yackley hopes to apply the principles of dialectical materialism to contemporary issues both philosophical and political.
N.C. Cai
N.C. Cai is a Chinese American Marxist Feminist. She is interested in socialist feminism, Western imperialism, history, and domestic policy, specifically in regards to drug laws, reproductive justice, and healthcare.