Symposium x Red Ink present Eric Heinze's "Coming Clean"

Join us on Saturday, April 26th as we collaborate with Red Ink Community Library to bring you Eric Heinze in conversation with Nicholas Frayn, where they'll be discussing Eric's newest book, Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left. Signed copies of the book will be available during the event.

About the book:

What has gone wrong with the left—and what leftists must do if they want to change politics, ethics, and minds.

Leftists have long taught that people in the West must take responsibility for centuries of classism, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and other gross injustices. Of course, right-wingers constantly ridicule this claim for its “wokeness.”

In Coming Clean, Eric Heinze rejects the idea that we should be less woke. In fact, we need more wokeness, but of a new kind. Yes, we must teach about these bleak pasts, but we must also educate the public about the left's own support for regimes that damaged and destroyed millions of lives for over a century—Stalin in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, or the Kim dynasty in North Korea.

Criticisms of Western wrongdoing are certainly important, yet Heinze explains that leftists have rarely engaged in the kinds of open and public self-scrutiny that they demand from others. Citing examples as different as the Ukraine war, LGBTQ+ people in Cuba, the concept of “hatred,” and the problem of leftwing antisemitism, Heinze explains why and how the left must change its memory politics if it is to claim any ethical high ground.

About the author:

Eric Heinze is Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (MIT Press), among other books, and has published over 100 articles and has been featured in radio and television and other media around the world.

About the moderator:

Nick Frayn is a local criminal defense attorney. He is an active member of Rhode Island DSA, and has written and spoken about politics, both domestic and international, for many years.

We can't wait to see you there!