Gaining advanced knowledge

[Rascolnikova]

If I may ask, what would constitute a very solid grasp of theory? And what, in the opinion of anyone who cares to answer, would be the best way to go about acquiring said very solid grasp of theory? (Perhaps a roughly defined central set of subjects and texts?)

Edit: if a mod could fix my typo in the title, I'd appreciate it.

[BobKKKindle$]

Is there any particular area of theory where you want to enhance your knowledge?

In general, not just for studying socialism but whenever you're interested in something, it's best to start with reading the primary texts and then once you're done with those and have an idea of what the author was trying to convey, you should do some of the secondary reading so you can see how other people have analyzed and responded to the original text. For example, if you wanted to learn more about imperialism, you would obviously start with 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism' by Lenin, possibly after having read some introductory texts on Marxist economics such as 'Wages, Prices, and Profit', and then you might be interested in reading 'Imperialism and the Global Economy' by Alex Callinicos, 'The Darker Nations' by Vijay Prashad, 'Open Veins of Latin America' by Eduardo Galeano.

Alternatively, if you're really serious, you could get some university reading lists. Send me a PM if you're interested.

[Hit The North]

The Marxist Internet Archive (MIA) has everything you need to feed your mind. However, don't forget that theory and practice are mutually informing and that your grasp of theory will become firmer as you put it into practice.

Fixed your title typo, btw :).

[F9]

If I may ask, what would constitute a very solid grasp of theory? And what, in the opinion of anyone who cares to answer, would be the best way to go about acquiring said very solid grasp of theory? (Perhaps a roughly defined central set of subjects and texts?)

Edit: if a mod could fix my typo in the title, I'd appreciate it.

To gain very solid grasp of theory, you just need to combine real life activeness with reading a lot of books and pamphlets!Although books can give you the mass majority of the knowledge, being active "completes" the thing!;)Dont stay in a particular subject or ideology for reading, simply read everything!
What constitutes a solid grasp of theory for me?Just knowing well what you represent!

Fuserg9:star:

[Rascolnikova]

Is there any particular area of theory where you want to enhance your knowledge?

I suppose I should clarify.

My background has come from lots of conversation with a very few, very educated individuals, and a rather limited amount of reading. As such, I expect it is both lopsided and incomplete.


I can list off for you all the things a person should be able to do before I'd consider them well read in American Literature, or competent in modern dance technique, or advanced enough in mathematics to not have any trouble with a rigorous calculus based physics. I don't know what that list is like for leftist theory, in general--I don't know what all the fields are, within it, what their relative importance is to one another, and approximately what this same kind of list would look like for a (relative) specialist within each of those fields. If someone could paint that sort of a picture for me, even in a rough way, it would be much easier to go about filling the gaps in my background.

Edit: and, by the way, thank you everyone for your help.