Academic Marxism in the Crosshairs: What is at Stake in the U.S.?

This essay considers the nature of attacks on academic Marxism in North America, still the center of capitalist power worldwide. Its main aim is to reflect on what is at stake in the surge of anti-Marxism associated with the right, specifically relating to the academy. While the far left poses little threat to the core of liberal capitalist power in the state and economy (and if anything is helping “do work” for the centre against the far right), the far right has made Marxism, especially academic Marxism, a core target and framing for its battle against liberal power and the left. What potential political implications might there be for the Marxist left of ongoing attacks and of further threats in formation in North America

Determination of stellar, orbital and planetary parameters using complete Monte-Carlo analysis -- the case of HAT-P-7b

The recently discovered transiting very hot Jupiter, HAT-P-7b, a planet detected by the telescopes of HATNet, turned out to be among the ones subjected to the highest irradiation from the parent star. As known, the combination of photometric and spectroscopic data for such an object yields the stellar, orbital and planetary parameters. In order to best characterize this particular planet, we carried out a complex analysis based on a complete and simultaneous Monte-Carlo solution using all available data. We included the discovery light curves, partial follow-up light curves, the radial velocity data, and we used the stellar evolution models to infer the stellar properties. This self-consistent way of modeling provides the most precise estimate of the a posteriori distributions of all of the system parameters of interest, and avoids making assumptions on the values and uncertainties of any of the internally derived variables describing the system. This analysis demonstrates that even partial light curve information can be valuable. This may become very important for future discoveries of planets with longer periods -- and therefore longer transit durations -- where the chance of observing a full event is small.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium 253, "Transiting Planets", May 2008, Cambridge, MA, US

Theory and Class Struggle: Three Interviews

Raju Das and Robert Latham interview Lilia Monzo, Tom Brass, and Alfred Saad-Filho in the initial piece for the new Theory and Class Struggle section of Class, Race and Corporate Power