Socialist author and activist Helena Sheehan opened the 2024 Red Flag Festival with readings from her books and reflections on her life in the Labour movement that has spanned more than seven decades.

The working class makes the world go round. The working class should not be positioned as the most vulnerable in need of help, but as those who labour and deserve a just distribution of the fruits of their labour.

It was a packed room for the Trinity College Dublin Philosophical Society debate on whether private property should be abolished. I was the first speaker and spoke in an impassioned way for the motion. There was much expression of assent in the room.

At the recent conference of the Society for the Social Study of Science, I came to the conclusion that the history of Marxism in relation to science and technology studies is an increasingly forgotten story.

The author of several books, including the definitive study ‘Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History’, Professor Sheehan traces the historical entanglements of Science and Technology Studies with Marxist thought, as well as her own biography as a scholar and activist.

J. D. Bernal was one of the twentieth century’s great scientific minds, whose work nurtured the imagination of science-fiction writers. In a world where capitalist priorities distort scientific research, Bernal’s Marxist perspective on science is more relevant than ever.