Erica (known to her friends
as Ricky) was born in New York City. She lived in Mexico and had a communist
German refugee governess from ages 5 to 9, ca. 1943-1947. She worked on a kibbutz from
1959-1960/61, where she learned Hebrew (details below).
Ricky studied with Herbert
Marcuse at UC San Diego in the 1970s. Herbert's second wife, Inge Neumann,
died in 1973, and Ricky and Herbert were married on June 21, 1976.
Herbert died in July 1979; Ricky died of cancer on December 15, 1988.
This page collects some of
the documents available on the web about Ricky and her work.
Dec. 12, 2021: This Nov. 18, 2021 blog/article by journalist Christian Parenti (wikipedia page)
makes some bizarre claims:
"The First Privilege Walk." Here's its teaser:
"How Herbert Marcuse’s widow used a Scientology-linked cult's methodology to gamify Identity Politics and thus
helped steer the U.S. Left down the dead-end path of identitarian psychobabble."
The Aptheker reminiscence below has a much more nuanced view.
If anyone writes an analysis or rejoinder to Parenti, let me know and I'll link to it here.
Ricky was best known for the "Unlearning
Racism" workshops she developed and led in the Bay area
of California and nationally. The place on the web to go to for more
information about Ricky is UnlearningRacism.org [2011 web archive version]
It has a detailed, illustrated 1989
biographical article by Bettina Aptheker (page
1, page
2, page
3), which includes photos from Ricky's childhood and all phases
of her life right up until her death. [all updated in Dec. 2021 to the 2011 versions at the internet archive]
The site also has the texts of many of Ricky's
writings about racism and activism [again, in 12/2021 link updated to 2011 web archive version]. It asked for submissions
of personal stories about Ricky, but to my knowledge never posted any.
Ricky's partner after Herbert's death, Kostas "Gus"
Bagakis, continued working in the movement. [Dec. 2021: link updated to 2003 web archive version]
Gus's profile on truthout.org says the following in Dec. 2021:
"Dr. Gus Bagakis is a retired philosophy instructor at San Francisco State University and author of
Seeing Through The System: The Invisible Class Struggle in America (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2013)."
In 2002 he published The Interactive Hegel An Introduction to Hegel's Thought
In August 2004, a conference was dedicated to Ricky and her work:
"Activists’ Conference
on Anti-Semitism and The Left", dedicated to Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
in the spirit of continuing development of her anti-oppression work.
factbite.com offers Ricky's
definition of "Oppression" (scroll, or do page search
on Erica [Dec. 2021: no longer in the earliest version of the page saved by the internet archive in 2006])
Doug
Kellner's interviews with Ricky in 1984 are cited in footnote 6
of this 1984 paper he presented at the American Political Association
Convention. [Dec. 2021: 2010 web archive version]
Ricky died on Dec. 15, 1988,
having been diagnosed with cancer less than two years earlier.
Obituary from the Los Angeles Times, Sunday Dec. 25, 1988,
pg. 54: Erica Sherover-Marcuse; Created Workshops on Racism
Erica Sherover-Marcuse, 49, creator of workshops to help people overcome
racist attitudes. Miss Sherover-Marcuse, the widow of leftist political
philosopher Herbert Marcuse, developed the workshops for small groups
as well as large gatherings in institutional settings. They focused
on helping participants take pride in their own heritage as a means
of building alliances with racial minorities. In 1976, she married Herbert
Marcuse, a controversial political philosopher and professor at UC San
Diego. He died in 1979 at the age of 81. Miss Sherover-Marcuse led workshops
in Israel, Germany and the Netherlands as well as across the United
States. In 1985, she co-founded New Bridges, an Oakland-based multicultural
awareness group designed to spread her philosophy to teen-agers. In
Oakland on Dec. 15 of cancer.
1975: Erica Sherover, review
of Russell Jacoby's Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist
Psychology, in: Telos no. 25, Fall 1975.
1979: "The Virtue of Poverty: Marx's Transformation of Hegel's
Concept of the Poor" in Canadian Journal of Political and Social
Theory (vol. 3, no. 1), 53-66.
The Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory was
published from 1976-91 as a peer-reviewed journal of critical thought.
Envisioned as an independent intellectual journal, the CJPST quickly attracted to its pages an expanding circle of theorists,
writers, artists, and poets who explored forms of critical thinking
that were historically engaged, politically critical, and theoretically
diverse.
1986: Emancipation
and Consciousness: Dogmatic and Dialectical Perspectives in the Early
Marx (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 211 pages. Bibliography:
p. [143]-203.
Originally presented as her doctoral thesis at the Johann Wolfgang
Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, in 1983. Having begun her dissertation
under Herbert's direction, Ricky defended under Habermas. (Harold
Marcuse has Ricky's handout and his notes from the defense.)
Synopsis: Focusing especially on Marx's 1842-43
writings, Sherover-Marcuse seeks to develop a theory of emancipatory
consciousness. She argues that in Marx's philosophy there is an
unresolved tension between a deterministic (dogmatic) and a dialectical
approach, and that this tension has been a major factor leading
to the contemporary rethinking of Marxist theory.
From Choice:
"In the last 60 years a wide variety of thinkers have tried
to show what Marxism 'truly' consists of. The Sherover-Marcuse (women's
studies, San Francisco State) study is one of the more recent efforts.
. . . {The author} clearly has a deep knowledge of Marxist literature;
almost a third of the book consists of wide-ranging bibliographical
notes. Although somewhat prolix, her presentation is well organized
and evenhanded but presumes some familiarity with Marxist vocabulary
and philosophy--most undergraduates would find it difficult.Devotees
of Marxist thought will probably not learn much from it either,
but they will enjoy its tight reasoning and its erudition. Only
for strong Marxist collections."
From Robert J. Antonio - American Journal of Sociology:
"[The author], like many other critical Marxist
intellectuals, believes that the contemporary 'crisis' of the Left
begins in Marx's thought and, particularly, in his failure to elaborate
the forms of communication and modes of thought that would produce
a liberated society. Although Emancipation and Consciousness addresses
a heavily discussed problematic, it expresses a fresh perspective
and opens some new terrain. . . . Postmodernist skeptics would argue
that Sherover-Marcuse's critique of Marx is not radical enough because
it does not address their primary contention that the very idea
of 'universal human emancipation' is inherently dogmatic and potentially
authoritarian. . . . [This] is a high-quality scholarly work, deserving
of the honors that it was awarded as a doctoral dissertation at
the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. The analysis is insightful
and provocative, and, throughout, the argument is skillfullycrafted
and well written. Sherover-Marcuse contributes significantly to
debate over Marx's thought and to the current dialogue on the intellectual
foundations of politically engaged social theory."
Cited in Chap.
5 of "Toward a Transformative Model for Ethics Education
in the First World" of Mark W. Young's 1995 Queensland University
of Technology B.A. honors thesis Transforming Perspectives: An
Approach to Ethics Education in a First World Context. (link
in web archive; on web from 1/2001 to 2/2003; do page search)
1994: posthumously published: "Liberation theory: Axioms and
working assumptions about the perpetuation of social oppression,"
in N. Gonzalez-Yuen (Ed.), The Politics of Liberation (Dubuque,
IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1994).
Visitors to this site are welcome
to submit additional materials for inclusion on this site.
2012: Joann Arnott submitted the following via email:
Subject: Unlearning Isms
I wanted to let you know that I posted a short article about Ricky Sherover-Marcuse & UR on my blog, including quotes from the Unlearning Racism.org home page, links to her writings, and links both to the UR site and to her page on the Herbert Marcuse website. Here is the link: http://joannearnott.blogspot.com/2012/03/unlearning-isms.html
2003: Former UCSD philosophy dept. chair Richard
Popkin's 8/3/03 guestbook entry (Popkin hired Herbert at UCSD)
notes that he has some correspondence with Ricky and Herbert.
Comments: Richard Popkin was the chair of the philosophy department at UCSD from 1963 to 1968 and took the initiative, with Avrum Stroll, to invite Herbert Marcuse, Stanley Moore, Lewis Feuer and Joseph Tussman to speak at a symposium on Marxism. This led to Marcuse's being invited to become a member of the philosophy department in 1965. Marcuse was delighted with the intellectual and natural environment in La Jolla. The philosophy department that Popkin envisaged was far more diverse than other American departments at that time. We have many memories of Marcuse and some correspondence from our interactions with Herbert, his second wife Inge and his third wife Erica Sherover.
Popkin died in 2005 (according to his Wikipedia page), and his papers are held by UCLA's Clark Memorial Library.
2002: Prof. Theophus (Thee) Smith, Emory Univ. I decided to make a separate page about Ricky after this request
posted in the Herbert Marcuse guestbook (this guestbook lists backwards, so you need to click "next" until you get to the date) on Aug.
21, 2002:
Prof. Theophus (Thee) Smith, Emory Univ. Religion Dept. (faculty page)
Comments: Please add a link or reference to Erica Sherover-Marcuse's workshops and.or book, "Emancipation and Consciousness." Thank you for this website as a gift to us and tribute to Herbert.
From: I was a graduate student in Berkeley in the 1980s and trained with Ricky to lead her "Unlearning Racism Workshops"
March 30, 1986: personal letter from
Ricky to Harold Marcuse, in which she describes how Herbert could
spend a whole year reading 150 pages of Hegel with a graduate seminar
(a practice he learned with Heidegger). Ricky also mentions beginning
cancer treatments.
Ricky's sister Yeshi (Leslie)
Neumann (she was married to Herbert's stepson, Franz Neumann's son
Osha (Thomas) Neumann is a certified nurse-midwife in the San Francisco
Bay area. Her website is www.mamaswisdomcircle.com.[Dec. 2021: link is to the Dec. 2010 web archive version]
Osha (Thomas) Neumann
is a defense lawyer, artist and author in Berkeley, CA. He was married
to Yeshi, and they had a daughter, Rachel, and now a granddaughter as well.
In 2008 Osha published his
memoir, Up Against the Wall MotherF**ker: A Memoir of the 60s with Notes
for Next Time (Seven
Stories Press with google preview; $12
at amazon).
