Gramsci for Aotearoa: Free email course from The Kiwi Dialect
Kia ora,
The Kiwi Dialect now has a Courses section: a study stream for free, email-based socialist courses built from Aotearoa outwards.
We’re starting with Gramsci for Aotearoa — a short, grounded course on ideology, “common sense”, education, culture, and class power in New Zealand. You subscribe once, and each lesson arrives in your inbox like a letter from a comrade, not a platform.
What this course covers
Over six lessons we’ll look at:
Who Gramsci was, and why his questions still hit home now.
Hegemony: how ruling ideas become ordinary life.
Schools, media, NGOs, and arts as machinery of consent.
“Traditional” vs “organic” intellectuals in Aotearoa.
War of position: building counter-power from below.
Each lesson is short enough to read on the bus or in a stolen half-hour between shifts, but pointed enough to argue with.
How it works
It’s free. You just need to be subscribed to The Kiwi Dialect.
You’re in already if you’re reading this via email in the Courses section.
New readers can sign up via the button below and will start receiving lessons as they’re published.
Lessons will run twice a week for three weeks.
If you ever feel overwhelmed, you can turn off course emails in your Substack settings without unsubscribing from everything else.
Why Gramsci, why here?
New Zealand political life is saturated with the language of moderation, “what works”, and “just being realistic”. Behind that sits colonial land theft, landlord power, managerialism, and a whole apparatus that makes inequality feel normal.
Gramsci gives us a way to study that apparatus — not as detached theory, but as a toolkit: for teachers, unionists, artists, public servants, students, and anyone who’s sick of being told there is no alternative.
This is not a neutral course. It’s openly socialist, working-class in tone, and suspicious of respectable bullshit.
What you can do now
Hit subscribe (if you’re not already) so you get every lesson by email.
Forward this post to one person — a co-worker, student, comrade, or mate who might want to read along.
If you’re on socials, share the link with a line like:
“Free Gramsci course from The Kiwi Dialect — sign up and get it by email.”
The next post in this series will be Lesson 1: Who was Gramsci, and why read him now?
In solidarity,
The Kiwi Dialect