The Free University begins today, and we couldn’t be more excited. Despite the crappy weather, school’s in! Kicking things off this afternoon is a great lineup of classes, discussions and workshops. A full list of activities follows below. Come on out!
Tuesday, September 18
Building the Free University as a Safe Space: Community Intention Visioning Session
Starts: 1:30 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 3:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Lawn
Description: The CARE (Comfort/Art/Rest/Energy) Station is a dedicated area in the park where people can go to chill out, eat food, meditate, make art and music, design signs and banners, tell and write stories, do yoga, dance, take a break or a nap, play, or do whatever else their bodies and minds need throughout the week. The CARE Station is a space to have conversations about what’s happening at the Free University and how we envision it for the rest of the week and beyond. It’s also a space to find peace and quiet. Conversations and concerns about racial and gender justice and discussions of oppression, experience, allyship, and feminist and anti-racist movement-building will be put front and center. We will start each day with a short, facilitated, dynamic community intention visioning session, continue these conversations throughout the day, and end each day with a debrief. Visions and concerns that arise during the debrief or anytime during the day will be put on the agenda at the evening GA each night. While childcare will not be provided, children are welcome at the CARE Station.
What is Money – What is Debt led by Sue Waters
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Description: The talk explains why all our money is debt owed to private banks with interest: federal government, corporations, students, credit cards, mortgages, etc. The control of money by private hands has a long history, but there is another history of the people controlling their own money. Come and discuss.
Urban Studies Seminar (closed session)
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: A
The Carceral State (seminar class) with Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: B
Longing for the American Dream a lecture by Drucilla Cornell
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 3:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Statue
Reading Group: Claude McKay’s BANJO, Holcomb, Edwards led by Anne Donlon
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 3:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: M
Screen Printing with Occupy Wall Street Screen Print Coop
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 5:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Lawn
Description: In the spirit of a new paradigm, focused on anti-consumerism and upcycling old materials into unique art objects, we encourage you to bring your own items for printing! Any cotton or cotton/poly items — tees, hoodies, light jackets, even tote bags can be printed. (And we get really amped about printing over corporate logos!) We’ll plan to bring some new & gently used shirts, but this is sort of an experiment to get people to think differently about the apparel industry. We also welcome donated clothes to share with others!
Open Source Currency led by Chris Alen Sula
Starts: 3:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Description: Learn how local currencies are catching on in Greece using open source software and discuss ways in which technology could be used to support alternative economies here.
Learning Run on a Barter led by Trade School NY
Starts: 3:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: N
Description: During this session we will present what is Trade School, talk about self-organized learning space, discuss what it means to run on a barter, and end with an interactive game.
Anarchism 101 led by Tristan Husby
Starts: 3:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: K
Description: This interactive workshop is a basic introduction to the histories, theories and cultures of the many different types of anarchisms from around the world.
A Discussion of “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman led by L.A. Murphy
Starts: 3:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: M
Description: Jo Freeman first presented this essay in 1971 based on her experiences in consciousness raising and other women’s groups She describes how these groups functioned and argues that groups defined as having no structure are typically acting under an unacknowledged and non-accountable hierarchy. Discussion: can her insight be useful in current organizing?
Radical Potentiality: Recreating Academic Practices in the Humanities led by Kristin Moriah
Starts: 4:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: L
Description: We’re on a fact finding and alliance building mission. We want to know how you have been able to blend radical politics into your practice of the humanities and stimulate a sense of activism within your departments. Collectives, reading and writing groups offer ways to build supportive intellectual communities within the humanities, but are there other models that we might look at? What does the ideal humanities department look like to you?
Rhizomatic Communication and Distributed Direct Action led by Joan Donovan of Occupy LA/InterOccupy
Starts: 4:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 5:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: N
Description: This discussion will enhance our understanding of the current organizational structure of OWS by looking at the nature of communication between occupations. We will trace the forums of communication and networks of solidarity that were critical to coordinating this past year’s actions including the West Coast Port Shut Down, the ALEC protests on F29, May Day, and other distributed direct actions. We will conclude by discussing the lessons learned by organizing direct actions through social media and brainstorm ways to improve the flow of information across the movement.
Nietzsche vs Socrates: Can Leaves be Truthful? led by Aaron Finbloom
Starts: 4:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 5:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: M
Description: Socrates says that everything in our empirical reality is merely a copy of a perfect form. Nietzsche says that the theory of the forms is an elaborate deception used to make us feel comfortable and shy away from the real truth. And somewhere in all this mess, leaves (in the spirit of the Fall) are battle ground upon which these philosophical battles are waged.
Thinking Movements in Time: a discussion led by Susan Buck Morss, Marina Sitrin, and Gary Wilder
Starts: 4:30 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 5:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Description: Thinking Movements in Time’, it will be a facilitated discussion using a few frameworks put forth by Walter Benjamin, such as ‘Pulling the Emergency Break’ and ‘Now Time’ to help us think about the Occupy movement as well as movements in the past, and how we imagine the future.
The NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium led by Ben Katchor
Starts: 4:30 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Description: A weekly symposium for artist/writers working in various text-image forms: comics, picture-stories, animation, etc. at which to present and critique current work. The symposium will examine new ideas for the distribution of print and electronic work that move beyond the existing models of publishing and advertising. We will re-examine the relationship between readers and autographic writers. Emphasis will be placed on self-initiated work and the development of a self-sustaining economic model for such work. Meetings will be facilitated by a rotating group of practitioners and guest speakers. The weekly agenda will be decided upon by participants. The symposium will offer an ongoing place to learn and think about the traditions and future of text-image work.
Facilitation Training
Starts: 4:30 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 5:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Flagpole
Description: Facilitation Training and Workshop: This is basic workshop on Consensus Process and Facilitation skills. We will be going over the structures and practice of Consensus, doing role playing exercises, and collectively working through questions about potential “facilitation problems.”
Yoga led by Nate Hohauser
Starts: 5:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Lawn
Description: Nate is a native New Yorker from the Lower East Side, he grew up in a family of Yogis and Martial Artists. Nate’s Classes focus on breathing and cultivating energy and focus through the breaths we share.
STRIKE DEBT: The History of Debt Resistance led by George Caffentzis
Starts: 5:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Statue
Description: Debt slavery, indenture, torture and imprisonment have a long history, but so does resistance to them. The class will trace the forms of debt resistance in the past, aiming to glean the knowledge of those involved in previous anti-debt struggles to help us in our debt resistance today.
Virginia Woolf and the Free University led by Ashley Foster
Starts: 5:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: K
C.A.R.E. Evening debrief
Starts: 5:30 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 6:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Lawn
Description: A time to reflect on the day and the week and think about how to move forward, safely and respectfully
Evening Debrief and General Assembly
Starts: 6:00 pm
Ends: Tuesday, September 18 – 7:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Statue
Description: Each day will end with a debrief and and General Assembly wherein we discuss, synthesize, and process the lessons and conversations of the day. We will have variously themed break-out groups on movement building, next steps, and the future of Free University project.
More details…
