Free University Week NYC
IT’S FREE UNIVERSITY WEEK!!! And the little nerd within me is jumping with glee for the 140+ classes that will be taking place, starting today, Tuesday the 18th, until the 22nd. Now, many of you may be asking yourselves, “Why would I want to go to extra classes?” I know you already have hectic schedules, but these lectures and seminars are interesting and engaging, with topics such as What is Money? What is Debt?, How Do People Make Places? and No War on Iran: Solidarity Not Intervention. Also, many of the week’s classes are taking on an Occupy Wall Street theme such as Occupy Business School and Ecosystem Before Economics: Occupy for All Species.
Free University Week represents what school is truly about, not grades or the cost of tuition or choosing the right field that will guarantee a high paying job, but the pursuit of and love for knowledge. The week is organized by the Free University of New York City, an experiment in radical education first conceived as a form of educational strike.
“Our project is born out of a recognition that the current system of higher education is as unequal as it is unsustainable. With increasing tuition at public and private institutions, the increasing use of precarious adjunct labor, and the larger and larger amounts of debt that students are expected to take on, a university education is systematically becoming a rarefied commodity only available to the few. It is in this context that the Free University operates as a radical and critical pedagogical space.”–The Principles of the Free University
So New Schoolers, listen up! Here are some events, occurring today, that caught my eye:
What is Money – What is Debt led by Sue Waters
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: 4:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Longing for the American Dream a lecture by Drucilla Cornell
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: 3:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Statue
Screen Printing with Occupy Wall Street Screen Print Coop
Starts: 2:00 pm
Ends: 5:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Lawn
Anarchism 101 led by Tristan Husby
Starts: 3:00 pm
Ends: 4:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: K
Nietzsche vs Socrates: Can Leaves be Truthful? Led by Aaron Finbloom
Starts: 4:00 pm
Ends: 5:00 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: M
Thinking Movements in Time: a discussion led by Susan Buck Morss, Marina Sitrin, and Gary Wilder
Starts: 4:30 pm
Ends: 5:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
The NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium led by Ben Katchor
Starts: 4:30 pm
Ends: 6:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: Pool
Virginia Woolf and the Free University led by Ashley Foster
Starts: 5:00 pm
Ends: 6:30 pm
Location: Madison Square Park: K
Go to the Free Univeristy of NYC’s website for the five day schedule.
This is what is great about attending college in NYC, the opportunity to attend wonderful and eye-opening events. Free University Week will take place in Madison Square Park. See below for a map of where day one’s classes and workshops will be held.
Stay connected. Visit the University’s Facebook page.
All images were taken from http://freeuniversitynyc.org/