From: nyms1-AT-nyxfer.blythe.org (Bill Koehnlein)
Subject: Brecht Forum/NY Marxist School December Events
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 16:32:29 -0500 (EST)
The Brecht Forum
The New York Marxist School
The Institute for Popular Education
122 West 27 Street, 10 floor
New York, New York 10001
(212) 242-4201
(212) 741-4563 (fax)
nyms1-AT-nyxfer.blythe.org (email)
*****
DECEMBER 1995 EVENTS
Unless noted, all events take place at The Brecht Forum.
SPECIAL EVENT
Join Friends of the Brecht Forum in an Arthur Felberbaum Award
Dinner Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of the New York
Marxist School & Honoring Richard Levins
You Are Invited to Join Friends of The Brecht Forum in an
Arthur Felberbaum Award Dinner
Honoring
Richard Levins
&
Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of
The New York Marxist School
Saturday, December 9 at 6 pm
at
The Dubinsky Student Center
Fashion Institute of Technology-SUNY
Eighth Avenue & 27 Street
New York City
Dinner: $45
Students/low income: $30
RSVP: (212) 242-4201
please call for special diet arrangements
This year, we are very pleased to be presenting the Arthur
Felberbaum* Award to Richard Levins, who has been an invaluable
advisor to The Brecht Forum throughout the years. Richard Levins
is an internationally-known biologist whose scientific work has
always focused on a dialectical, holistic, complex and dynamic
view of nature and society, particularly in the areas of
evolutionary theory, agriculture, and health.
Born a red diaper baby, Richard Levins has been active in the
left since his youth in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Since 1964, he
has worked hand-in-hand with Cuban scientists to develop
ecological agriculture and a commitment to an ecological
transformation of the whole society. In 1951, he moved with his
wife, Rosario Morales, to Puerto Rico where he farmed and was a
Coffee Region Organizer with the Communist Party. He went on to
become an unfriendly witness before the House Un-American
Activities Committee. He taught at the University of Puerto Rico
during the period of anti-war and pro-independence upsurges on
campus and was a member of the Movimiento Pro Independencia
(MPI), which became part of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party
(PSP).
Returning to the States, Richard Levins worked with the Young
Lords in Chicago and the Puerto Rico Solidarity Committee. He
currently resides in Boston and is a professor at Harvard
University's School of Public Health. He is an active member of
the New World Agriculture and Ecology Group and serves on the
board of Grassroots International. He has also worked with Oxfam
America and the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA).
His writings include _The Dialectical Biologist_, co-authored
with Richard Lewontin, and _Humanity and Nature_, co-authored
with Yrjo Haila.
*Arthur Felberbaum (1935-1979) was a founder of The New York
Marxist School, which grew out of the New York Committee for
Marxist Education. He, more than anyone else conceptualized the
pedagogical method of Marxist education and conceived the
framework for teaching Marxist theory in a democratic,
nonhierarchical, and dialectical manner. We learn from our past
while we look to the future, and it is in his memory that we
present the Arthur Felberbaum Award.
Previous Award winners are Cornel West, Bobbye Ortiz, and Manning
Marable.
To reserve a place at the Twentieth Anniversary Award Dinner,
send a check or money order for $45 per person ($30 student and
low income) payable to *The Brecht Forum* and mail to The Brecht
Forum, 122 West 27 Street, 10 floor, New York, New York 10001.
For Visa or MasterCard reservations, call The Brecht Forum office
at (212) 242-4201.
To be listed on the Greeters page in the Dinner Journal, please
send a contribution of $20 or more to The Brecht Forum.
It's clear to me now, more than ever before, that the tasks of
seeking truth and changing the world go hand in hand and that the
key to making our lives matter is doing both things vigorously
and without fear. --Arthur Felberbaum
*****
LECTURES
After Beijing? Assessing the U.N. Womens' Conference
Carol Barton, Marilyn Clement, Jennie Green & Jan C. Jamshidi
Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 pm; $6
Panelists attended the Women's Conference in Beijing and will
discuss its implications in terms of human rights, economic
issues and issues of peace and war. Marilyn Clement is the
director of Womens International League for Peace and Freedom.
Jennie Green is a staff attorney for the Center for
Constitutional Rights. Jan C. Jamshidi works with the Women's
Institute for Freedom of the Press.
***
Apartheid's Future in South Africa & the United States: Signs of
Convergence?
Peter Marcuse, Mzwanele Mayekiso & Ron Shiffman
Friday, December 1 at 7:30 pm; $6
Legal apartheid was abolished five years ago in South Africa and
the ANC government faces enormous problems in erasing its
vestiges. In the U.S., slavery was abolished over 130 years ago,
yet problems of segregation and inequality persist in continually
changing forms. Is it possible that patterns in the two countries
will converge? Focusing on developments affecting major urban
centers, South African civic movement leader Mzwanele Mayekiso,
Columbia professor Peter Marcuse and NYC Planning Commissioner
Ron Shiffman will discuss the forces influencing the outcome in
South Africa and possible parallels in this country.
***
The World Bank in the New World Order
Dennis Brutus & Sylvia Federici
Saturday, December 2 at 7 pm; $6
Brutus and Federici will review the origins of the IMF and World
Bank and the changes in their policies that have shaped their
role in the world today. They will examine the neoliberal
policies that these institutions are imposing across the globe,
and discuss the alternatives posed by the Fifty Years is Enough
Campaign to transform the Bretton Woods institutions into
democratic and accountable bodies, and to promote alternative
development paradigms. Dennis Brutus is a noted South African
writer and former political prisoner. Silvia Federici teaches
political philosophy at Hofstra University and has written on the
debt crisis and on women's issues.
***
The End of the Welfare State?
Jan Myrdal
Monday, December 4 at 8 pm; $6
How the welfare state is being dismantled in Europe, as seen by
the son of welfare capitalism's pioneering social engineers,
Nobel Laureates Gunnar and Alva Myrdal. Jan Myrdal, the angry
rebel of the sixties, has become Sweden's most prominent author.
He has written over seventy books and his many television
documentaries include a controversial program on the crisis in
Sweden's socialized health care which featured his own open heart
surgery--surely a first in TV journalism.
***
Consumer Culture & TV Programming
Robin Andersen
Thursday, December 7 at 7:30 pm; $6
To what extent does the advertising industry control what we see
on TV? What is the political and cultural environment that
provides for the phenomenon of the corporate shaping of the mass
media? Author Robin Andersen addresses these questions, which
ultimately intertwine with the very concept of democracy. Robin
Andersen is associate professor of Media Studies at Fordham
University.
***
Popular Culture in the United States: A Gramscian Perspective
Joseph Buttigieg
Monday, December 11 at 8 pm; $6
Gramsci's theory of the national-popular has interesting
implications for the development of a distinctively socialist
popular culture. This talk will focus on the ways in which
Gramsci's ideas on folklore, common sense and good sense, and the
relation between class and ideology can sharpen our understanding
of popular culture in the U.S. Author and Gramsci scholar
Joseph A. Buttigieg is Professor of English and Fellow of the
Center for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
***
_Under Fire_: Movie/Discussion Night
Thursday, December 14 at 7:30 pm; $5
Co-sponsored with the Upper West Side/Tipitapa Sister City
Project
We'll watch and dissect _Under Fire_, the 1983 flick starring
Gene Hackman, Nick Nolte and Ed Harris about North Americans
caught in a fanciful version of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution,
with a focus on the role of the press. Discussion leaders: Patty
Lee Parmalee and Danny Luce. Popcorn and beer available!
*****
POPULAR EDUCATION WORKSHOP
Image Theater: Cop-in-the-Head
presented by The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory
Friday, December 15 from 6-9 pm and Saturday, December 16 from 11
am to 4 pm; $50
An eight-hour introductory workshop based on the work of
Brazilian director and political activist Augusto Boal.
"Cop-in-the-Head" is an introspective technique used to recognize
and confront internalized forms of oppression. Objective: To
explore relations of power and collective solutions to concrete,
individual problems. We begin with someone recounting a personal
experience of oppression, then gradually go from the particular
to the general. In the end, the group, and not the original
story-teller, has become the protagonist. No prior theater
experience is necessary, but workshops are strictly limited to
thirty people. Pre-registration is required.
*****
CLASS
Political Economy Workshop
Paul Cooney
Alternate Mondays, 6 to 8 pm; ongoing; $45
This ongoing workshop uses a Marxist approach to explore such
topics as: the implications of NAFTA and free trade, the
political economy of New York City, and the IMF and Third World
debt. Newcomers are welcome to join this ongoing group. A
background in the study of _Capital_ or political economy is
recommended. The group meets every two weeks for presentations
and discussions. Political economist Paul Cooney coordinates the
workshop.
*****
All Brecht Forum lectures are available on audiotape at $8 per
lecture. To order, make checks or money orders payable to *The
Brecht Forum* and mail to The Brecht Forum, 122 West 27 Street,
10 floor, New York, New York 10001. For orders outside the U.S.,
please send a bank check or international money order payable in
U.S. funds and enclose an additional US$5 per order to cover the
cost of air postage.
//30
--- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
------------------
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005