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UID:Indybay-18832092
SEQUENCE:18985118
CREATED:20200403T213100Z
DESCRIPTION:For those interested in a workshop on ways to stretch their thinking to 
 search beyond personality into systems analysis when reading history and 
 literature, I am offering a one hour seminar on the subject next Wednesday, 
 April 8 at 11 am PT. You may reply to info(at)TheCommonsSF.org, and I will 
 supply a google hangout link.\n\nI am a middle school teacher and 
 literature-rooted social change activist.\n\nThe seminar reflects my own 
 peculiar interest in cultivating a transformative sociology. Too often we 
 humans look to extolling or deprecating historical and literary figures 
 when considering shared human experience. That's natural enough. We humans 
 like to praise and denounce heroes and villains, and to attribute to 
 personality the reason for happiness and unpleasantness. For instance, and 
 combining both hero and villain, both happiness and unpleasantness in one 
 personality, consider Napoleon Bonaparte. He brought The Terror to an end, 
 he systematized what had been arbitrary law, he established a popular 
 culture rooted in a rational approach to diet, urban organization, and 
 other matters. He also wreaked havoc with national borders, brought death 
 to millions, and relegitimated an authoritarian type of governance cloaked 
 in republican pretense. He's a riveting personality. But I want us to look 
 closely (staying with this Napoleon example) at the sociological 
 circumstances that both launched the French Revolution and enabled a kingly 
 institution to resume. Personalities come and go, but the social 
 circumstances that permit those personalities to flourish are my special 
 interest.\n\nThe seminar, titled "Exposing Villainy, Deposing Villains, a 
 land-centered sociological approach to teaching social studies and 
 literature" will present participants with a set of questions to pose to 
 themselves and others as they explore literature and social topics. I use 
 these questions when in discussions as I seek to cultivate my own "systems 
 analysis" thinking. The seminar is designed to smarten up conversation with 
 others, not serve merely as a theoretical muse.\n\nIn one hour I can only 
 hope to whet your appetite for more. Still, in one hour I believe I can 
 share enough of this systems analysis approach that you will have at least 
 one concrete concept in hand which you can put to immediate use in 
 conversation. Spoiler alert, here is that concept: Power/domination occurs 
 in locality. Power/domination over others doesn't exist in abstract space 
 but in particular geographic location.\n\nIf interested in participating in 
 the seminar, you must read a short story as grist for our discussion. That 
 short story, "Under the Lion's Paw," was written by the esteemed turn of 
 the 20th century American writer Hamlin Garland. It was purposefully 
 written to launch just the sort of systems analysis that has captured my 
 own imagination. With your confirmation of interest I will supply a link to 
 the story (it will take 20-30 minutes to read) and a link to the google 
 hangout on Wednesday, April 8, 11 am PT.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/03/18832092.php
SUMMARY:Smarten your socio-economic systems thinking seminar
LOCATION:A google hangout, details supplied upon confirmation of participation
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/03/18832092.php
DTSTART:20200408T180000Z
DTEND:20200408T190000Z
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