Free School University (FSU)

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Free School University (FSU) is a learning community of Occupy Boston. Topics vary from fun-and-games to politics and revolution. Our goal is to form an autonomous zone to entertain educate and enliven Occupiers and the general public, and to share skills needed to maintain it. The FSU has provided support and created the space for skill sharing, self-organization, teaching, and more than 150 learning opportunities so far. 

FSU Working Group Meetings take place every Friday from 5:30 - 7:30pm at the Harvest Food Coop Community Room (581 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge - near Central Square T stop). Note: We do not meet in the cafe. Go all the way to the rear of the store, behind the display case and up the stairs. The conference room will be on your left. It is not handicap accessible. Please let us know if this is a problem for you. For general inquiries or to join the FSU Working Group, please email: fsu@occupyboston.org.

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To schedule a teach-in, please submit the following information to fsu@occupyboston.orgIf you know the exact date and time and have all of the information below ready, please include POST: (date / time) in the Subject of your email. 

  • Date & Time
  • Location
  • Title & Brief Description
  • Short Biography
  • Working Group Association
  • Sponsors (if any)

After everything is confirmed, you can use the Occupy Boston Event Submission Form to expedite posting to the occupyboston.org event calendar.

 CURRENT TEACH-INS 

FSU-RADIO

FSU-RADIO is an educational series by the Free School University at Occupy Boston that streams live on OB Radio every Wednesday night at 7pm. Our goal is to maintain an autonomous zone to entertain educate and enliven Occupiers and the general public. Our purpose is to provide support and space for skill sharing and sharing basic info regarding Occupy Boston and to encourage self-organization, teaching, and learning opportunities.Call 617-506-9726 with questions or comments during the show, or join the IRC chat at occupyboston.org/radio.

Dennis Fox

Wednesday, March 21, 2012: Rebroadcast of "Anarchism, Democracy, and Occupy" on February 1 with Dennis Fox, an anarchist and social psychologist who has been involved with Occupy Boston since the beginning. In the Fall, he taught several courses at the FSU at Occupy Boston in Dewey Square on the intersections of anarchism, psychology, and law. Dennis began exploring these topics in the 1970s while participating in the Boston Clamshell Alliance and Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook. 

Emmett Schaefer: The Racial Divide & Building Unity Among the 99%

Wednesday, March 28, 2012: Emmett Schaefer is a senior lecturer in sociology at UMass Boston. His classes all center around race, gender and social class.  He will talk about the racial divide in this supposedly post-racial country of ours, and the need, in building unity among the 99%, to address issues that if not acknowledged could divide us, such as structural or institutionalized racism. We, the 99% really do have much in common, and our common purpose can only be strengthened by attention to structural inequalities among us.

The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series

From the Organizers of The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series: We, as citizens, academics, and members of the 99%, would like to contribute to the conversation taking place at Occupy Boston about how to make a better, more equitable world for all of us. In the radical and participatory spirit of Occupy Boston and similar radical movements of the past, we see our role, as Giovanni Arrighi once argued, as helping the movement to develop its "own autonomy through an understanding of the broader processes, both national and global, in which their struggles [are] taking place" (The Winding Paths of Capital, New Left Review, Mar-Apr 2009). 

We wish to participate in the movement not from a position of authority, but one of mutual dialogue. While people know their situation much better than we ever will, as academics we are better positioned "to understand the wider context in which it develops" (Ibid). For this reason we have created a series of lectures in which academics lead a dialogue with Occupy Boston participants on issues of economic, political, and social justice. We call these lectures The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series at Occupy Boston in honor of the late, great Boston Historian. More programming to be announced! For an archive of past lectures, click here

Carl Finamore: On the Egyptian Revolution

Friday, March 23, 2012 (6:00 - 8:00pm, Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor, Boston): Carl Finamore was a first-hand witness to the Egyptian Revolution last year that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Finamore has been back several times to Egypt and will speak on the dynamics and impact of the Revolution.

Peace & Justice Forum

OBRadio: Veterans for Peace

This weekly radio broadcast organized by members of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans For Peace streams live on OB Radio every Monday night at 6:00pm. Call 617-506-9726 with questions or comments during the show, or join the IRC chat at occupyboston.org/radio.

Monday, March 26, 2012 (6:00pm): Hosted by Bob Funke, member of the Peace Action Working Group at Occupy Boston and Vietnam Veteran For Peace. Veterans For Peace is a non-profit educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war employing the motto "De Oppresso Liber" (Liberate the Oppressed).

Community Gathering | Peace & Economic Justice

Monday, April 9, 2012 (6:00pm): Occupy Boston Community Gatherings are held weekly on Monday evenings at St Paul's Cathedral on Tremont Street, from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. The first half hour of the Community Gatherings are set aside for socializing or mini working group meetings. Free School University will host a Community Gathering based on the theme of Peace and Economic Justice and will include educational programming. Programming is to be determined, and anyone interested in helping to build the event is welcome to attend our Working Group meetings on Fridays from 5:30pm to 7:00pm at the Harvest Co-Op in Central Square.


 RESOURCES 

Free School University

Working Group Information

  • Working Group, register and login to participate. You do not have to login to view the FSU files on our working groups page.
  • List Serve, sign up for our working group's email list
  • Living Agenda for upcoming FSU Working Group meetings
  • Wiki Talk Page, space to share ideas for building this wiki page and FSU generally

Meeting Notes

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October - November 2011  December 23, 2011
December 2, 2011 December 26, 2011 February 3, 2012
December 7, 2011 January 6, 2012 February 10, 2012
December 16, 2011 January 20, 2012 February 24, 2012






The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series

Archives

Past Teach-Ins

Since our first teach-in on October 7, 2011, the Occupy Boston Free School University has created the space for more than 150 teach-ins! For a complete list of past teach-ins, click here

Videos

To access our video archive, including nearly 40 videos of our past teach-ins, click here. If you have video you would like us to add to the archive or links to coverage of FSU events in the news, please email them to us at fsu@occupyboston.org.

Media Coverage