[Peace] still space: JULY PROGRAM ON RADICAL POLITICS & SOCIAL CHANGE

Thu Jun 20 01:00:13 CDT 2002

I just returned from a two week workshop at the Institute for Social
Ecology and highly recommend ISE programs for folks interested in learning
an approach to transformative politics that's both highly pragmatic and
exhileratingly utopian.  Feel free to contact me if you have questions
about the ISE--I don't have specific knowledge of the Ecology and
Community program described below, but I'd be happy to talk about my
experience.

--Sarah K.

Please Forward Widely....to your students, classmates, friends, family

There are still a few spaces left for our July program.

Ecology & Community Program
At The Institute for Social Ecology
June 28 - July 27, 2002
9 credits

The ISE's Ecology and Community program is intended as an intensive
educational experience in the field of social ecology. This
interdisciplinary, college-level program explores social ecology, nature
philosophy, community development, political theory, social movements and
activism, popular education, radical agriculture, capitalism and
globalization, racism, feminism, and more. The curriculum is holistic and
multifaceted, set in the context of an integrative learning approach that
helps students understand the underlying principles and philosophy, as well
as connections between various disciplines, that comprise social ecology.
Moreover, ISE emphasizes a progressive education model that attempts to
empower students through the learning process itself.

The Ecology and Community program, in short, offers a radical, coherent
critique of current social and political trends, as well as a reconstructiv=
e
and ethical approach to social change, all the while facilitating
self-directed learning in a supportive yet challenging community-based
environment.

Principles of Social Ecology
Facilitated by Daniel Chodorkoff and Chaia Heller
Social ecology is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of people's
relationship to the rest of nature. Through a series of lectures and
discussions, this seminar will examine major themes in social ecology:
natural history and the dynamics of evolution, the emergence of hierarchy
and domination, dialectical naturalism, libertarian municipalism, the
politics of social ecology, feminism, ecology and development, and the
utopian tradition and visions for an ecological society. Through an
exploration of the theory and philosophy of social ecology, this seminar
will help students develop a holistic and coherent understanding of the
principles on which the field is based. Participation is recommended for al=
l
students.

Movement Building: Theory and Practice
Facilitated by Brian Tokar and Brooke Lehman
For more than three decades, social ecologists have articulated a radical
critique of conventional approaches to activism and pointed the way toward =
a
reconstructive vision of an ecological, directly democratic, and free
society. This seminar and practicum will explore the evolution and methods
of community organizing and activism, looking at case studies of recent
social movements and examining the ways in which a social ecological
critique can help many of today's movements develop in more potent
directions. Throughout the course, small groups will practice developing an=
d
articulating their own analysis, reconstructive vision, and organizing
strategies around a specific issue of their own choosing.

Radical Agriculture
Facilitated by Erin Royster and Ed Smith
For the past 100 years, the practice of agriculture has moved further away
from a sustaining base in ecology and natural systems, while becoming
increasingly unjust. Social ecology offers a nuanced understanding of the
economic and social pressures pushing agriculture down an ecologically
destructive path, and helps formulate agricultural methods and food system
paradigms in keeping with principles of democracy and ecology. This seminar
will explore as well as critique current agricultural issues and
alternatives, such as urban farming, permaculture, and community supported
agriculture, while also building a reconstructive vision of society to
inform agriculture and food activism. In addition, students will have the
opportunity to interact with local farmers and food activists in the centra=
l
Vermont community, and foster practical skills in organic gardening.

Toward Direct Democracy
Facilitated by Cindy Milstein
How can people come together to make decisions that affect society as a
whole in participatory, mutualistic, and ethical ways? Social ecology offer=
s
one vision in its notion of libertarian municipalism, which conceives of
politics as popular self-governance by confederated, face-to-face citizens'
assemblies. With this as our frame, we will explore direct democracy as bot=
h
a philosophical ideal=8Bwithin political traditions such as liberalism,
socialism, and anarchism=8Band potentially revolutionary practice. Through
lectures, discussions, readings, and writing exercises, we will look at
libertarian Left theories of a free society and tease out a dual power
strategy of social transformation that strives to balance the global and
local, the community and individual, even as it opposes statecraft and
capitalism.

Understanding Capitalism: Global Perspectives
Facilitated by Darini Nicholas and Peter Staudenmaier
The goal of this course is to understand capitalism and its context. We wil=
l
explore such questions as: What distinguishes capitalism as a social system=
?
What are its origins and structures, and how do they function? What is its
importance to social ecology? Drawing on the long history of emancipatory
struggles against capitalism, students will gain theoretical tools to help
them make sense of an apparently senseless system. We will also look at the
nature and impact of colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as the
historical underpinnings of racism throughout the capitalist transformation
of the New World and the non-Western nations of the South through to the
present state of globalization.

Radical Education, Deschooling, and Social Ecology
Facilitated by Matt Hern
For 150 years, compulsory state schooling has been a dominant feature of
social life. This seminar will investigate the rationales and repercussions
of a schooled society, and look at various levels of resistance to the
school monopoly, from alternative schools to deschooling to home learning t=
o
municipalization. It will also explore the historical and contemporary
relationships between anarchist theory, education, pedagogy, and culture,
focusing on the social and political implications of deschooling. Social
ecology needs to develop a coherent educational praxis, and collectively, i=
n
a variety of ways, we can examine and articulate what that might look like.

Feminism and Ecology
Facilitated by Chaia Heller
Exploring ecofeminism's roots within the radical feminist body politics of
the New Left, this seminar looks critically at the transformations in
ecofeminist discourse over the past two decades as the theory moves from a
=B3cold war=B2 ecofeminism infused with an antinuclear pacifist sensibility=
, to
a =B3postcolonial=B2 eco-feminism inspired by international forums on women=
,
development, and the environment. This seminar focuses on the potential of
creating an ecological feminist theory that in addition to challenging and
transforming understandings of gender and nature, proposes an
anarcha-feminism that confronts broader systems of capitalist and state
power.

Confronting Racism. Challenging Privilege. Building Movements.
Workshop series facilitated by Active Solidarity Collective and others
A four-part antiracism workshop will also be offered to shed light on the
origins of racism as well as how it relates to other forms of systemic
oppression and hierarchy, and to suggest strategies to overcome these
obstacles and build effective, multiracial movements for radical social
change.

The Institute for Social Ecology (ISE), located amid central Vermont's
rolling mountains, has been a center for education and action working with
the ideas of social ecology since the 1970s.  The ISE and its programs also
serve as a forum for serious dialogue among ecological, social justice, and
anti-capitalist activists, as a laboratory for new ecological technologies,
and as a resource for community groups around the world.

For more information on the this or other ISE programs visit our website
www.social-ecology.org

Institute for Social Ecology
Popular Education for a Free Society
1118 Maple Hill Road Plainfield, VT, 05667 USA
(802) 454-8493

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