Potential
Frenchy Friday Revival!
Are you, like me, an occasional speaker of French? Etes-vous vraiment fluent et peuvez-vous me rendre tranquille avec votres... uh.... comment dit-on "unemcumbered genius in wielding grammar and vocabulary"? Or are you simply interested in learning more French than yer high school class had to offer?
Come one, come all francophiles as we resurrect the spirit of last year's Frenchy Friday group in a fantastic soiree full of frenchiness... Bring music, food, wine, flamboyant hats, anything that speaks of your love for the language of love, and we will do our best to converse in French all night long.... When we run out of words, i have dictionnaires :o)
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, and Death: Our Existential Predicament
LONELINESS, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND DEATH:
OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT
Have you noticed a loneliness that cannot be solved by love?
Are you sometimes aware of a depression not caused by circumstances?
Do you have free-floating existential anxiety?
Is your 'fear of death' out of proportion to the actual threat?
These 4 and 7 other similar phenomena will be explored in this electronic group.
Our method of exploration is looking deeply into ourselves.
This cyber-seminar will take place by means of an already-established Yahoo Group
called The Existential Freedom Group.
Each month, beginning as soon as 10 people have the book and are ready to discuss it,
we will read and discuss one chapter from a book called:
Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, and Death.
Over 50 pages from this book can be read on the Internet.
Just click the title above.
Students and faculty at the University of Minnesota
will find this book in Wilson Library.
And the publisher—Existential Books—offers to donate this book
to any public or academic library that will agree to put it on the shelves.
(Here are the details about this offer of free books for libraries.)
Readers who would prefer to own a copy
should buy it directly from the publisher.
A comprehensive course description will appear if you click those words.
Are You a Person of Spirit? Six Capacities of Our Human Spirits
ARE YOU A PERSON OF SPIRIT?
SIX CAPACITIES OF OUR HUMAN SPIRITS
Name of facilitator:
James Park
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
(612) 871-7275
course description:
Being together with other persons of spirit can help us to tune-in to our higher capacities.
In the first meeting we will attempt to define and distinguish these four dimensions of our selves:
(1) our physical dimension
(given by our genes);
(2) our emotional-psychological dimension
(learned since birth);
(3) our intellectual dimension
(characterized by words, verbal learning);
(4) our spiritual dimension
(beyond body, heart, and mind; manifest in the following 6 capacities).
Our human spirits show themselves in these six phenomena:
(1) self-transcendence, self-criticism, and altruism;
(2) freedom—our ability to shape our own lives;
(3) creativity—our ability to bring something new into being;
(4) love—which opens us to encountering others as Thou;
(5) anxiety—which puts us in touch with our underlying Malaise;
(6) joy and fulfillment—opening to living beyond angst and despair.
Because the life of our spirits is so fragile, it is very easy to ignore the budding of our spirits,
so that our spiritual life dries up and disappears.
If we want our spirits to grow, we must prize and nurture whatever inkling of spirit we have
rather than dismissing and forgetting these capacities because they lack immediate practical value.
Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology
IMPRINTED SEXUAL FANTASIES:
A NEW KEY FOR SEXOLOGY
Facilitator:
James Park, existential philosopher
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone:
612-871-7275
Course description:
We will read and discuss a book of the same name:
Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology.
ISF offers a new explanation of human sexuality:
Each person is imprinted with specific sex-scripts
or sexual fantasies during our first 20 years of life.
Our first sexual responses are created not by nature,
not by nurture, but by mental imprinting.
If this hypothesis proves substantially correct,
it could revolutionize modern sexology.
Is this seminar for you?
Ten teasers from the text might help you decide.
Eleven chapters will be discussed in 5 sessions:
Session 1:
I. INTRODUCING THE SEX-SCRIPT HYPOTHESIS
This chapter is available free of charge on the Internet:
See the table of contents.
Participants in this class should read these 16 pages
before the first session.
After we introduce the class and the participants,
we will discuss this first chapter.
Copies of the printed book will be available in class
for the wholesale price: $25.
Session 2:
II. THE EVOLUTIONARY BACKGROUND OF HUMAN SEX-SCRIPTS
III. SEXUAL IMPRINTING AT CRITICAL PERIODS IN PSYCHO-SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
Session 3:
IV. THREE LEVELS OF SEX-SCRIPTS
V. VARIETIES OF SEX-SCRIPTS
Session 4:
New Ways of Loving: How Authenticity Transforms Relationships
NEW WAYS OF LOVING:
HOW AUTHENTICITY TRANSFORMS RELATIONSHIPS
Name of facilitator: James Park
E-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone: 612-871-7275
Course description:
Explore new perspectives for creating
more open, free, and growing relationships.
In five sessions we will explore 8 themes:
Session 1:
Meeting the other men and women of the group.
Introducing all the themes and distributing books.
Session 2:
(Ch. 1) recovering from romantic illusions;
(Ch. 2) becoming more Authentic;
Session 3:
(Ch. 3) maintaining freedom in love;
(Ch. 4) transcending pre-existing needs;
Session 4:
(Ch. 5) preventing jealousy by becoming unique;
(Ch. 6) opening to loving more than one person;
Session 5:
(Ch. 7) reinventing sex;
(Ch. 8) outgrowing masculinity and femininity.
Our resource for this seminar is: New Ways of Loving:
How Authenticity Transforms Relationships by James Park.
Click here for more information about the text.
Over 60 pages are available on the Internet.
These 8 chapters will be available in class for $20
Or you can buy the complete book in the sixth edition, 2007, for $35.
See options for buying these chapters.
James Park is an existential philosopher and the leader of this seminar.
A comprehensive course description appears here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-NWL.html.
The Facebook Page for the Experimental College
has pictures of both of the EXCO classes on love held so far,
spring and fall 2009.
As you will see in these pictures,
this EXCO class draws more women than men.
Class Time: each session is two hours.
Class Dates: to be arranged.
Becoming More Authentic: The Positive Side of Existentialism
E-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone: 612-871-7275
BECOMING MORE AUTHENTIC:
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF EXISTENTIALISM
Do you want to make your life more:
autonomous, focused, organized, and meaningful?
Using a small book of the same name,
we will first define Authenticity, take an Authenticity Test,
consider several possible Authentic projects-of-being,
and finally explore Authenticity as described by
Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Maslow.
If you would like to read a three-page presentation
of the basic concept of Authenticity, go to:
Becoming More Authentic:
The Positive Side of Existentialism.
Another way to describe Authenticity
is to ask where we are on any of
23 growth scales.
If you click the link above,
you will see a phrase describing where we all begin
and a contrasting phrase describing
the destination toward which we move
if we are becoming more Authentic.
For example, here is the fourth growth scale:
In original existence,
we 'pursue' culturally-provided meanings and goals.
Whereas as we become more Authentic,
we create our own meanings and goals.
Existentialism affirms our personal freedom
to re-create our selves:
What is the new purpose of my life?
The instructor is James Park,
existential philosopher and author of the text,
which will be available in class for $15.
(But see cheaper options for buying the book.)
A comprehensive course description appears here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-AU.html.
Class Time:
four meetings, two hours each,
to be arranged to suit the largest number of interested persons.
Class Dates:
