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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)
SUSTAINable ACTIVITIES for Individuals and Groups
The commonplace Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse paradigm needs help. Limiting harm is not very motivating.
- There are POSITIVE sustainable ACTIVITIES.
- Humans can actually help the 'Growth' of Diversity, Productivity and Stability! (as understood in Ecology)
- We will compile a list of individual ACTIONS and larger COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES. Please brainstorm for the list even now.
- Meeting Details: Beginning as soon as Feb. 10th, but now more likely the week of the 15th.
- We will meet in the evening, 6pm or later for about 2 hours, once per week for 4 weeks, or more if people want.
- Location: TBD, Centrally located to participants in Mpls or St. Paul; please email the location you will be coming from.
- Day of Week: not Tu, because I am taking an exco class: Voices of Rondo - Saint Paul's Historic Black Community
- Please email or call me with: days of the week that work for you, your location and if you would like to start at 6, 7, or 8pm
Dramatic Long-Form Improv
Are you tired of dumb gags and silly guessing games? Sick of fart jokes and stereotypical characters? Do you think Improv theater can be something more?
The purpose of this class is to explore the potential for drama and realism Improv theater. We will progress rapidly from standard scene and character games into long-form games.
Some experience in Improv and/or theater is preferred, and a willingness to explore new improvisational ideas is a requirement.
PLEASE NOTE that the schedule listed below is rather arbitrary, we will decide as a class when and how often to meet!!!
I want to make a schedule that everyone can adhere to because I want to form a sort of troupe where we grow together and can trust each other as performers. I will wait until we have enough people to begin the class. If you have ANY questions or ideas, or want to talk about Improv, please contact me. Thanks!
Writing Self through Gender
We plan, in this class, to take that strange animal, the memoir, and turn it on its head. Memoir is best thought not merely as "who am I," but more centrally as "where do I belong." Part of belonging is seeing yourself and being seen, being naked to yourself and the world at large. This nakedness tends to expose our fears, fears which can be addressed through understanding, self-exploration, and self-revelation. We plan to address one aspect of that fear, the fear of being seen as a gendered person, through memoir, understood here broadly as any text (written, audio, visual, performative) that engages in real self-exploration. We will be employing various media to facilitate self-exploration, including personal essays, audio, video, performance, etc. Each week students will be expected to read short personal essays and listen to/watch relevant audio and visual pieces. Students should come to class prepared to discuss how gender participates in the formation of identity, and how this understanding can aid with the development of memoir. Students will also be expected to keep a journal, from which they will ultimately draw their final project, to be presented to the class. This course calls for self-revelation, both through the final project and throughout the semester. Therefore it will require courage. But fear not: we're all in this together.
The class will meet for two hours each week for twelve weeks. People of all backgrounds and levels of experience are encouraged to attend.
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.
Creating a World Peace Force
Creating a World Peace Force
NAME OF FACILITATOR:
James Park
E-MAIL ADDRESS:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
PHONE:
612-871-7275
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Even a movement requiring 100 years for completion
must begin with year one.
How many of the 6 billion people living on the Earth
would favor giving up their national armed forces
if there were a World Peace Force
to maintain world law-and-order?
Today probably less than 5% would agree to disarm.
But if each year this percentage
could be increased by 1 percentage point,
then about 100 years from now,
the World Peace Force would be fully operational.
Local police forces would still be required
to enforce all local, state, and national laws.
But the World Peace Force would prevent genocide
and keep all conflicts between nations non-violent.
This seminar will take place by means of a Facebook Page
of the same name: CREATING A WORLD PEACE FORCE.
On the Discussion Board of this Facebook Page,
we will present and discuss one theme per month.
Here are some of the themes:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/Y-WPF-B.html
These 3-page essays include titles such as:
"Blessed are the Peacemakers"
"How a World Peace Force Would Handle Situations Like Iraq
Better than the United States as Policeman"
"World without War"
"World Peace Force---100 Years for Transition"
and a series under the general title:
WHAT WOULD THE WORLD PEACE FORCE DO?
What might emerge from this EXCO group?
Do you want to meet others who dream
of making Earth a planet at peace?
While we work to end particular wars,
can we imagine ways in which such wars could have been prevented?
Spread the word among all your friends committed to peace.
A complete course description appears here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/ED-WPF.html
FACILITATOR:
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:
Voluntary Poverty: How to Simplify Your Life
Name of facilitator:
James Park
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone:
612-871-7275
Course description:
VOLUNTARY POVERTY:
HOW TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE
Would you like to meet other people who live simply?
This seminar has become a gathering place
for people already committed to voluntary simplicity.
What ideas do you have for saving money?
This seminar will be an opportunity to share our experiences
of living on much less than most people think is essential.
Can we be happy earning and spending less than $10,000 per year?
How do you obtain the small amount of money you need to survive?
How do you manage to spend so much less than other people?
Can any of your techniques be used by others?
Here is the comprehensive course description for this class:
Voluntary Poverty: How to Simplify Your Life,
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-VP.html
Here you will find more details about the life-style of the facilitator,
who lives at 75% of the federal poverty level.
You will also learn more about our Facebook Page,
which is called "Simple Living in the Twin Cities".
(There is also more about our Facebook Page
at the bottom of this course description.)
This workshop will be just one meeting of two hours.
This should be enough to share ideas for living cheaply.
If you would like to know how I save money on electricity, for example
(paying only $21 per month), go to:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-ELEC.html
If you would like to read some books on simplifying your life,
go to the Simplicity Bibliography:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/%7Eparkx032/B-SIMP.html
TIME:
The February meeting of this seminar
was attended by about 12 people.
We are likely to have another gathering soon.
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.
