How can we work with human differences found in a shared space, and so discover mutual support and action? How does action for the public good emerge from differences in sociality, politics, or class? The simultaneous recognition of difference and the common was a major part of the work of thinker Hannah Arendt.
Fred’s work at the Field, following visits in 2015 and 2016, will explore new ways of thinking of the common, and show how difference and the common depend on each protecting the other. The opening talk, followed by a three-session group reading of Hannah Arendt’s “The Public Realm: The Common”, from Arendt’s The Human Condition, are open to all.
No prior experience with the thinker, advance knowledge, or concurrent reading is necessary. All educational levels are welcome. We invite people from diverse backgrounds (in experience, class, gender, sexuality, politics, skin color, birth place, legal status etc.) to participate in the Field’s mission!
Talk and discussion: Saturday 30th March – 6pm – 7.30pm
The talk will be followed by dinner at the Field, 8pm – 10pm
Working Group Session #1, Sunday 31st March, 3pm
Reading and discussion.
Gather for a social at the Field or Pub afterwards, 6pm-8pm
Working Group Session #2, Saturday 6th April, 3pm-6pm
Continue reading the text aloud and discussion.
Working Group Session #3, Sunday 7th April, 3pm-10pm
Finish reading the text and have a broader discussion of how to apply lessons from the working group to experiences in activism, at the Field and elsewhere. (3pm-7.30pm)
Followed by dinner at the Field, 8pm – 10pm.
Fred Dewey
Fred visited the Field in 2015 to discuss his book The School of Public Life (doormats’15), emphasizing the discovery of neighborhood, avoiding activist exhaustion, and building power. He returned in 2016 to conduct a Hannah Arendt Working Group, out of which emerged a neighborhood action. Dewey is author of two pamphlets, “A Polis for New Conditions”, and “From an Apparent Contradiction in Arendt to a Working Group Method”. He was director of Beyond Baroque, in Los Angeles, from 1996-2010. Since 2011, he has conducted public, free Hannah Arendt Working Groups in Berlin, Oslo, Paris, Brussels, Asheville, North Carolina, and Los Angeles. Fred helped put neighborhood councils into Los Angeles city law. In the summer of 2017, in Berlin, he expanded his Working Group model to sites across the city, creating a “portable polis” in conjunction with ZK/U’s “Hacking Urban Furniture” project.