The Free University of NYC

Call For Papers: American Anthropological Association

Annual Conference: Chicago, Illinois – November 20^th – 24^th, 2013

Panel Title: The New “Youth Movements”: Political Subjectivity, Crisis, and Resistance

Panel Organizers: Manissa McCleave Maharawal (mmaharawal@gc.cuny.edu), CUNY Graduate Center; Zoltán Glück, (zgluck@gc.cuny.edu), CUNY Graduate Center

In late October, 2011 Egyptian activists wrote a solidarity letter to Occupy Wall Street in which they stated: “an entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things,” (Guardian 2011). Identifying a commonality in their struggles, the letter expresses a blunt urgency; that their generation is going to have to create “what we can no longer wait for” (ibid). This urgency was also seemingly felt by thousands around the world as youth-led movements over the past two years have toppled governments from Tunis to Montreal. Within these movements, and in their wake, new forms of political practices, political identities, and solidarities have emerged and begun to change the way that young people facing dire social and economic challenges understand their lived reality. Youth worldwide continue to be hit the hardest by the global economic turbulence and job crises (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2012) and are slated for continued economic struggles. However, as shown by their overwhelming participation in various political struggles around the globe, youth are challenging these conditions in a myriad of complex and organized ways. Continue reading →

Turn the City into a Free University!  A Free University in Every Park!

May Day 2013
Multiple Free Universities across NYC
Call to Education

The Free University of NYC invites neighborhood organizations, schools, unions, spiritual centers, and other community education-oriented groups to create your own Free Universities this May 1st. Continue reading →

If you read the last meeting minutes, you may know that we are pulling together a first draft of our Free University Tool Kit. This will be compiled of material already collaboratively written by the community about Free Education. There are a couple of sections that can be collectively answered here and now, too!!

Please reply to purcellkathleen85@gmail.com with answers to these questions below. They can be one word or lengthier, but as we hope to include as much of your answers as possible, please keep it brief. In fact, short sentences and phrases (even one word) is preferable: Continue reading →

Just a few weeks ago, author and environmental activist Bill McKibben spoke on Democracy Now! and recounted an interesting anecdote to host Amy Goodman. McKibben noted that Nelson Mandela, in his first visit to the U.S. after his release from a 27-year prison sentence in South Africa, made sure to stop at the Berkeley campus at the University of California.

Berkeley was “the cradle of the divestiture movement” of the mid 1980’s, according to the Los Angeles Times. The movement prompted colleges and universities throughout the U.S. (as well as pension and municipal funds)to abandon any investments in companies that operated in South Africa, then under apartheid. Berkeley students “boycotted classes, occupied the offices of top administrators, and were arrested in numbers reminiscent of the 1960s.” They even built shantytowns on campus to force a response from administration.  The hard, gritty work eventually paid off and the University of California divested their $3 billion worth of investments in South Africa. Dozens of colleges and universities across the country followed suite.

Continue reading →