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--- about-us [2017/11/13 15:10]
Richard Greeman
+++ about-us [2019/07/10 13:44] (current)
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-===== About Us =====
+{{:green-future.jpg?200|Another World}}==== Future Historians: Is Another World REALLY Possible? ====
-{{:green-future.jpg?200|Another World}}====== Is Another World REALLY Possible? ======
+**International Study Group and Collaborative Writing Project**\\
+sponsored by Marxist Education Project and Victor Serge Foundation / convened by Richard Greeman
-===== International Study Group and Collaborative Writing Project =====
+=== About Us ===
-Sponsored by **Marxist Education Project** and **Victor Serge Foundation**
-Participants as of Nov 15, 2117 include:  **Anya Rebrii,Ukraine/NY**, activist and anthropology student; **Lola Girerd**, Paris, writer and social psychologist; **Brian Tokar**, Vermont, Institute of Social Ecology, activist,  author of Toward Climate Justice; **Jenny Greeman**, NY, Actor and educator; **Peter Hudis**, Chicago, Marxist-humanist philosopher and activist, author of //Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism// and //Franz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades//; Silvia Federici, veteran feminist, author of //Caliban and the Witch//; **Jason Hicks**, NYC transit worker, union activist, DSA member, philosopher; **Julia Guseva**, Moscow, translator of Victor Serge, anarcho-syndicalist activist, co-founder of Praxis Center; **Harry Halpin**, Paris, Internet revolutionary and activist, team member World Wide Web Consortium, author of //Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web//; **Alexei Gusev**, Moscow, Historian of Russian Oppositions, Chair of Praxis Center ;  **Maati Monjib**, Rabat, Morocco, historian of Africa and press freedom activist, currently facing 5 years in prison as an opponent of the Monarchy; **David Schwartzman**, DC biogeochemist, Green Party activist, author: “Solar Communism” and //Life, Temperature, and the Earth//; Samuel Day Fassbinder, author of Greening the Academy and scholar of Marx and utopianism;  **Fred Murphy**, ecosocialism group leader at the Marxist Education Project and DSA climate-justice activist; **Richard Gumbo**, writer, New York/New Orleans; **Barry Feldman**, Chicago; and **Dan Hort**, artistic producer and progressive entrepreneur.
+For more than a year, starting in September 2017, our Future Historians seminar met on a weekly or monthly basis, both in-person in New York City, and via online teleconferencing across a dozen time zones. Participants ranged from California to Moscow and points in between, including Paris, France; Rabat, Morocco; and Vermont, Washington DC, Chicago, and California. Videos of these sessions are available on our [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPjQ6Ku50OfG1XP1j0OHEyQ/videos?disable_polymer=1|YouTube Channel]].
-Convened by **Richard Greeman**, veteran international socialist active in U.S., France, Russia, Latin America, North Africa; best known as translator and scholar of the Franco-Russian revolutionary writer Victor Serge (1890-1947)
+Our convener is **Richard Greeman**, veteran international socialist active in the US, France, Russia, Latin America, and North Africa; best known as translator and scholar of the Franco-Russian revolutionary writer Victor Serge (1890-1947). Future Historians include or have included: **Samuel Day Fassbinder**, author of //Greening the Academy// and scholar of Marx and utopianism; **Silvia Federici**, veteran feminist, author of //Caliban and the Witch//; **Lola Girerd**, Paris, writer and social psychologist; **Jenny Greeman**, NY, actor and educator; **Alexei Gusev**, Moscow, Historian of Russian Oppositions, Chair of Praxis Center; **Julia Guseva**, Moscow, translator of Victor Serge, anarcho-syndicalist activist, co-founder of Praxis Center; **Harry Halpin**, Paris, Internet revolutionary and activist, team member World Wide Web Consortium, author of //Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web//; **Jason Hicks**, NYC transit worker, union activist, DSA member, philosopher; **Peter Hudis**, Chicago, Marxist-humanist philosopher and activist, author of //Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism// and //Franz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades//; **Maati Monjib**, Rabat, Morocco, historian of Africa and press-freedom activist, currently facing five years in prison as an opponent of the monarchy; **Fred Murphy**, NY, ecosocialism group leader at the Marxist Education Project and DSA climate-justice activist; **Anya Rebrii**, Ukraine/NY, activist and anthropology student; **David Schwartzman**,  biogeochemist, DC Green Party activist, author of “Solar Communism” and //Life, Temperature, and the Earth//; and **Brian Tokar**, Vermont, Institute of Social Ecology, activist, author of //Toward Climate Justice//.
+We Future Historians have imagined that we are living in a peaceful, egalitarian, sustainable world a century from now, in the second decade of the 2100s. Our job is to put together a centennial history book for teenagers called **//THEN AND NOW//**. We collectively research and discuss century-old Source Materials about capitalism’s catastrophes that were unfolding and impending in 2018, and the forms of resistance to them. Next, we weave these together to present an objective picture of the unsustainable THEN (2018). Finally, we extrapolate from the evidence to reconstruct the different paths that led from THEN to NOW (2118), under the heading HOW? The results may be conceived in the form of a grid, as detailed [[grid-guide|here]].
+In real life, we are individuals with varied viewpoints and backgrounds spread across the globe from L.A. to Moscow, including women and men, students, a subway track worker, a few academics and various longtime socialists and radicals. Unlike many leftist groups, we don't denounce each other as traitors or deviants, although we have many differing views. Why? Well, to begin with we’ve all been dead for at least sixty years. So looking backward from the perspective of 2118, we are able see the different roads as complementary ones that led to the Emergence of new societies from the shell of the old. Our picture of the future world is inclusive (of everything but capitalism), rather than exclusive, pluralist rather than sectarian.
-In 2017 Naomi Klein reminded us that “No is not enough.” To save the planet from impending catastrophe, people need a positive vision of a better world and the roads leading to it. In other words, a credible picture of a possible Utopia and plausible account of how to get there from here. But is "Another World" REALLY possible?
+Our process: examine the historical evidence and collectively piece together a plausible picture of our possible better world and the roads that led to it. Our only rule: no gods, no extra-terrestials.
-To answer that question, we have decided to perform a thought experiment. Our premise: if there is even once chance in a hundred for a better world -- we ought to be able at least to //imagine// it. So we place ourselves in the position of future historians living in the year 2117 in a peaceful, egalitarian, democratic society on a damaged, but stabilized, planet.  Our project is to look backward a century to the year 2017 (on the bi-centenary of the unforeseen 1917 Soviet revolution) and reconstruct HOW our great-grandparents got us from THEN - today’s capitalist death-spiral - to NOW - a sustainable, egalitarian global society free of war, oppression and exploitation.
+Our goal: create a history textbook for the teenagers of 2018, a utopian work in the tradition of Bellamy's //Looking Backward// (1888) and Morris's //News from Nowhere//, books whose popularity helped bring to life a new socialist movement at the end of the 19th century. We aspire to a fictional ecotopia with the potential to go viral and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Our ongoing Future Historians seminar has been meeting  since September 24, 2017. We gather in-person at our New York studio and via teleconference with participants across a dozen time zones – from L.A. California to Moscow, Russia - including participants in Chicago, D.C., Vermont, Paris and Rabat, Morocco.
+Join us in betting on a possible future – even if the odds are a hundred to one! In a world spinning madly towards perdition, what have we got to lose?
+=== How to Participate ===
-**Our process** : examine the historical evidence and collectively piece together a plausible picture of our possible better world and the roads that led to it. One rule: no gods, no extra-terrestials.
+You can participate in a variety of ways, depending on your energy and interest. The Future Historians International Research and Collaborative Writing Project makes use of a variety of media platforms including this Wiki, a Dropbox account, a [[https://www.facebook.com/groups/FutureHistorians/|Facebook group]], and a [[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/future-historians|Google Groups]] listerv.
-**Our goal**: create a popular utopian fiction in the tradition of Bellamy's //Looking Backward// (1888) and Morris' //News from Nowhere//, books whose popularity brought to life a new socialist movement at the end of the 19th Century. Weave together a fictional ecotopia with the potential to go viral and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
+THIS WIKI is open for all to read. It is a work in progress, organized as a [[the-grid|grid]] that references pages in a draft of the proposed history book. See the [[grid-guide|Guide]] for further information.
-Join us! All power to the imagination!
+If you would like to contribute to this Wiki, we invite to become an active member of the seminar by sending an email to us at [[mailto:AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]]. If you prefer not to join but have suggestions, send them to the same address and they will be welcomed, discussed, and perhaps incorporated.
+Those with a special interest in one or more Topics are also welcome to join us as guests for an individual session. Again, please email us at [[mailto:AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]] and introduce yourself.
-Contact [[mailto:AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]].
+MEMBERSHIP normally entails a commitment to do a minimum amount of regular reading of materials submitted by other Members. We try to keep the readings SHORT. Each Member should regularly contribute research (gathering Source readings on the Topic), and writing (preparing materials to be posted on the Wiki). Normally, about 2/3 of the Members are active in any given week, depending on their other commitments and their interest in the topic.
-Visit our [[https://www.facebook.com/Another-World-is-Possible-NYC-474562302901538/|Facebook page]].
+THE DROPBOX: We have been using an online file-sharing service, Dropbox.com, with dedicated folders under each TOPIC for posting and discussing written materials, normally to be read before each meeting. From time to time, ad-hoc Teams form around an upcoming TOPIC (e.g. “Internationalism”). For access to the Future Historians Dropbox, send a request to [[mailto:AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]].
+THE GOOGLE GROUP: We also conduct discussions by email using a Google Groups listserv. So far this has proved rather dynamic, as when the emails arrive people naturally respond to them and the discussion develops rapidly. These discussions will be continued in different THREADS which correspond to the TOPICS, so the results can be synthesized and added to the growing narratives of THEN, NOW and HOW? You may request to join the listserv by emailing [[mailto:anotherworldnyc@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]].
-In our weekly international online Future Historians seminars we pretend that
+The Research part of our task involves finding useful materials that can be adapted to our purpose, cut down to a reasonable length, and eventually incorporated as a brick in the edifice of our narrative. Particularly useful are reports of resistance, struggle, and self-organization that can be extrapolated from THEN into HOW and get us to NOW.
-we're historians putting together a centennial history book for the teenagers of
-.  We are constructing utopias, if you will, but we are also explaining **how**
-we got **here** (a peaceful, cooperative world society in 2117) from **there** (the
-catastrophes of 2017). We're a group from a wide variety of backgrounds,
-spread out from L.A. to Moscow, including a subway track worker, some
-students, a businessman, a few academics and various old radicals.
-Unlike so many Leftists, we don't argue or denounce each other, although we
-have many differing viewpoints. For this simple reason: Viewed from 2117 we
-see the complimentarity of the different roads leading to the Emergence of the
-new society from the shell of the old (for example ‘reform’ and ‘revolution’).
-For more information, refer to our [[https://www.dropbox.com/s/n84j8ns87orau2l/2%20Syllabus_AnotherWorld.docx?dl=0|Syllabus]], contact [[mailto:AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com|AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.com]] and visit our [[https://www.facebook.com/Another-World-is-Possible-NYC-474562302901538/|Facebook page]].
+Up to now, when we found an interesting report or analysis on a particular topic in the form of a book or article (for example of the [[https://www.dropbox.com/s/3bdtjl6awch3jmi/Holt-Gimenez-Food%20Crisis%20to%20Food%20Sov.pdf?dl=0|Food Crisis]]), we shared the URL and a very short summary on the weekly Reading List. If it’s long, we also copy/paste essential excerpts for all to read or produce a digest that can be adapted to the narrative on the Wiki. Now with listserv threads, perhaps the Teams can refine them for later use. We are a project under construction, still growing.
-[[then_and_now|Let's Begin]]
+Please join us.

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