I’ve recently finished writing and presenting a course that brings together some of the ideas I’ve been playing around with on this blog, bridging both complex systems and activism/radical community organising. Recordings of all six sessions, and most of the optional readings, are linked below. There’s also a recommended reading list at the bottom if you fancied doing your own study
Plans are afoot with Antiuniversity to rerun the course early next year
CROWDFUNDER – I’ve decided to turn the course into a book! If anyone wants to support me in doing so, I’ve put up a Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/onalifeglug
or chuck me a one-off donation at https://www.paypal.me/onalifeglug
Session #1
Introduction to Complexity
Audio recording
(recorded on September 27th 2016)
Optional reading: Preface and Introduction from Capra and Luisi – Systems View of Life
Session #2
Smash the System – creating and harnessing chaos
Audio recording
(recorded on October 4th 2016)
Optional reading:
- Preface from Prigogine and Stengers – Order Out of Chaos
- Laszlo – Chapter 3 from Vision 2020: Reordering Chaos for Global Survival
Session #3
Erode the System – building the new world in the shell of the old
Audio recording
(recorded on October 11th 2016)
Optional reading:
- Summary of Padgett and Powell’s ‘Emergence of Organisations and Markets’: http://ecologicalsociology.blogspot.be/2011/07/padgett-emergence-of-organizations-and.html – Note the ‘autocatalysis’ they talk about relates to the living system / feedback loops stuff we’ve been looking at. Another similar concept you might hear is ‘autopoiesis’.
- Article on Venezuela’s democratic communes: https://roarmag.org/magazine/venezuela-communa-o-nada/
Session #4
Escape the System – bodily affect and surviving oppression
Audio recording
(recorded on October 18th 2016)
Optional reading:
- Summary of ‘4EA philosophy of mind’ – which in the session we’ll be calling ‘affective cognition’. If the whole article is a bit too intense just concentrate on the first paragraph, where it explains what 4EA stands for https://philosophyandpsychology.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/the-future-of-philosophy-of-mind/
- Iris Marion Young’s Five Faces of Oppression [pdf] https://mrdevin.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/five-faces-of-oppression.pdf
Session #5
Tame the System – reforms without reformism
Audio recording
(recorded on October 25th 2016)
Optional reading:
- Chapter 1 of Walker and Salt: Resilience Practice
- Summary of the ideas of Nicos Poulantzas
- Comparison of ‘Accelerationism’ and ‘Degrowth’
Session #6
Bringing it All Together – a trajectory for revolution
Audio recording
(recorded on November 1st 2016)
Optional reading:
- Engler and Engler – This is an Uprising, chapter 3
- Radical Lives: Omar Aziz, community organiser in the Syrian revolution
http://novaramedia.com/2015/02/23/radical-lives-omar-aziz/ - Canvassing technique which transforms prejudices against LGBT people http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/talking-people-about-gay-and-transgender-issues-can-change-their-prejudices
READING LIST:
John Protevi – Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic
The core concepts are originally derived from:
‘Living systems‘ – Maturana and Varela (biology) and Niklas Luhmann (sociology).
Complexity and Chaos – Prigogine and Stengers (physics/chemistry)
Networks – Barabasi (physics), Strogatz (mathematics), and Manuel Castells (sociology – see Communication Power for his more theory-based stuff as I’m not that into his pop writing)
[…] « Revolution and Complex Systems – course recordings and materials […]
[…] Graham’s course material for Revolution & Complex Systems (various other material on the blog too):https://lifeglug.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/revolution-and-complex-systems/ […]