When? 6.30pm, Wednesday 18th January 2017

Where?  People’s Park, Boundary Street, West End.

**Wet weather contingencies will be updated closer to the event. Keep an eye on this page and the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/events/1870986119809092/?active_tab=about) for updates.

What? A public discussion and panel conversation on the importance of public discussions and panel conversations.

In conjunction with a worldwide movement toward re-imagining and rebuilding, intervening and transforming, Brisbane Free University is thrilled to kick off our first ever ‘Radical Reading group’ with a public lecture on the history, politics and potentialities of public education projects.
This session will coincide with the global day of protest and public education called “Teach Organise Resist.” The session will take the form of a panel conversation and discussion group about free universities, reading groups, public learning spaces and the radical potential of collective thinking.

The participants:

Associate Professor Kristen Lyons is an activist academic with over twenty years’ experience in the fields of environment and development sociology. Kristen’s work is focused on the political ecology of resource conflicts and resistance movements, with a particular interest in fossil fuels, forests and food. Kristen is also engaged in work that is examining the various ways in Australia, and internationally, opposition is growing against the privatised and corporatised university model. In a current collaboration with Professor Raewyn Connell, Associate Professor Richard Hil and Dr Monica Seini, Kristen is working on a book project ‘Transforming Universities for the Public Good’.

Jon Piccini is a historian of social movements at The University of Queensland and dad of one. He will be discussing the history of reading groups in Australia, and in particular how they served as a form of popular education for working class people excluded from higher education.

Max Chandler-Mather is a political historian, organiser, soccer-fiend and all-round intellectual babe. He’ll extrapolate on his Honours research into left organising in Indonesia, discussing the radical role that reading groups and public academia play in left organising movements.

Briohny Walker is a cofounder of Brisbane Free University and Radio Reversal, a politico-philosophical talk show on 4zzz Community Radio. Briohny’s current research interests include queer ecology, precarity, failure, education and climate change. She’ll speak about the history, philosophy, ethics and aesthetics of the Brisbane Free University.

Natalie is a critical geographer and environmental planner based at Griffith University. Her work focuses on social, spatial and environmental justice in human settlements, radical planning and the role of activism and community organising for just transitions, and the right to the city. She will be facilitating the discussion and otherwise saying very little.

ALL WELCOME! COMPLETELY FREE!

About the broader movement:
January 18, 2017, is a day to Teach, Organize, Resist. Transform your classrooms and commons into spaces of education that protest policies of violence, disenfranchisement, segregation, and isolationism. Use the power of knowledge to challenge inequality and to build alliances for social justice.

#J18 is meant to be a day of actions, ideas, dreams, dialogues, performances, alliances, plans, marches, and assemblies created by many in a multitude of spaces and places. We invite educators, students, and community partners to plan programs and activities on that day and to share information via this website. We will together build a platform that connects education and protest across the United States and links these to actions of solidarity in other parts of the world.

For more information, check out the website: http://teachorganizeresist.net/