Summer
Food Dehydration
This is a class offered through the Local Food Resource Hubs program coordinated by Gardening Matters. There are 7 spots open to non-Hubs members. To become a member, visit www.gardeningmatters.org/hubs.
Your harvest is wonderful and precious. Your time is limited. You want to preserve your bounty quickly and easily.
Dehydration--Food drying is the simplest, most economical method of saving your fruits and vegetables for winter enjoyment.
Jim Lovestar has been teaching the fine art of food drying for thirty years. Bring an inquiring mind and a willingness to taste some delicious samples.
Location
Garden Pest Management
This is a class offered through the Local Food Resource Hubs program coordinated by Gardening Matters. There are 5 spots open to non-Hubs members. To become a member, visit gardeningmatters.org/hubs.
This class will cover the general principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). We will identify some common insect pests that cause problems and discuss treatments together.
Location
Canning Jam & Basics of Water Bath Method
This is a class offered through the Local Food Resource Hubs program coordinated by Gardening Matters. There are 7 spots open to non-Hubs members. To become a member, visit www.gardeningmatters.org/hubs. This class will offer a basic demonstration for making Strawberry/Rhubarb Jam using the hot water bath canning food preservation method. The class will be a casual demonstration with question and answers for the beginning food preservationist, first time caner.
If you have questions you may contact [email protected]
Location
Complete Bicycle Overhaul at Cycles for Change
This intermediate class will build upon the skills taught in the Basic Bike Maintenance class and expand through overhauling an entire bicycle. It's recommended that students have taken the Basic class or have a similar beginning familiarity with bicycle repair. Participants will take apart, clean, and repack all bearing systems, including hubs, headsets, and bottom brackets. In addition, the will install new cables and housing on brakes and derailleurs as needed, and lubricate/adjust all shifting systems. In full, folks attending this class will learn how to perform a complete tune-up/overhaul of a bicycle. Participants will work with the same bike through the class, in order to see the complexities and intricacies of one specific bicycle. Note: All class participants will fix up SHOP BIKES during this class! Bikes fixed up will go into one of Cycles for Change's many community programs!
The class will be 5 Thursdays: Aug 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 from 6-8:30pm each day.
Please contact me with any questions!
Location
Indigenous Imperative: Native Thought and its Implications for Our Future
Location: University of Minnesota Ford Hall Room 170
The premise of course is that our future is not only ecological but indigenous. We will be looking at not only the Six Nations Confederacy, but several other cultural and political powers in the western hemisphere including the Hopi, the Ojibway, the Inca, the Maya, Aztecs and many others. One of the goals of this course will be to not only push the envelope but get rid of the envelope. No discussion of our problems or potentials is possible without our indigenous center. Forget casino gambling, fry bread, pow wows, Sherman Alexie's cynical novels, and all of the other caricatures of first nations people. Rather we are going to vigorously look at the loose medicine bundle of values and cultures which evolved on this continent called sacred turtle island. We will advocate for a robust restoration of native teachings.
NOTE: Ray does not use email all that much so if you want to get in touch with him
before the class please call.
Location
Against Civilization: the writings of Wolfi Landstreicher (aka Feral Faun, Apio Ludd)
In this class we will read and discuss a few of the writings of Wolfi Landstreicher. In an introduction to a collection of their writings, Wolfi describes the anarchist insurgence underlying their writings as follows:
"Within the present social context our lives as individuals have been made alien to us, because society creates interactions and activities for us which are not based on the singularity of our unconstrained dreams and desires, but only serve the continuing reproduction of society by channeling the energy of desire into that reproduction through a variety of institutions and systems which integrate to form civilized society: the state, capital, work, technology, religion, education, ideology, law...Opposition to this begins when we as individuals rise up in willful disobedience and recognize the necessity of attacking and destroying all institutions of domination, not as a cause, but for ourselves, because we want to create our own games..."
We will meet three times over the course of three weeks to discuss their writings and hopefully discuss our own desires and how they are redirected to serve institutional systems and how we may break free of this to create our lives according to our own passions.
Reading Schedule(tentatively):
Week 1 "Feral Faun"
-Nature as Spectacle. The image of wilderness vs. wildness
-The Cops In Our Heads: Some thoughts on anarchy and morality
-The Ideology of Victimization
-Against Charity
-Steal Back Your Life
Location
Sourdough Bread
This class explores the power of wild yeast to naturally leaven breads. In 2 class sessions we'll make our own sourdough starters to take home and then build them into doughs - using slow fermentation methods to produce beautiful loaves and other sourdough wonders! All you knead is enthusiasm and some patience before your own doughs will be rising to perfection!
Location
Beginning Screenprinting with Living Proof
So we already have 13 people signed up for the course, but as stated our shop capacity is only 5. We will take participants in the order that they have signed up, so if you sign up now you are basically adding yourself to the waitlist. Living Proof will continue to offer these workshops in the future. We have one scheduled (http://excotc.org/class/beginning-screenprinting-with-living-proof-workshop-for-people-of-color) on August 4th and 5th open to those identifying as a person of color.
Participants are invited to join Living Proof for a two-day workshop covering the fundamentals of screenprinting. We emphasize Do-It-Yourself methods so folks will be able to take their screenprinting skills out into their communities! By the end of the workshop, participants will make their image into a one-color print that they can put on paper or fabric to share and post widely and wildly. We will cover print shop basics, introduce materials and alternative inking and printing processes.
Day 1, Saturday 1:00-4:00PM, we will focus on designing images to print and exposing the screens.
The next day, Sunday 1:00-4:00PM we will be printing and sharing prints!
Due to space limitations, we can only allow 5 participants per 2-day workshop. Please sign up only if you're sure you can attend both days. We will send an email confirmation with supplemental materials a week before we begin.
Location
Poetry and Revolution
At a point when creative forms of resistance are coming to define and determine the course of the global revolution, questions of language, metaphor, and aesthetics have become increasingly significant to those who seek to change the world. Taking up Marx’s distinction between changing and interpreting the world, we often think of poetry as something that obscures rather than promotes direct action. In this course, we will explore the tension between interpretation and change, expression and activity, thinking and acting. We will think about how poetry, or the mode of interpreting metaphorical language more generally, presents new ideas about revolutionary potential. We’ll read several essays that situate this discussion in the framework of Marx’s poetry of the revolution in The Communist Manifesto, writings on postwar debates about aesthetics and politics, and work by Bertolt Brecht, Anna Ahkmatova, Adonis, Diane di Prima, Joshua Clover, and others. This list is tentative and can be adapted based on interest. Meetings will be held in a reading group style, with the possibility of a collaborative blog as a means of collecting various references and readings.
see wordpress site for tentative reading schedule and more information.
http://revolupoetry.wordpress.com/
Location
Transformative Justice
Transformative Justice is a process of community safety, healing, and accountability without using punishment. Transformative Justice attempts to expand beyond individual actions into root causes, such as socialization and privilege.
In this class we will read and discuss material relating to Transformative Justice, come up with a shared definition of Transformative Justice, share our experiences with systems that attempt to provide justice, and create plans for using Transformative Justice models/processes to create safer and healthier communities.
