Thursday, June 18, 2015

     Adventures in Changing Our Minds

      A CNY Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross

6:15-7:45 pm

&

CNY Monthly Leadership and Team Building Meeting,

8:00 – 9:30 pm

Both at: Adelphi University Manhattan Center

75 Varick Street

Room 260-261 on the Second Floor

(75 Varick is between Watts and Grand Streets)

RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com

&

RSVP to  http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/222814774/

Please bring photo ID required for entree to building

DIRECTIONS

Subways: #1 to Canal, or   A, C. or E to Canal, exit next to the building.

 J, N, Q, R, W, Z or #6 to Canal, are about 5 blocks southeast at Broadway and Canal.

Bus: M20 stops at the front door.

COFFEE/FOOD/BEVERAGES/ETC.

Excellent take-out food can be purchased at The Mill (www.TheMilltoGo.com),

which is part of the same building, and brought to the meeting.

Conversation:

Adventures in Changing Our Minds

6:15 – 7:45

Q.:  What does it feel like to be wrong?

A.:   It feels like being right.

To err is human. Yet most of us go through life tacitly assuming (and sometimes noisily insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher.

If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken – and why do we typically react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness and shame?

Let’s explore why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes our relationships—whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations.  

Consider the range of human fallibility, from wrongful convictions to no-fault divorce, medical mistakes to misadventures at sea, failed prophecies to false memories, “I told you so!” to “Mistakes were made.”   Perhaps we need new ways of looking at wrongness.   Maybe error is both a given and a gift – one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves.

At a time when economic, political, and religious dogmatism increasingly divide us,  we need to explore the seduction of certainty and the crisis occasioned by error.

Let’s learn to ask one of life’s most challenging questions:

What if I’m wrong?

Suggested Reading (optional): BEING WRONG , by Kathryn Schulz, CHANGING MINDS, by Howard Gardner; MISTAKES WERE MADE – BUT NOT BY ME: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts,  by Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson

Conversations New York

(8:00 – 9:30)

 (www.conversationsnewyork.com)

       Our exciting Action Agenda will be  highlighted by:

• Semi-final planning for our 2nd Annual CONVERSATION DAY in Bryant Park on Sat., July 18th in collaboration with our trans-Atlantic partner Talk to Me London;

• Display of ten of the best books on Conversation

• Update on Fall symposium on “Reclaiming Conversation” with Sherry Turkel of MIT; Upgraded website features presence on the Internet; and

• Honoring an outstanding contributors with our prestigious Plato Awards (“…and this month’s award goes to….”)

A CNY TalkAbout: The New Museum’s Triennial exhibit called…

“Surround Audience”

Thursday, 7 May, 2015 at 7 pm

The New Museum
235 Bowery, NY NY

(Note: Thursdays at New Museum admission price is “suggested donation”)

Sign up here:
http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/221783609/

A signature initiative of the New Museum, the Triennial is the only recurring international exhibition in New York City devoted to early-career artists from around the world.

The Triennial’s predictive, rather than retrospective, model embodies the institution’s thirty-seven-year commitment to exploring the future of culture through the art of today. This third iteration of the Triennial is titled “Surround Audience” and is co-curated by New Museum Curator Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin.

“Surround Audience” explores the effects of an increasingly connected world both on our sense of self and identity as well as on art’s form and larger social role. The exhibition looks at our immediate present, a time when culture has become more porous and encompassing and new considerations about art’s role and potential are surfacing. Artists are responding to these evolving conditions in a number of ways, from calculated appropriations to critical interrogations to surreal or poetic statements.

Featuring fifty-one artists from over twenty-five countries, “Surround Audience” pursues numerous lines of inquiry, including: What are the new visual metaphors for the self and subjecthood when our ability to see and be seen is expanding, as is our desire to manage our self-image and privacy? Is it possible to opt out of, bypass, or retool commercial interests that potentially collude with national and international policy? How are artists striving to embed their works in the world around them through incursions into media and activism? A number of artists in the exhibition are poets, and many more use words in ways that connect the current mobility in language with a mutability in form. The exhibition also gives weight to artists whose practices operate outside of the gallery—such as performance and dance—and to those who test the forums of marketing, comedy, and social media as platforms for art. The building-wide exhibition encompasses a variety of artistic practices, including sound, dance, comedy, poetry, installation, sculpture, painting, video, one online talk show, and an ad campaign.

After viewing the exhibit, we will re-convene at a local cafe and discuss our impressions of the work….

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

CNY Talk About: “Classroom Wars” (20 April 2015)

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
6pm

Sign up here:

http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/221783164/

“In this carefully researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education

After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

CNY Talk About: “Classroom Wars” (20 April 2015)

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
6pm

http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/221783164/

“In this carefu

lly researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education

After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

CNY Talk About: “Classroom Wars” (20 April 2015)

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
1-212-229-5600
All programs are subject to change. Please confirm with the venue at 1-212-229-5600.
6pm

“In this carefully researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education
After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.
CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

On Saturday, April 11, 2015 10:03 PM, Laurence Mailaender <lem986@verizon.net> wrote:

CNY Talk About: “Classroom Wars” (20 April 2015)

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
1-212-229-5600
All programs are subject to change. Please confirm with the venue at 1-212-229-5600.
6pm

“In this carefully researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education
After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.
CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

A CNY TalkAbout: The New Museum’s Triennial exhibit called…

“Surround Audience”

Thursday, 7 May, 2015 at 7 pm
The New Museum
235 Bowery, NY NY

(Note: Thursdays at New Museum admission price is “suggested donation”)

http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/221783609/

A signature initiative of the New Museum, the Triennial is the only recurring international exhibition in New York City devoted to early-career artists from around the world.

The Triennial’s predictive, rather than retrospective, model embodies the institution’s thirty-seven-year commitment to exploring the future of culture through the art of today. This third iteration of the Triennial is titled “Surround Audience” and is co-curated by New Museum Curator Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin.

“Surround Audience” explores the effects of an increasingly connected world both on our sense of self and identity as well as on art’s form and larger social role. The exhibition looks at our immediate present, a time when culture has become more porous and encompassing and new considerations about art’s role and potential are surfacing. Artists are responding to these evolving conditions in a number of ways, from calculated appropriations to critical interrogations to surreal or poetic statements.

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

CNY Talk About: “Classroom Wars” (20 April 2015)

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
1-212-229-5600
All programs are subject to change. Please confirm with the venue at 1-212-229-5600.

6pm

“In this carefully researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education

After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender

On 20 April, 6 pm, we will attend a Book Launch conversation on….

“Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture”

This event takes place at:
New School, Johnson/Kaplan Hall
66 W. 12th St.
Room A712
1-212-229-5600
All programs are subject to change. Please confirm with the venue at 1-212-229-5600.

“In this carefully researched, empirically grounded, and elegantly written book, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores debates and politics of bilingual education and sex education in California at the origins of the ‘culture wars.’ She tells an engaging, accessible, and compelling history of these conflicts that has important implications for how we understand postwar American political culture and education, past and present. Scholars and students of education history, education policy, and postwar American politics and culture will want to read this book.”-Tracy L. Steffes, School, author of School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940

“What’s the matter with Kansas–or with America–and its endless culture wars? According to a common liberal refrain, contemporary conservatives have invoked hot-button cultural issues to persuade Americans to vote against their own economic interests. But that claim is itself a liberal conceit, ignoring the many ways that the American Right wove cultural and economic grievances into a cohesive and enduring ideology. No matter which way your own politics lean, you won’t be able to understand modern American conservatism without reading Natalia Mehlman Petrzela’s brave and original book.”-Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education

After the lecture, the CNY group will convene at a local cafe and discuss the ideas presented in the lecture.

CNY Moderator: Laurence Mailaender