New Alphabet School #Commonings:
Commons of the Dispossessed

Friday, 16 September 2022, 3 to 5 pm, Assembly, Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Workshop with diffrakt & their reading groups
counter|infrastructures | SO FAR | Storytellings (after Haraway) | the personal is theoretical

For the final edition of the New Alphabet School, #Commonings, diffrakt bring one of their formats – reading groups as a coming-together in changing constellations – to the Assembly of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. During the first hour, we will engage with excerpts from The Dispossessed, an anarchist utopian SF novel by Ursula K. Le Guin first published in 1974. The story is an attempt to envision a different but truly viable society, and it will allow us to talk about war, peace, politics, abolition, and feminism, to discuss how we govern each other and ourselves, and to address the value of failure and weakness in societal organisation. Following the reading, we will collectively begin to develop a basic toolkit of dispossessed instruments by means of a silent conversation, collaboratively but silently mapping the collective thinking – concepts, feelings, associations – of the group.

The session is open for all and no registration is required. The texts and materials for the reading and silent conversation will be provided on site.