David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything [5-week Reading Group, $150 suggested]

Instructor: Andrews | Sundays 2:00-3:30 PM | August 28-September 25

Many of the ideas that shape policy, practices, and beliefs about culture and society are grounded in broad-sweeping myths about the past. Either we were “born free” and now “everywhere in chains” or born in a hostile “state of nature” that pitted us against each other so that we needed rationality and rule to form a society. But why did those myths emerge and how did those made-up ideas come to lie at the heart of disciplines like economics and political science? In The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, authors David Graeber and David Wengrow deploy anthropology and archaeology to show that the past was in fact very different than we have been taught, thus giving us a very different understanding of the present, and new possibilities for the future, too. The publishers describe the books as: “A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution―from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality―and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.” Join us as we read together to make sense of what we believed and what is possible. The book is long and challenging, but that means it’s the perfect book to study in community! We’ll spend each meeting trying to get a grasp on the history that’s being contested, the new possibilities Graeber and Wengrow share, and formulating our own ideas about what they mean for us. Please note this class starts the last week of August.

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For each class, four (4) full tuition scholarships and five (5) 80% tuition scholarships are available. Due to limited scholarship funds, we are currently only able to offer one class per term at the full scholarship level to any individual student—if you need a full scholarship, please sign up for the class you most want to take and email us to waitlist for any additional classes. We will add you when funds become available. Direct student donations are a crucial aspect of our funding model, and without them, we are not able to pay instructors a living wage. We encourage you to pick the payment tier that corresponds with your needs, but ask that you please consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

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