Potluck chat: Vagabondism - Mar 31 2009

Hi everyone,

Tomorrow we’ll be starting a conversation with Michael Bauer, who’s organizing a class on “vagabondism” through a new chapter of The Public School in Philadelphia. Short blurb about the Vagabondism class below. The hope is this will build over the next few months - so please join us tomorrow for the kickoff discussion.

Blurb on Vagabondism:

Transience as a viable and sustainable creative action, historical models and resources

Two groups, one in Los Angeles and one in Philadelphia each composed of approximately six participants will meet weekly or biweekly for six sessions exploring notions of vagabonding and transience. The class will take the form of conversations through conference calls between the two groups using Talkshoe.

There are two main goals set out for Vagabodism. One is to form a notable historical framework in which we highlight a few examples of vagabonding and/or transience during the last one hundred years. A few examples of transience may include looking at modern peripatetic peoples, transient teens during the Great Depression, or the open-land experiment known as Morningstar during the 1960’s. The second goal is to highlight online resources and fellows peers’ personal travel accounts to aid in the organization of a long-term travel trip with fellow class participants. This travel trip will serve as a hands-on execution of many of the ideas discussed during this gathering.

Current Reading List (subject to changes)
RVs & Campers: 1900-2000 by Donald Wood
Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression by Errol Lincoln Uys
Home Free Home:A History of Two Open-Door California Communes: by Ramon Sender Barayon, Gwen Leeds, Near Morningstar, Bill Wheeler

Other readings in consideration
Customary Strangers: New Perspectives on Peripatetic Peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia by Joseph C. Berland
The Big Tent: The Traveling Circus in Georgia, 1820-1930 by Gregory J. Renoff

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See you all Then!

Join us every Tuesday night – in person, or on Skype, skypename: ‘basekamp’
If you come to the potluck in person, be sure to bring a dish :)
(basekamp space: 723 Chestnut St, 2nd floor, Philadelphia usa)