A conversation on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement at The New School in New York City. THE NEW SCHOOL | http://www.newschool.edu – A public conversation with prominent activists, organizers, and political/cultural thinkers about the current state of the Left in America, and where it should be headed, given the game-changing forces unleashed by Occupy Wall Street.

The Winter of Our Discontent: Stepping Back, Taking Stock, and Gazing Forward in the Wake of Occupy Wall Street

The abolition of the state in favor of something more directly participatory — or rather the strengthening of a state in which elected representatives insure universal health care, equal educational opportunity, environmental norms, and so forth? The abolition of capitalism — or else the elaboration of new forms of mixed economy (regulation of markets and financial institutions in order to promote social justice and reverse the polarization of wealth; forging new attitudes towards growth, productivity and consumption in the context of climate change; etc.)?

Initial Statement: DAVID GRAEBER
Respondents: TODD GITLIN, TERESA GHILARDUCCI, MARINA SITRIN

Participants include:

– James Miller, professor of Politics and chair of Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research, SDS veteran, author of Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, and a co-convener (with Lawrence Weschler) of this symposium.
– Stephen Lerner, Washington, D.C.-based labor and community organizer, till recently with the Service Employees International Union where he led its Justice for Janitors campaign.
– Yotam Marom, a political organizer, educator, and writer based in New York, a veteran of Occupy Wall Street’s Zuccotti Park occupation, and member of the Organization for a Free Society.
– Jonathan Schell, formerly with the New Yorker, more recently with The Nation Institute, Toms Dispatch and Yale University, author of The Fate of the Earth and The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People.
– Rebecca Solnit, longtime San Francisco-based anti-globalization activist and author of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, and A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.
– Lawrence Weschler, director of The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, author of The Passion of Poland, Vermeer in Bosnia, and Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative, and a co-convener (with James Miller) of this symposium.

This symposium is co-sponsored by The New School and NYU’s New York Institute for the Humanities.

Location: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall
02/11/2012 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.