Summer School 2023

[Mike Foster]

I’m happy to announce details of this year’s Summer School, on the theme of Work. Our weekend of talks and discussion will be held on 21st – 23rd July in Birmingham. For more details, including how to book, please visit https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/
Our new venue is Woodbrooke, which is near to our previous home at Fircroft (just a few hundred yards down the same road!) and has similar facilities, to a great standard.
Further updates of what’s planned will be posted once they’re confirmed.

[Mike Foster]

Here’s a reminder of this year’s Summer School on the theme of ‘Work’, being held over the long weekend 21st – 23rd July in Birmingham. For more details, see here: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/

Please make a booking before 17th May, as attendee numbers need to be confirmed early. Unfortunately, full refunds may not be available for non-attendance or cancellations after this date.

Details of sessions at this year’s Summer School will be announced in the coming weeks!

[Mike Foster]

I’m happy to announce one of the talks at Summer School! Bill Martin will be speaking on ‘The Mysteries of the Pyramids’: Ancient monuments are a testament to the skills and abilities of humanity through the ages: and they are also clues as to how and why people laboured in the past. This talk will look at some of this evidence, and use it to discuss how human labour time is a constant factor in historical modes of production whilst also varying in how and why it was used. It will also look at how this evidence of human ingenuity is refracted through a modern ideological prism.

For more details about the event, see the previous posts in this thread.

[Mike Foster]

Here are details of another talk at Summer School. Paddy Shannon will be speaking about ‘AI and the Future of Work’: Much as we hate capitalist employment, our lives depend on finding it. So what are we to make of the impending Artificial Intelligence revolution which, combined with robotics, threatens to destroy up to 30% of all jobs by the mid-2030s? 90% of the world’s most successful companies are already investing in AI, so is the future for workers going to be rosy, with high pay and abundant leisure time, a hellish Dickensian nightmare, or the much-vaunted Singularity beyond which capitalism as we know it may not even exist?

More announcements are on the way soon!

[Mike Foster]

Details of another of the Summer School talks can be announced! Howard Moss will be speaking on ‘Work: Paid and Unpaid’: This talk will look at the nature of the work, paid and unpaid, that the speaker and others close to him have engaged in over the years and draw conclusions about the experience of that in the context of the system we live under. It will then reflect on some of the implications of that for the possible nature of work in a future socialist society.

Please see earlier posts in this thread for further details about the event. Bookings should be made by 17th May. Stay tuned for details of the other two sessions.

[Mike Foster]

I’m pleased to confirm the Saturday evening session at this year’s Summer School: An evening of puzzle-solving and code-breaking, starting with a message hidden in a jigsaw. Work together in teams to follow the clues to find the answers.

There is still one more talk to be announced, and details will follow soon. As with previous years, the event will also include an exhibition of how the Socialist Standard has reported on the topic of ‘Work’ over the years, an exclusive publication and a re-stocked bookstall.

Bookings should be made before 17th May, which isn’t far away now! For more details, including how to make a booking, see here: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/

[Mike Foster]

Hot on the heels of the previous announcement, I’m happy to confirm the remaining Summer School session. Richard Field will give a talk about ‘The Need For Work – And How To Avoid It’:
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Philip Larkin
Work has a complex and curious history, one that’s central to human experience. Yet what is it? And why does it seem so contradictory? Work is obligatory. We desire it. We rely on it for a sense of purpose and belonging, maybe even for identity. And yet as Sunday draws to a close and Monday approaches the thought of it can leave us clammy and hollow inside. Perhaps…
This is a lightning tour through the story of work, from the open Savannah to the open-plan office and beyond. On the way it attempts to throw some light on the brutish toad and maybe offers a pitchfork or two in consolation.

Please see the previous post for further information about the event, and bookings should be made within the next few days.

[Mike Foster]

If you’re planning on coming along to Summer School on 21st – 23rd July in Birmingham, please make a booking before 17th May. For more information about the event see the previous posts in this thread or go to https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/ , which includes details about how to book a place.

[Mike Foster]

There are still spaces available for Summer School, so bookings are still open. For more information about the event see the previous posts in this thread or go to http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/ , which includes details about how to book a place.

[Mike Foster]

There are still a few spaces available for Summer School, so bookings remain open for now. For more information about the event see the previous posts in this thread or go to http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/ , which includes details about how to book a place.

The event will now also include a bonus session – a Saturday afternoon of mosaic-making!

[Mike Foster]

There are still a few places available at Summer School on 21st – 23rd July in Birmingham, but bookings will have to close on Wednesday 5th July. For more information on what’s happening over the weekend, and how to make a booking, see the previous posts on this thread.

[Mike Foster]

Summer School is now only a couple of weeks away. Bookings for the weekend have now closed, as all the places are now filled. (If you’ve already been in contact with me about a booking, then this is all still ok).

[Mike Foster]

Here’s the link for the Summer School talks, being streamed through Jitsi:
https://meet.jit.si/SPGBSummerSchool
(ie NOT the Zoom link as previously suggested)

Times and further details are provided here:
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/

[Mike Foster]

Summer School has been and gone, and I thought the event went well. The venue had decent facilities, and between the four interesting and thought-provoking talks there were plenty of amiable chats. As always, the weekend was a nice opportunity to catch up with others.
Recordings of three of the sessions will be uploaded in due course.

Ken H pointed out that there are some upcoming programmes on Radio 4 which fit in with Summer School’s theme of work:
Rethink Work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001p6rg/episodes/guide

Already uploaded is The Moral Maze: Is Idleness Good For Us: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001p1w6
(this mentions Paul Lafarge)

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