The Université Populaire de Marseille Métropole aims to meet the ever-present need for knowledge and critical thinking skills, and to help forge links between the populations of the metropolitan area.
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The Université Populaire de Marseille-Métropole asks: Can our knowledge improve our lives? How? and offers a privileged setting: to aspire to freedom, to the freedom to learn and understand, to aspire to a time when everyone can choose what they want, what they need, without getting dizzy in the race for a diploma that rarely offers the promised future.
It aspires to satisfy the ever-present need for knowledge and critical thinking: learning for pleasure, learning for knowledge, knowledge for power.
The fundamentals remain the same:
Open to all, with no prerequisites whatsoever
Non-graduating (we're not here to compete!)
Free for all members
The Université Populaire is Skholè, a concept born at the dawn of civilization, in ancient Greece, meaning the leisure and free time that people can give themselves to learn. It's the time they choose to take for themselves, to learn, to study, and which they can take because they're not harassed by work that responds to the necessity imposed by a consumerist system.
This is "time for oneself", "free time" as opposed to "constrained time".
The skholè, the People's University, is necessarily free and egalitarian, and anyone can take part: the young, the not-so-young, graduates, non-graduates.
As the words "school", "apprenticeship" and "university" have been hijacked, damaged and corrupted, the use of the original word, skholè, allows us to return to the original concept and know what we're talking about.
It's about satisfying social needs to meet the expectations of many citizens who seek to better understand the universe in which they evolve, and to think before they act. They aspire to be able to construct a personal thought process that is well-founded and constructive, to form their own opinions so as not to be dictated to by a minority whose discourse often tends towards "one-track thinking", and to express this opinion in the public arena.
The Université Populaire Marseille-Métropole, ideally located in the heart of the city, offers a privileged learning environment, qualified, available and motivated teachers, timetables adapted to people who may or may not be working, a place for exchange, sharing and debate around seven disciplines: philosophy, economics, sociology, science, language, the commons and history.
Philosophy as a way of learning to think for oneself, while paying close attention to the information disseminated by the mainstream media.
Economics to understand the mechanisms into which neo-liberal practices have dragged us.
History, to learn about the events that have gone before us and left an indelible mark on the life of humanity.
Language, to understand the representation of thought and the mechanisms of communication.
The commons, to move away from the private/public binary by focusing on equal access, sharing and decision-making rather than ownership, and to imagine forms of collective use and management of resources, goods and services.
Science to understand and explain the world and universe around us.
To take part in the sessions of the Marseille-Métropole Université Populaire is to learn to free ourselves, to get rid of the collar of serfdom and ignorance that strangles us, preventing us from breathing and hoping; it's to appropriate the knowledge and skills that will enable us to find the benevolence that ensures living in fraternal harmony.
And to respond to Aldous Huxley's* warning in Brave New World: "We need a new environment in which to grow up if we are to experience a classless society, or else we will enter the 'brave new world', where 'big brother' will be there to educate us all."
*Aldous Huxley, born on July 26, 1894 in Godalming (UK) and died on November 22, 1963 in Los Angeles (USA), was a British writer best known for his novel Brave New World.
Known as a novelist and essayist, he also wrote short stories, poetry, travelogues and film scripts. In his novels and essays, Huxley poses as a critical observer of customs, social norms and ideals, and is concerned with the potentially harmful applications of scientific progress to mankind. While his early works were dominated by the defense of a certain humanism, he became increasingly interested in spiritual questions, particularly parapsychology and mystical philosophy, a subject on which he wrote extensively. In some circles, Huxley was considered one of the beacons of contemporary thought at the end of his life. The so-called "New Age" school of thought frequently refers to his writings on mysticism and the study of hallucinogens.
We're going to think together, grow the flowers and fruits of the spirit, and free ourselves from the shackles that one-track thinking has woven on our societies.
Because we want it to be, tomorrow will be sunny!
It aspires to satisfy the ever-present need for knowledge and critical thinking: learning for pleasure, learning for knowledge, knowledge for power.
The fundamentals remain the same:
Open to all, with no prerequisites whatsoever
Non-graduating (we're not here to compete!)
Free for all members
The Université Populaire is Skholè, a concept born at the dawn of civilization, in ancient Greece, meaning the leisure and free time that people can give themselves to learn. It's the time they choose to take for themselves, to learn, to study, and which they can take because they're not harassed by work that responds to the necessity imposed by a consumerist system.
This is "time for oneself", "free time" as opposed to "constrained time".
The skholè, the People's University, is necessarily free and egalitarian, and anyone can take part: the young, the not-so-young, graduates, non-graduates.
As the words "school", "apprenticeship" and "university" have been hijacked, damaged and corrupted, the use of the original word, skholè, allows us to return to the original concept and know what we're talking about.
It's about satisfying social needs to meet the expectations of many citizens who seek to better understand the universe in which they evolve, and to think before they act. They aspire to be able to construct a personal thought process that is well-founded and constructive, to form their own opinions so as not to be dictated to by a minority whose discourse often tends towards "one-track thinking", and to express this opinion in the public arena.
The Université Populaire Marseille-Métropole, ideally located in the heart of the city, offers a privileged learning environment, qualified, available and motivated teachers, timetables adapted to people who may or may not be working, a place for exchange, sharing and debate around seven disciplines: philosophy, economics, sociology, science, language, the commons and history.
Philosophy as a way of learning to think for oneself, while paying close attention to the information disseminated by the mainstream media.
Economics to understand the mechanisms into which neo-liberal practices have dragged us.
History, to learn about the events that have gone before us and left an indelible mark on the life of humanity.
Language, to understand the representation of thought and the mechanisms of communication.
The commons, to move away from the private/public binary by focusing on equal access, sharing and decision-making rather than ownership, and to imagine forms of collective use and management of resources, goods and services.
Science to understand and explain the world and universe around us.
To take part in the sessions of the Marseille-Métropole Université Populaire is to learn to free ourselves, to get rid of the collar of serfdom and ignorance that strangles us, preventing us from breathing and hoping; it's to appropriate the knowledge and skills that will enable us to find the benevolence that ensures living in fraternal harmony.
And to respond to Aldous Huxley's* warning in Brave New World: "We need a new environment in which to grow up if we are to experience a classless society, or else we will enter the 'brave new world', where 'big brother' will be there to educate us all."
*Aldous Huxley, born on July 26, 1894 in Godalming (UK) and died on November 22, 1963 in Los Angeles (USA), was a British writer best known for his novel Brave New World.
Known as a novelist and essayist, he also wrote short stories, poetry, travelogues and film scripts. In his novels and essays, Huxley poses as a critical observer of customs, social norms and ideals, and is concerned with the potentially harmful applications of scientific progress to mankind. While his early works were dominated by the defense of a certain humanism, he became increasingly interested in spiritual questions, particularly parapsychology and mystical philosophy, a subject on which he wrote extensively. In some circles, Huxley was considered one of the beacons of contemporary thought at the end of his life. The so-called "New Age" school of thought frequently refers to his writings on mysticism and the study of hallucinogens.
We're going to think together, grow the flowers and fruits of the spirit, and free ourselves from the shackles that one-track thinking has woven on our societies.
Because we want it to be, tomorrow will be sunny!
The Université Populaire de Marseille-Métropole asks: Can our knowledge improve our lives? How? and offers a privileged setting: to aspire to freedom, to the freedom to learn and understand, to aspire to a time when everyone can choose what they want, what they need, without getting dizzy in the race for a diploma that rarely offers the promised future.
It aspires to satisfy the ever-present need for knowledge and critical thinking: learning for pleasure, learning for knowledge, knowledge...
It aspires to satisfy the ever-present need for knowledge and critical thinking: learning for pleasure, learning for knowledge, knowledge...
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