[LAF] Idea for Development of LAF

[justin]

Was thinking  this evening (shock, horror!)
and it occured to me that one way of running 
discussions and talks at LAF might be to kind of do 
"work in progress" talks and discussions. 

Each person picks a topic to research and each time
they give a talk or run a discussion they do so on the
particualr aspect of the research they are doing...

For example i was thinking about Hegel and the influence
of Hegel on Bakunin, Marx, and Bookchin say, and so i could do a
series of talks each concentrating on different
aspects of this topic: e.g. start with Hegel - then 
a while later do a talk/discussion on dialectics
and Bakunin, then look at Bookchin's relation to Hegel
and environmentlaism, etc...

Personally i feel my knowledge of anarchism and related 
fields (and pretty well everything) is hotch potch and patchy - 
it would be good to develop ideas, knowledge and understanding more
in depth... so this would be a good way of developing depth of 
understanding...

Of course it would be up to each individual to pick what area they
wanted to research/talk about - my example was on quite an abstract theme
- but it could be anything! Maybe some would not want to 
take this approach in their talks/discussions at all. The reason it 
might be a good idea is that
it helps develops a deeper understanding of ideas  - rather
than just one off talks on this or that subject... And in giving
talks and running discussions participants would be informed - as well
as helping the researcher in developing an understanding of his/her
field.

Perhaps a mixture of one off talks and discussions plus guest facilitators/
speakers combined with a series of themed meetings would be the best approach...  

You could even develop this further and have the approaches integrated
so that particiapants each research different aspects of some theme
and then each contribute over time by giving talks to inform others...

You could do this in different ways. E.g. supposing we all agreed we wanted
to know about, say, anarchists in the Russian revolution... We could all agree
on different aspects of this to research into and then at a particular meeting
each contrbute, e.g. 20mins speaking on our own area of research - and then pool it 
all together at the end of the session to get the big picture of the topic.

This makes sense of the worry about not having enough participants - it doesn't
matter how many are involved (as long as there are at leat just a few)... Those regulars
who 
come along can, if they want to develop their own research program and inform others,
take this approach...

there might be problems perhaps if ppl just aren't interested in particular
themes or research areas - however if this approach is mixed with current approaches
maybe no one will get too bored...

Justin

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