Current Class
Schedule & Registration
Here are the schedule and descriptions of current classes, workshops, and conversations
at Let’s Learn! this semester. Each description includes a registration link.
Hope to see you in class!
Class Schedule
Fall 2025
Dr. Leah Barlow
Saturday, September 6, 1:00 pm -2:30 pm Eastern U.S. Time (time zone converter)
Musicians George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, poet & musician Sun Ra, science fiction author Octavia Butler, film genius Flying Lotus, and so many others define Afrofuturism as one genre located under the broad umbrella of black studies.
Dr. Leah Barlow, a professor of African-American Studies at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University approaches Afrofuturism as a cultural/political movement that uses the future as an analytical lens by which to restructure black life beyond the boundaries of Western hegemonies. It skillfully navigates any and all terms of subjugation by placing black people in the future. However, Dr. Bartlow encourages you not to rush to any assumptions. Afrocenterism is not an attempt to simply add people of color to already established mainstream cultural and political representation. It is asking you to climb aboard a funky Mothership headed straight past Chat GPT and center the African diaspora giving way to the possibilities located in her reality, mythology, and hu(man?)ity.
This class provides a crash course on the foundations of Afrofuturism alongside the cultural curators whose contemporary works feel even more salient, today. Register Here
Steven Licardi
Saturday, September 13, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm (time zone converter)
Given the multiple crises we are facing all over the world, it has become difficult to imagine new ways of living and relating to each other, and to our planet. We have become so adept at imagining dystopias, it seems almost impossible to imagine utopias -- or “protopias,” as futurist monika bielskyte has celebrated. This is a serious political and cultural challenge for our species. How can we make the world better, if we can’t imagine anything better?
Steven T. Licardi—spoken word poet, science fiction writer, social therapist, and creative educator—has developed an approach to imagining together that makes use of our collective histories to imagine and create the futures we want. Steven will steward us through the polyphonic, dialectical, and iterative process of world-building, and illuminate its dependence on our perceptions of the present and past. In doing so, he will highlight the importance of imagining beyond our circumstances; to “yes-and” as a socio-political act. Participants will walk away with an emboldened sense of our presence as historical beings endowed with tools for how to respond to this current moment, without getting organized around mere opposition and defiance. Join us! Register Here
Dr. Jim Martinez
Saturday, September 20
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time
11:00 am – 12:30 pm Pacific Time (time zone converter)
Everybody’s talking about A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), but what is it exactly that we’re talking about? You’re invited to an open conversation with Dr. Jim Martinez, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the New York Institute of Technology and co-founder of Collective Infrastructures, Corp., a community-based disaster relief consultancy. What makes A.I. intelligent? How does it differ from Google or Spotify or other forms of “smart” computing? What can it do, and what are its limitations? How could it help us? Should we be afraid of it? Who’s making money from it? Who controls or regulates it? How is it created and what’s it doing to our environment (the Earth)? In conversation with Dan Friedman, program manager of Let’s Learn!—and you—Dr. Martinez will reflect on these and other questions and lead us in thinking about the practical and ethical implications of A.I. Register Here
Brian Mathenge, Mathare Social Justice Center
Sunday, September 28
12:00 pm -1:30 pm Eastern U.S.
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm East Africa Time (time zone converter)
Kenya has a long history of resisting British colonialism. The 20th Century saw five mass uprisings, culminating in the War of Liberation (1952-1960), through which Kenya won its independence. This radical political legacy continued even as Kenya, like most of Africa, immediately fell under the yoke of neo-colonialism—technically independent, but its economy, and hence its politics, dependent on and accountable to the World Bank and other financial institutions which enforce austerity on the people and demands economic structuring that benefits corporations and banks based in the global north.
Today, the young people of Kenya are leading an intense struggle against a repressive government. The Mathare Social Justice Center, based in Nairobi, is in the forefront of the street protests that were sparked by unfair tax policies and ongoing extrajudicial killings by the police. In addition, they are providing leadership by creating community-based organizations that point to a future of political and economic justice. Join Biran Mathenge, and other activists from the Mathare Social Justice Center as they unpack Kenya’s rich radical history and share the latest on the struggles going on today. Register Here
Community is the “Cure”
A Conversation with the Clubhouse Movement
Jeff Aron and Club House Members from Around the World
Saturday, October 4, 10:00 am -11:30 am Eastern U.S. Time (time zone converter)
In thirty-three countries around the world the clubhouse movement is providing tens of thousands of people living with schizophrenia, bipolar and major depression with a way to come together every day to build active caring communities. These communities are built by those who have been marginalized, discriminated against and left by the wayside—and they are succeeding not only in alleviating the problems associated with mental illness but in developing active and vibrant citizens.
Join Jeff Aron, former director of external affairs at Fountain House, the original clubhouse, founded in New York City in 1948, and a panel of clubhouse staff and members from Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States discussing how the clubhouses have changed the lives of countless people living with serious mental illness and how the community building activity creates the conditions for people to grow and develop.
This conversation is for people with and without psychiatric histories, along with their families and friends. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. Register Here
Benkos Biohó:
Maroon Leader Against Spanish Empire
Dr. Omar H. Ali
Wednesday, October 8, 7:30 pm to 8:45 pm. Eastern U.S. Time (time zone converter)
Here is the chance to learn about the life and legacy of Benkos Biohó, one of the first leaders of the resistance to slavery in the Americas, from Dr. Omar H. Ali, a distinguished historian and author of seven books on the African Diaspora.
Biohó was captured and enslaved along the shore of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, and shipped to New Grenada (in present-day Colombia) in 1596. Within three years of his arrival to the port of Cartagena de Indias—the principal point of entry for Africans into colonial Spanish South America— Biohó organized a slave rebellion, leading thirty men and women into the forest south of the city where he formed one of the earliest maroon communities in the Americas.
As attempts to erase Black history intensify, let us learn about and honor the legacy of Benkos Biohó, one of the first Black revolutionaries of the Americas. Register Here
Hands Across the Hills:
Learning to Talk With Each Other Through Community to Community Dialogue
Sharon Dunn, Ben Fink, Jay Frost and Gwen Johnson
Sunday, October 19, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time (time zone converter)
Hands Across the Hills is a dialogue and exchange project founded in the aftermath of the 2016 election by residents of Letcher County, Kentucky and Leverett, Massachusetts. They held diverse positions on many issues. Building with those differences, they came together to get to know each other, to listen closely, to affirm and challenge and learn from each other, and to open up about painful experiences. Over six years, Hands Across the Hills meet in person and online. Together they learned how to connect and build friendships across geography, politics and class.
In this conversation/workshop members of Hands Across the Hills will share how they did it–and how you can do it too. Register Here
Caroline Donnola
Saturday, October 25
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time
11:00 am – 12:30 pm Pacific Time (time zone converter)
Whether you’ve been writing poetry all your life or have never done so, poetry is a form of expression that anyone can participate in. In this workshop—led by Caroline Donnola, who has taught writing classes for decades in business colleges, high schools, and continuing education programs—we’ll explore some of the elements that can be used to bring poetry to life; play with the sounds and rhythms of poetry; and do some in-class writing. Using writing prompts, each student will create a short poem in class. Together we’ll discover how poetry writing can help us unleash new kinds of thoughts and feelings and free us up from the constraints that can hold us back from creatively expressing and experiencing our lives in new ways. Register Here
Autoetnografía:
La Descolonización de Nuestras Vidas a Través de Nuestra Historia
Juan Andrés Elías-Hernández
Sababo, Novembre 1
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm Central Mexican time
2:00 pm - 3:30 Eastern U.S.
¿Alguna vez te has preguntado cómo tus propias experiencias y tu historia personal están conectadas con temas más grandes de nuestra sociedad? En este curso, vamos a explorar una forma de investigación llamada autoetnografía, que es básicamente el arte de usar tu propia vida como un lente para entender el mundo.
La idea es que, a través de tus propias historias, podamos conectar con un concepto muy importante: la descolonialidad. Esto se refiere a cuestionar y desafiar las ideas y formas de pensar que nos han sido impuestas por la historia colonial, muchas veces sin darnos cuenta.
Juntos, veremos cómo tus vivencias pueden ayudarte a:
Entenderte mejor a tu historia y cómo tu identidad se ha formado.
Desafiar las ideas tradicionales que a veces limitan nuestra forma de ver el mundo.
Crear nuevas formas de conocimiento que son más inclusivas y respetuosas con las diferentes culturas y formas de vida.
Únete a Professor Join Professor Juan Andrés Elias-Hernanedz de el Departamento de Humanidades, Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez en este diálogo para descubrir el poder de tus propias narrativas y cómo, a través de ellas, podemos empezar a construir un mundo más justo y consciente. No necesitas ser un experto, solo tener curiosidad y ganas de explorar.
Esta clase se impartirá en español. Regístrense aquí