Events
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will begin a discussion of the book When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004) by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber. For the 12th we'll…
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The Heirs of Muhammad…the Sunni-Shia Split – Session I
via ZoomContinuing our journey through the ages and across the lands, our next stop is the Prophet Muhammad, and what happened after his death. Accordingly, we will be reading and discussing…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will discuss chapters 3 – 6 of Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall. Please note that while Aristotle's philosophy has helped many people, neither…
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History Study Group
via ZoomWe will continue discussing The Heirs of Muhammad: Islam's First Century and the Origins of the Sunni-Shia Split (Barnaby Rogerson), our current stop being the Prophet Muhammad, and what happened after his death. This…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will conclude our discussion of Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall. After having read this book, it won't matter if you've been adhering to the…
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Peanuts, Popcorn, and Preemies: Wonderland Park and the Infantorium
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNIt was 1905 and Americans were in love with electricity. More than 400 trolley car parks sprang up around the country. But only a handful had an Infantorium, a hospital…
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History Study Group
via ZoomLiberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America by Harry Watson What better way to head into 2024, an important election year, than to visit 1816 America? That is what…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomOn Valentine's Day we will be starting a new book, Thought: A Very Short Introduction (2013) by Tim Bayne, a part of the Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press.…
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The Indigenous Oral History Manual: Canada and the United States (2023)
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNFor the past several years, I worked on the Indigenous Oral History Manual: Canada and the United States, with authors Winona Wheeler, Charles E. Trimble (posthumous), and Mary Kay Quinlan.…
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History Study Group
via ZoomWe will continue discussing the book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles Mann, by reading Parts Two and Three. Previously we spent time examining the worldwide boom…
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History Study Group
via ZoomPerilous Question: Reform or Revolution? Britain on the Brink, 1832 by Antonia Fraser Join us for "a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller." The characters: Whig Lord Grey,…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will finish discussing the book Thought: A Very Short Introduction by Tim Bayne. A short introductory book on a broad topic can lead to some interesting disagreements with what the…
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Minnesota’s Carnegie Libraries After 100 Years.
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNIn the early 1900s, Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of over 1600 libraries in this country, 66 of which were in Minnesota. The first half of the talk will describe…
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History Study Group
via ZoomThe Wager:
A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David GrannReady for an extreme version of "he said" "HE said"! The British ship Wager left England in 1740 on a secret mission but did not accomplish its goal. Instead multiple groups of shipwreck survivors turn up in 1742 with differing stories of their experiences, leading to accusations of treachery and murder.
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Pot Luck!
Nokomis Square Cooperative, 5015 35th Avenue South, MinneapolisMembers & Friends You’re Invited!! Early last November MISF held a social event (no program) for conversation and community building –getting better acquainted outside our regular meetings. It was quite…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomNote that this is the third Wednesday of the month, not the second Wednesday, our usual meeting day. We are starting a new book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing by Louis Groarke, part of the McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas.
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Futures Study Group
via ZoomThe Future of plant based and cultured meat Homework: 1) visit local grocery chains such as Cub and Lunds/Byerlys and look in the freezer and dairy areas for alt meat…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomFor this meeting we will discuss the topic of “Power and Discourse” by reading three short and very accessible articles which can be found online. Powercube https://www.powercube.net/analyse-power/…
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Building Community Food Webs
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNKen Meter’s book Building Community Food Webs (Island Press, 2021) harvests insights from several decades of work in communities across the US who are grappling with how to create healthier, more localized food systems.
The book begins with an overview showing how the US food system has extracted wealth from rural and urban areas, and then goes on to highlight 8 community efforts in Montana, Hawai’i, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Colorado, and Minnesota that have mounted robust community foods initiatives, showing what elements have contributed to each success. Ken's research and writing have been carried out independently, with no institutional support.
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History Study Group
via ZoomJean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home in December of 1972, never to be seen alive again. A climate of fear and paranoia meant no one would speak of it, even though everyone knew who did it.
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History Study Group
Curran's Restaurant, 42nd and Nicollet in MinneapolisOur new book is The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings (2014) by Lars Brownworth. This book can be purchased in paperback for around $14, but an ebook is only $5.…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will continue our discussion of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing by Louis Groarke, by reading chapter 3. In this chapter, the author, having finished his survey and critique of concepts of induction falling between Aristotle and contemporary philosophy, starts to dig deeper into what Aristotle regarded as inductive reasoning. We are hoping that reading this will induce you to reason seriously about coming to our meeting so that we can induct you into our membership. Deductively, it's a no-brainer.
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Poetry Day
Joseph A. Amato will read poems about place (Detroit, Southwest Minnesota, and Sicily), family, memory, aging, death, and hope and gratitude. They will be drawn from some of his published books, Buoyancies: The Ballast Master’s Log, My Three Sicilies Poems, Stories, and Essays and Trinity of Hope, plus poems published in Sicilian and Italian-American and other publications An Open Mic will follow the program.
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History Study Group
via ZoomWe will be reading and discussing If a Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Black Bart, "King of the Caribbean Pirates" by Richard Sellers
How much did the pirate pay for his peg and hook? An arm and a leg!
Bartholomew Roberts, aka Black Bart, a great Caribbean pirate. Drinking tea instead of rum, banning women and gambling, he never made his prisoners walk the plank. Evidently there are many more interesting facts to discover, so say the reviews!
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomThe MISF Philosophy Study Group plans to have its next meeting on Wednesday, June 12, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. We will be continuing our discussion of the book An Aristotelian…
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Can understanding of urban ecosystems improve our odds?
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNFollowing many centuries of mostly agrarian lives, more than half of the people on our planet now live in cities. Early industrial cities were a mess, choked with smog, filthy water, large epidemics, to the point that lifespans around 1900 were shorter for folks living in cities than the countryside.
This talk examines the progress we’ve made, and some ideas for future progress, illustrated in part by Larry Baker's own research. We’ll continue this vein with a structured discussion to dive deeper on the topic of “improving our odds” for the livability of cities in the future
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomFor this meeting we will discuss chapters 6 and 7 of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing, by Louis Groarke. For those who might need a little persuading to attend, I have put together a notable argument:
All books about Aristotle are delightful. This is a book about Aristotle. Therefore, this book is delightful.
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomThe next meeting of the MISF Philosophy Study Group is on Wednesday, August 14, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. We will conclude our discussion of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing, by Louis Groarke with the attendance of the author, himself.
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Annual Picnic
Indian Mounds Park 10 Mounds Boulevard, St. Paul, MNThis is our annual summer picnic. MISF will provide the drinks, plasticware, and grills, and St. Paul Parks & Rec the electricity and more grills. You provide a dish to…
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Philosophy Study Group
Zoom MeetingOur book for this meeting is What Would Nietzsche Do?: Philosophical Solutions to Everyday Problems (2017) by Marcus Weeks. A paperback version of the book lists for $20 but can be had…
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“Power Behind Your Writing: What Every Writer Needs to Know”
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNEvelyn Klein will discuss how and why this book came about in the course of her teaching English, language arts and world languages for many years. In order to be…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomAt our last meeting we discussed the book, What Would Nietzsche Do?: Philosophical Solutions to Everyday Problems, by Marcus Weeks. This book took various problems that people may encounter in everyday…
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Cohousing–Living in an Intentional Community
Maplewood Library 3025 Southlawn Dr, Maplewood, MNBecca and Lynn will share with you a housing model unfamiliar in the USA, Cohousing. It is a type of intentional community that will reduce our carbon footprint, reduce loneliness and get us a lot more fun in the process. There are examples of about 180 cohousing communities across the US and we will share views of them.
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomThe MISF Philosophy Study Group meets next on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. For this meeting we will discuss Friedrich Nietzsche's classic, On the Genealogy of Morals, first…
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“Family Declassified”: Uncovering My Grandfather’s Journey from Spy to Children’s Book Author
via ZoomWhy do people keep deep secrets about their lives and ancestry? In Family Declassified (Sunbury Press, 2023) Katherine Fennelly applied her expertise as a social science researcher to answer this question…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will continue our reading of On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche by discussing his Second Treatise, “'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscious,' and Related Matters.” If you wish to remain guilt-free with…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomNote that this meeting is the first Monday of the month, rather than our usual second Wednesday. We will finish our discussion of On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche by…
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The Accidental Hero: how a WWII Czech liberation story is a current event
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNA string of jaw-dropping coincidences in the last week of WWII had Colonel Matt Konop liberating the same Czech villages his grandparents had left for Wisconsin in the 1860s. Konop’s…
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Philosophy Study Group
via ZoomWe will be beginning a new book, The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolf Steiner. Originally published in 1894, this book has been translated many times and has been very influential…
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Uncommon Common Sense: Riding the Dragons of Complexity
Shoreview Library 4560 Victoria St N, Shoreview, MNComplexity sciences, and their applications to human systems, have been around since the early 1980s, but the power in academe, business, industry, and government still sit squarely in Newtonian worldviews. Why?…