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The Concord Summer Village University
Conversational working sessions in the spirit of Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts and Margaret Fuller
“It is time we had uncommon schools. It is time that villages were universities. . ." — Thoreau
The Concord Summer Village University
June 24 – July 6, 2016
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All programs are in Concord, MA
NOTE: In the spirit of “conversational philosophy” that inspired Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts and Margaret Fuller, this summer’s Village University Celebration is envisioned as conversational working sessions (as opposed to finished, formal presentations) where, following opening words, the substance is contributed by each person in attendance.
Find out what's happening in Concordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Friday, June 24
This series features performances by gifted young musicians, followed by conversations between the performers and audience about how the musicians’ gifts can be safe-guarded from the increasing pressures of competition and professionalism.
Saturday, June 25
•The Concord Shakespeare Festival ~ For the Love of the Bard
9am — 5pm: Trustees Room, Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St.
7pm — 9pm: Emerson Umbrella, 40 Stow St. (across from library)
This year’s festival honors the 400th anniversary of the blessed bard. One and all are invited to lift their glasses at the celebration with expressions of appreciation (sonnets, lines from the plays et al) to Shakespeare’s universal genius.
Sunday, June 26
2pm — 4pm: The Wheelhouse Garden, 33 Bradford St., W. Concord
This election season is showing us that there is a deep longing among the People to revive the spirit of public service. That is the purpose of the Citizens’ Movement.
- Reading & Conversation on Emerson’s “Lord’s Supper Address”
7pm — 8:30pm: Emerson Grave, Authors’ Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 32 Bedford St.
As the “Sage of Concord” noted in his Lord’s Supper Address, the question of the nature and validity of the sacrament of communion (bread and wine) has been the central religious question since the dawn of Christianity. So it was in Emerson’s time. So it is in ours?
Monday, June 27
- Conversation: Ties that Gently Bind — Through Our Lives & Beyond
2pm — 3:30pm: Concord Park: 68 Commonwealth Ave., W. Concord
When loved ones lay down their bodies, what becomes of those parts of them that we truly love: their souls and spirits? Might it be that those we’ve “lost” can be found, anew?
7pm — 9pm: Concord Library, 129 Main St., Lower Meeting Room
How to strike, gently, that elusive balance? Could it have to do with a novel question: Might our concern about those who use others, their fellow human beings, extend (upon reflection) to our, humanity’s automatic use of machines? Part, no less, of our creation?
Tuesday, June 28
7pm — 9pm: Montague’s Gallery, 10 Walden St., Concord Center
Sixty years ago Socially Responsible Investing, as such, did not exist. Today it is a trillion dollar industry. Might that industry be setting the stage for the next development in the field: Spiritually Responsible Investing, based on a higher or more “spirited” understanding of money, our “fortunes”?
Wednesday, June 29
7pm – 9pm: The Wheelhouse, 33 Bradford St., W. Concord
If Peace is to become more than an elusive promise, might we be called to inquire: What are its essential prerequisites, in the individual, “body-individual”, no less than in society, the “body-social”?
Thursday, June 30
- Conversation: Revolution-Evolution-Involution: Concord & The Unfolding Genius of Our Land
7pm – 9pm: Trustees Room, Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St.
On the 19th of April in 1775, a political re-volution was ignited in Concord with “the shot heard ‘round the world.” 70 years later, a cultural e-volution arose out of the works of Concord’s Authors. And today? What lives in the “promise” of in-volution, a turning in to those deeper sources that ebb and flow within us?
Friday, July 1
7pm — 8:30pm: The Wheelhouse Garden, 33 Bradford St., W. Concord
What can we learn from one another with respect to our aspiring Humanity and Divinity? Your angles of vision are most welcome.
Saturday, July 2
- All our Relations: Revisiting the “Contact Period” Between the Native Peoples & Early Settlers
12pm — 5pm: Private Planning Session by invitation, contact: info@concordium.us
“There will never be peace in this land, until justice is done to the Native Peoples,” Benjamin Franklin wrote. By revisiting the initial “contact period” between the Original Peoples and settlers, can we grasp what led to breakdown, which Franklin addresses and, out of that realization, create together new and renewed accords on behalf of “All Our Relations”?
7pm — 8:30pm: Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St.
The enterprise pioneers new directions for commerce and culture, based on a deepening commitment to the basic elements of our existence: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, & and the 5th or Quint-Essence.
Sunday, July 3
- All our Relations: Revisiting the “Contact Period” Between the Native Peoples & Early Settlers
12pm — 5pm: Public Gathering, Jethro’s Tree, Monument Square, Concord Center
“There will never be peace in this land, until justice is done to the Native Peoples,” Benjamin Franklin wrote. By revisiting the initial “contact period” between the Original Peoples and settlers, can we grasp what led to breakdown, which Franklin addresses and, out of that realization, create together new and renewed accords on behalf of “All Our Relations”?
7pm — 9pm: Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm St.
Will Christianity be able to bring, fully, its offering to the world until the representatives of its diverse “streams” find one another anew? Can we work together toward such a fulfillment?
Monday, July 4
2pm — 4pm: Pieta Statue, Monument Square, Concord Center
At the conclusion of the play, the Iraqi mother, holding her dead son (a medic) in her arms, addresses the president, as her son, explaining to him that one cannot take the life of a person or people without taking up and safe-guarding his/their calling. She speaks of the deeper stream of Islam and its meaning for our time.
5pm — 7pm: Garden, Emerson Memorial Home, 28 Cambridge Turnpike
The Goethe Institute, which began as but an idea, conveys the genius of Goethe, Germany, and Middle Europe to the larger world. Might an Emerson Institute/Circle serve the same on the part of America and the West?
- Introduction of the Concord Covenant for Health Care
8pm — 9:30pm: Emerson Hospital Cafeteria
Might one of our tasks as fellow citizens be to share with one another the best practices, sensibilities, and thoughts that we’ve learned, through our own suffering and losses, about health and well-being?
Tuesday, July 5
- Sacred Marriage & Its Promise for Our Time
10am — 12pm: The Grounds of “Eden” / the Old Manse, 269 Monument St.
How can we bring sacredness back into our dearest and most trying relationships?
- Gathering of the Concord Institute for Indian & Eastern Studies
2pm — 4pm: Trustees’ Room, Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St.
The Concord Institute looks at the wisdom of the East in light of the wisdom of the Middle (Europe) and West? What unites us, humanity, amidst our seemingly more outstanding differences?
6pm — 8pm: 320 Monument St., North Bridge Parking Lot Green
(Rain: Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St., Trustees Room)
If we are all members of the human race; all “God’s children”, all united in the “Beloved Community” of which Dr. King spoke, then can it be that there is a love story between our races that is aching, aching, aching to be told?
Wednesday, July 6
- A Science of the Spirit: Translating Transcendentalism into a Language for Our Times
9am — 4pm: Concord School of Philosophy, Home of the Alcotts, 399 Lexington Rd.
The physical sciences arose out of a religious view of the universe. They evolved in turn into the natural, social and cognitive sciences — each of which had to struggle against the prejudices of the preceding discipline. So it is with the next step before us: a fully realized spiritual science or science of the spirit, which, as such, would renew — now consciously — humanity’s connection with those higher sources out of which science first arose with Galileo.
- Annual Gathering of the Amos Bronson & Abigail Alcott Circle
6pm — 8pm: Orchard House, Home of the Alcotts, 399 Lexington Rd.
(Rain: Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St., Lower Meeting Room)
Join us in tipping our cap to Amos Bronson and Abigail Alcott, the beloved parents of four little women and grand spirits in their own right.
For more information: info@concordium.us
