Our 60th Year
Verbal Level
May-September, 2006
Here’s an opportunity to practice learning and applying the GS tools in Wendell Johnson’s famous book. His People in Quandaries has been the GS book most chosen for college courses and study groups, in print for 60 years !
Neil Postman called it a “gentle, beautifully written, entirely intelligible popularization of Korzybski’s ideas.”
In our small groups we’ll examine common misunderstandings and learn ways to defuse problems. We’ll learn ways to deal with disagreements by negotiating meanings. Sharing each other’s problem solving abilities will increase our communicating skills.
After a first round of dialogue we’ll form new groups to evaluate and ex-change ideas on what we’ve learned.
Plan to bring and share your experiences, and use your listening abilities to learn from others.
Come and enjoy a GS learning evening!
Why did big-brained homosapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? In his provocative new book, Leonard Shlain author of the best-selling Art and Physics, and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, argues that profound changes in female sexuality hold the key to this mystery. Author, surgeon, educator, inventor, and speaker, Leonard Shlain will explore with us how archaic insights about sex, time and power dramatic-ally altered all subsequent human cultures, from the nature of court-ship to the institution of marriage, to the evolution of language.
Leonard Shlain, MD, is chief of laparoscopic surgery at California Medical Center in San Francisco.
Note: people will be asked at Meta Center to remove their shoes.
FIONS offers this rare opportunity to meet and talk with an author nationally recognized for his stimulating, thought-provoking books and talks. Leonard Shlain has discussed the cultural interplay between art and physics, the impact of left brain versus right brain ways of social behavior, and now his interpretation of gender and history, sexuality and evolution. This is a FIONS fund-raising event in mid-town Manhattan. Tickets are $250. For in-formation on time, location and to make reservations, please call FIONS at 212-741-2207, or email fions@mindspring.com. Please write “Shlain Salon” in the subject heading.
All-day Symposium at
Co-sponsored by
In his seminal work, in print for 60 years, Wendell Johnson lays out not only a program for “personal adjust-ment” but also insights for under-standing such social languaging as “ventriloquizing,” speaking by the Judge, the Priest, the Teacher, and the Parent, as if with the authority of The Law, The Almighty, The Wise, and The Good. Pointing out that “man is the creature able to talk him-self into difficulties that would not otherwise exist,” Johnson shows the pervasive effects of the language of maladjustment on individuals and whole societies.
People in Quandaries will be avail-able at the Symposium.
The second anniversary is the founding of the New York Society for General Semantics, September 9, 1946, by Edwin Green, W. Benton Harrison, Jr., Samuel Rosen, Kurt Safranski, and Eleanor Wolff. They felt a local organization was needed to study General Semantics as begun by Alfred Korzybski in his Science and Sanity, 1933. Lectures, seminars, workshops, study groups and socials have continued for 60 years. Many of our members have also been members of the Institute of General Semantics. Seven of our Board members are also Trustees of IGS. Authors of G S books who have spoken include Wendell Johnson, S. I. Hayakawa, Harry Weinberg, Neil Postman, and Charles Weingartner.
Symposium presentations from interdisciplinary studies will include talks, interactive participation, socio-drama workshop, learning exercises, a panel, discussions, and a reception.
The theme of Pathways to Wholeness will be developed by speakers from diverse orientations, including psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, general semantics, bio-feedback, and sensory awareness.
Among the topics will be Steven Rosen’s new book, Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Life-world, Adair Nagata’s bodymindfulness, a demonstration of social conflict using socio-drama, Eugene Gendlin’s focusing, Robyn Torosyan’s group empathy, group heart rate biofeedback, and Montague Ullman’s approach to dreams and Bohm’s implicate order.
The format of the Conference will be a blend of twenty minute presentations by invited speakers followed by an interactive dialogue that facilitates discussion among the speakers and people attending the meeting. It will also include somatic practices, such as sensory awareness (semantic relaxation), to enable participants to attend to the role their body is play-ing in their communication.
The schedule of speakers will be posted at Lifwynn Foundation’s web-site, www.lifwynnfoundation.org.
Complete information:
www.media-ecology.org
Tuition: $400 I G S
Members
$450 Non-members
$350 Returning participants
Registration: 817-922-9950 or
This seminar-workshop provides the best available comprehensive learning experience for those wishing to study the interdisciplinary system of general semantics.
join nySgs, or renew, and attend these meetings free !
Members are invited to renew, non-members are invited to join, and attend our monthly meetings Free !
Members attend meetings and our workshops free and are invited to come to our members’ socials. Meetings co-sponsored with other organizations are free or reduced admissions.
Send your check to
N Y S G S
144 East 36th St, #6C
New York, NY 10016-3517
Member
$35
Joint Members
$45
Students & Seniors
$15
v e r b a l l e v e l
published by
new york society
for general semantics
144 East 36th Street, #6C
New York, NY 10016-3517
212-532-1467
FAX 212-683-9784
VERBAL LEVEL 5/6/7/9/06