The Workers and Punks’ University

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Delavsko punkerska univerza (DPU)

Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://www.mirovni-institut.si

dpu@mail.mirovni-institut.si

Phone386 (0) 1 234 7720, 386 (0) 1 234 7731

ProprietorPeace Institute - Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies

Dr Tonči Kuzmanič, Head

tonci.kuzmanic@mirovni-institut.si

The Workers' Punk University - Delavsko-punkerska univerza (DPU) - is an educational project run by Peace Institute - Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies that provides opportunities for active education (lectures, discussion groups, reading seminars) on contemporary political topics tacitly ignored by most of the established academia. Since its establishment in 1998, the University's running slogan is Nasvidenje v naslednji revoluciji! ('See you in the next revolution!').

For some time now the self-contained knowledge of the established university has failed to address issues in the fields of punk, labour and other marginalised groups, i.e. the watershed social and political reality of today. In the past years DPU has addressed these gaps with lecture-cycles such as 'Revolution', 'Neo-Conservativism', 'The New Right', 'The Left', 'Utopistics', 'May '68: reVISION' and 'Love and Politics', 'Post-Fordism', (drawing on the most diverse sources, including Gandhi, Freud, Arendt, Marx, Rousseau, St Augustine, St Paul, Adorno, Foucault, de Sade, Lacan, Negri and Virno), 'Political Ecology', ' On Sin', 'Totalitarism', 'Stupidity', 'School as Ideological Economy Apparatus ' in the 2009/10 season.

In its socially-reproductive function the established university is closely related with the existing social hierarchy: the university favours a typifying and utilitarian knowledge and grooms the future work force by virtue of its examination regimes. Thursdays' lectures – about 20 per year - are held in Klub Gromka at Metelkova mesto Autonomous Cultural Zone. As the 'invisible college' the Workers' Punk University seeks to provide an alternative to the established university, not merely on the level of content but also in terms of its organisational structure, consequently it is organised and led by the students themselves. In the season 2007/2008 the DPU has launched a film seminar called Filmski krožek (themes: film comedy, the new Hollywood, the American 'black' film, Partisan film) has been launched in collaboration with Retrovizor.

The Reading Seminars organised by DPU - some six per year - included insight into 'Psychoanalysis', 'Theory of Art', 'Hegel and Philosophy', 'Asian Production Mode', 'Transformations in Art', etc. DPU also organised Prvomajska šola ('DPU 1st May School') on Marxism and on the Critic of Apolitical Economy.

See also

• Peace Institute - Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies