History Study Group
2020-03-18 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Curran’s Restaurant, 42nd and Nicollet in Minneapolis
We will conclude our book, The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt. After reading the first half of the book, we feel that it deserves all the major awards and prestigious endorsements it received. The controversy that it created, however, comes from the second half, and we will discuss whatever feelings we have about that at this meeting. You are invited to come and share your own. Some controversies, however, we will explicitly avoid, especially in an election year. But, then again…

Philosophy Study Group
2020-03-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Curran’s Restaurant, 42nd and Nicollet in Minneapolis
Cancelled (to be rescheduled)
We will begin a discussion of the book, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (revised second edition, 1998) by Simon Wiesenthal. This book consists of a story of a German soldier asking forgiveness from the author – a Jew – for an atrocity the soldier had committed. At the time of the request, Wiesenthal was an inmate in a World War II concentration camp.
After relating the story, Wiesenthal then presents analyses by several dozen people – clerics, authors, politicians, journalists, and others – whom he had asked to comment. Should this soldier be forgiven, and why or why not? When this book first came out in the 70’s it became popular among some groups to provoke discussions. It has lost none of its power since then. It is available in paperback for around $12-15, and as an ebook for about $10. (Note that later editions and revisions of the book added more commentators. If you happen to have or get an earlier edition, it will not have as many. While this does not, of course, mean that you should not use it, it is just something to be aware of.) For the 30th we will read the first fifteen chapters. Personally, I think that our group should well positioned to be able to provide a robust analysis of this book, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.

Minnesotans and the Ultra-Resistance
2020-04-25 10:00 - 11:30 | Washburn Library, 5244 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55419
CANCELLED (will be rescheduled later this year)
Based on his 2018-2019 oral history project, “We Won’t Go, and We Don’t Want You to Go Either,” Peter Simmons will talk about Minnesotans who, during 1967-1970, took part in raids on Selective Service offices (draft boards) in Minnesota and elsewhere, aiming to cripple the ability of the government to to conscript young American’s into the military during the never-declared Vietnam war.
Mr. Simmons was born in North Minneapolis in 1950, and has been a life-long Minneapolis resident. After involvement in the draft resistance and peace movements, he was convicted in 1970 of violating the Selective Service Act, and spent twenty months in Federal Prison in Colorado. His “We Won’t Go…” project was assisted and made possible by the Minnesota Independent Scholars Forum.

Annual Poetry Day (Rescheduled!)
2020-05-30 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
Vicki Mickelson is a retired educator with thirty-eight years experience in the classroom, most of them in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Her writing journey began in Anna Maria, Florida, her winter haven. Proudly, she offers seven published books of poetry, including Island Attitudes, nominated for a Minnesota Book Award in 2016, to her readers. Vicki’s poetry is inspired by life’s feats and daily observations and resonates human frailties and achievements. Her six grandchildren fuel her energy for writing. She lives in Rosemount, Minnesota.
Joseph A. Amato has written more than twenty-five books in European intellectual and cultural history, family, local, rural and regional history, and two memoirs. In the last decade, while finishing a book in philosophy and history The Book of Twos and Everyday Life, he completed a major work of magic realism, Buffalo Man: A Boy Giant on the Minnesota River, and four books of poetry – Buoyancies: A Ballast Master’s Log; My Three Sicilies: Stories, Poems and Histories; Diagnostics: The Poetics of Time; and due for early spring publication, Towers of Aging.

Bold Vision: ERA 2020
2020-06-27 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
On the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote, another 100-year struggle to gain constitutional equality through ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment for women is one state away from passage. Modern-day suffragists around the country have united to make equal legal in 2020. We’ll explore efforts both here in Minnesota and around the U.S., finally, to amend an ERA into our state and federal constitutions.
The honorable Betty Folliard is a well-known Minnesota thought leader and founder of ERA Minnesota, an organization dedicated to passing the Equal Rights Amendment statewide and nationally. Ms. Folliard worked in government at the local, state, and national levels: first as a School Board vice chair; serving 3 terms (6 years) as legislator in the Minnesota House of Representatives; and for several years, as a U.S. House of Representatives Congressional Aide in the Office of Congressman Keith Ellison.
As state representative in the Minnesota House of Representatives for the communities of Hopkins, Minnesota, and St. Louis Park, she served six years on the Minnesota Commission on the Economic Status of Women; was chair of the Teacher Preparation Subcommittee; became pro-choice lead on the House Health and Human Services Committee; and served nationally as vice chair of NCEL – the National Commission of Environmental Legislators.
Betty Folliard earned a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and Master of Fine Arts from Wayne State University and began her career as a Theatre Specialist. She became co-owner of Strategy Partners, a business and political consulting firm. She also created a feminist talk show called A Woman’s Place. Ms. Folliard was first board chair of Gender Justice – a non-profit law firm in St. Paul and served as board chair of PRISM – People Responding in Social Ministry, a social services agency.
In 2014 Betty founded ERA Minnesota, revitalizing the ERA movement in Minnesota. Consequently, she earned the highly coveted Minnesota Women’s Press Change Maker Award. In 2017, she received the Minnesota Women’s Summit Committee’s Woman of Distinction Award. In 2018 Betty was appointed a National Presbyterian Delegate to the United Nations 62nd Commission on the Status of Women. This year she helped pass the state ERA bill through the Minnesota House. Most recently, she is helping organize a Women’s Economic Security Task Force on behalf of the new Minnesota State Attorney General.

Saving Lives: Stories From Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery
2020-09-26 10:00 - 11:30 | At the Cemetery: 2925 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis
Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery (formerly Layman’s) is the oldest existing cemetery in Minneapolis and the first in Minnesota to have been listed as an individual landmark in the National Register of Historic Sites. The cemetery’s first burial took place in 1853, five years before statehood. In addition to recognizing the significance of the cemetery’s built environment, its listing in the National Register acknowledges the contributions made by those who are buried there to the city and state’s history. It is the final resting place of abolitionists, military veterans from the War of 1812 to World War I, members of the city’s early African-American community, and several thousand immigrants. And there are children—some 10,000 of them. Volunteers have been collecting and preserving stories and photographs of these residents to ensure that they are not forgotten.
Sue Hunter Weir is Chair of Friends of the Cemetery, an organization dedicated to preserving and maintaining Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery. She has spent 20 years researching the cemetery and its 22,000 residents. Sue has written more than 160 “Tales from the Cemetery,” columns that have been published in The Alley, a newspaper serving the Phillips Community and surrounding neighborhoods. For nine years, she served on the City of Minneapolis’ Heritage Preservation Commission. Before she retired, Sue was Coordinator of Academic Advising for students majoring in the visual and performing arts at the University of Minnesota.

Maritime Heritage Minnesota: Who we are and what we do
2020-10-24 09:45 - 12:00 | via Zoom
Since 2005 MHM has been working to document Minnesota’s submerged heritage. They will detail their findings from side and down-imaging sonar surveys, underwater archaeological dive reconnaissance projects, Minnesota small craft and dugout canoe studies, and log books digitization.
MHM was founded by Ann Merriman, PhD, and Christopher Olson, MA in July 2005 in St. Paul, MN. MHM’s Nautical/Maritime/Maritime Terrestrial Archaeologists are the only underwater archaeologists working in Minnesota; they hold the only 2 underwater archaeoloal licenses from the Office of the State Archaeologist in Minnesota. MHM’s mission is to document, conserve, preserve, and when necessary, excavate these finite cultural resources where the welfare of the artifact is paramount. MHM is concerned with protecting our underwater and maritime sites – our shared Maritime History – for their own benefit in order for all Minnesotans to gain the knowledge that can be obtained through their study. MHM’s study of wrecks does not include the removal of artifacts or damaging the sites in any way.

Sinclair Lewis: The Centenary of "Main Street"
2020-11-21 10:00 - 10:30 | via Zoom
Mr. Coleman is the acquisitions librarian at the Minnesota Historical Society. He writes and lectures on topics related to Minnesota culture and history. He served as president of the Library of Congress’s Minnesota Center for the Book, president over Minnesota Book Awards, is on the boards of Coffee House Press and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
He received the Kay Sexton Award in 2009. He serves as Executive Leadership Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrative Leadership.
He is also doing an exhibit at the Minnesota History Center. There will be an opportunity to do a tour related to this program.

Philosophy Study Group
2020-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
For this meeting we have chosen a book that was very popular some years ago and has managed to retain its popularity. The book is Why Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) by Harold Kushner, in which the author, a Jewish rabbi, tackles the problem of evil.
This book should be widely available, new or used, at less than $15. An ebook costs about $12. You are welcome to join this discussion even if nothing bad has ever happened to you. As a matter of fact, if that is the case, we are especially interested in meeting you.

History Study Group
2021-01-06 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
Before our Covid-19 delay, we were in the process of reading the book, The Swerve (2012), by Stephen Greenblatt. This book won many awards, including both a Pulitzer and a National Book award. Even its critics praised the book as a well-written, important addition to the genre of the beginnings of the Renaissance.
However, some historians felt it over-simplified the causes of the Renaissance, and some clerics decried it as anti-Christian. The MISF History Study Group does not take a position on any of these issues. It does, though, feel that attending a meeting without reading at least a fair amount of the book, while by no means forbidden, is a bit naughty.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-01-13 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will begin a discussion of Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (2004) by Richard E. Rubenstein.
This book can be had for under $20 in paperback and for about $15 as an ebook. We will read the first four chapters. (This is a bit ambitious, but do the best you can.). A history book as much as a philosophy book, it should provide a different perspective on Aristotelian philosophy. Several different perspectives, even. And when multiplied by the perspectives of our participants, we will be swimming in perspectives. Perspectives are good.

The Electoral College —Time For A Change?
2021-01-23 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
This presentation by independent scholar Alan Johnson will address the history of, and proposed alterations to, the Electoral College.
We will discuss the intentions of the 1787 framers of the Electoral College, the understanding of the ratifiers, the early frustration of original intent, the adoption of the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the failures of original intent from the 12th Amendment to the present, the present operation of the Electoral College, proposed statutory mitigations of the current Electoral College regime (including the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact), and a proposed constitutional amendment for election of the president and vice president by direct popular vote (including ranked-choice or instant-runoff voting).
Alan E. Johnson, a retired lawyer, is an independent historian and philosopher. He is the author of The Electoral College: Failures of Original Intent and a Proposed Constitutional Amendment for Direct Popular Vote (2018), The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience (2015), and other writings in the fields of history, law, political science, and philosophy. He is currently preparing a philosophical trilogy with the working titles Free Will and Human Life, Reason and Human Ethics, and Reason and Human Government.

History Study Group
2021-02-03 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will be beginning a new book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2011), by Charles Mann. A new paperback edition of this book can be had for $15 – $18, and an ebook is only $5. For the 3rd we will read through Part One.
This book is a companion to the author’s book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, which won numerous awards and that we read a couple of years ago. However, the books are separate and one does not have to read 1491 in order to understand 1493. While the former covers recent research on the status of human populations in the Americas at the time of Columbus’ arrival, the latter discusses the Columbian Exchange that followed, good and bad.
Our group will do their own exchange: sharing ideas and insights into the book and our own experiences. But this will be all good.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-02-10 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
For this meeting we will finish discussing the book Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard E. Rubenstein. We will see how illuminated we are at the end of the session. Those not illuminated enough may have their credentials reviewed.

Mapping Prejudice
2021-02-27 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
For many years restrictive covenants in deeds and documents related to real estate transactions reserved land for the exclusive use of white people. Research involving academics, community activists, and community members unearth the evidence of these practices. This allowed a map to be made showing how these restrictive practices were embedded in the physical landscape. This is a continuing project to expose the corrosive effects of structural racism.
Denise Pike and Marguerite Mills, local historians and researchers, will present their work which builds on the research by the Mapping Prejudice project to illuminate the history of racial covenants in Minneapolis. The researchers will present their work and research funded by the Minnesota Independent Scholars’ Forum.
Denise Pike will discuss the creation of the traveling exhibit, Displaced. First debuted at the Linden Hills Library, Displaced connects the history of racial covenants to a broader conversation about Indigenous and Black displacement, racial housing discrimination, and lasting racial inequities in our broader Twin Cities communities. Denise will also be discussing the creation of a community workshop guide, created to assist our local communities feel empowered and ready to tackle conversations about racial equity.
Marguerite Mills will discuss the creation of the digital map component of the Displaced exhibit. In collaboration with Mapping Prejudice colleagues, Mills researched the roots of an emerging Black community in southwest Minneapolis. Her digital cartography visualized the establishment and displacement of that community through white violence and racial covenanting. Her work in this small geography reveals indigenous dispossession and Black displacement as nodes on the same trajectory of white supremacy. Thanks to the initial map created in partnership with the MISF, she has continued adding to this body of knowledge and will present updates from her most recent research. Mills will also discuss the accompanying K-12 lesson plan created for use with the map.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-03-10 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
For this meeting we will begin reading Aldous Huxley’s book, The Perennial Philosophy, which proved to be very popular when it was first published in 1945 and remains so in some quarters today. For the 10th we will read through chapter VII.
You can purchase a new paperback for between $15 and $20 or an ebook for around $9. You might also be able to find a used copy. Huxley was interested in mysticism and this book is his attempt to understand what he felt was a common underlying truth in all the world’s religions. If Huxley proves to be persuasive, I think we could start our own cult. We can call it the Secret Society for the Ancient and Esoteric Wisdom of the MISF Philosophy Study Group. Catchy.

Taking the Fight to Parkinson’s: Rock Steady Boxing
2021-03-27 10:00 - 12:30 | via Zoom
Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) is a non-contact boxing program that helps people with Parkinson’s through intense exercise, camaraderie, and good fun. Established in Indianapolis in 2006, RSB has 900 affiliate programs throughout the world, including three in the metro area.
Recalling former heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, his masked face, shaking arm, and stiff gait, symbols of Parkinson’s disease, many people assume his illness was a direct result of years in the ring. Ironically, boxing is now routinely prescribed for people with Parkinson’s.
Dr. Katie Grove is coach and program co-director at Rock Steady Boxing, Saint Paul. She was athletic trainer at Indiana University, athletic training program director in the School of Public Health. She was induced in the National Athletic Trainers’ Hall of Fame and received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Montana, where she had completed her bachelor’s degree.
Kim Heikkila, Ph.D., has been training people with Parkinson’s to box for almost five years and helped establish the first RSB program in Minnesota. Kim is also an independent scholar, oral historian and author. MISF supported her work on the book Booth Girls: Pregnancy, Adoption, and the Secrets we Kept (2021) with two Minnesota Histroical Society Legacy grants.

History Study Group
2021-04-07 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will conclude our discussion of the book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles Mann. The last parts of the book return to the subject of the conquest of the Americas by the conquistadors (including Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean; clearly, the natives never knew it was there), as well as a discussion of sugar.
The stories here are – and I won’t sugarcoat this – not all complimentary to our European ancestors. But they make great reading.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-04-14 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will conclude our discussion of the book, The Perennial Philosophy, by Aldous Huxley. At this meeting we will be looking for immanent arguments and comments, the sort that can transcend the beings offering them and become theses that anchor themselves absolutely in the ground of elucidation.

Celebrating Earth Month – Learn, Do, Make an Impact!
2021-04-24 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
Earth Day, 51 years old this year, has grown into an entire month of events encouraging us to recognize the importance of our impact on the planet. Our April speaker, Brenn Fromm, self-proclaimed Master Recycler and advocate for Planet Earth is going to energize us through an informative and interactive session.
This will be a one of a kind event, with a unique prize being up for grabs, an event very appropriate for the Minnesota Independent Scholars Forum to host!
Brenn (Brenda) Fromm is a long-time supporter of environmental initiatives, having started her career in the recycling and waste management field. She spent 7 years working on environmental programs for Anoka and Dakota Counties, and earned her Certificate in Solid Waste Management at the University of Minnesota.
When she started a family, she transitioned to a career as an Executive Assistant, but never lost her passion for reducing, reusing and recycling. She has coordinated environmental education grants for her children’s schools, and incorporated the 3 R’s into many other areas of her work and home life. She is also passionate about fishing and the outdoors, and spent several years coordinating kids’ fishing programs with the non-profit Fishing for Life. As her day job, she spent 5 years working on the Community Relations team at Target Corporation, and recently celebrated her sixth anniversary at Allianz Life supporting the sales training team.
Brenn is the proud mom of two boys who are 18 and 20, and currently lives in Eden Prairie

History Study Group
2021-05-05 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
For this meeting we will be beginning a new book, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes (2010) by Tamim Ansary. This book can be had new in paperback for $15 – $19, and as an ebook for around $12. For the 5th, we’ll read through chapter 7.
To most people in the West, the world is properly marching toward a universal state of democratic capitalism. If you feel this way, this book is one you should read. Written by someone who was brought up in a Muslim society, but who has spent most of his life in the U.S., this book will not tell us which way to go, but illuminate how a whole significant other part of the world sees and values things differently than the West. (Actually, there’s also quite a few people in the West who think that we’re marching toward hell in a handbasket. And my guess is that’s probably matched by a proportional number of people in the Muslim world.)

Philosophy Study Group
2021-05-12 19:30 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will be discussing a book by Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and author of the noted book, Man’s Search for Meaning. This new book, Say Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything (2020), is based on a series of lectures that Frankl gave less than a year after being liberated from a German concentration camp.
He then condensed the lectures into a book in 1946, but it was not published in English until recently. Still, it is easy to find and not expensive, costing around $12 in paperback and $10 as an ebook. Since it is short and easy to read, we will cover the entire book for our meeting on the 12th. If you do attend you can also say Yes to the MISF Philosophy Study Group, in spite of everything we do in trying to tell you your ideas are dead wrong and ours are right.

Ginny Hanson Poetry Day: The Poetry of Philip Bryant
2021-05-22 10:00 - 12:00 | via Zoom
Ellingtonia, The Great Migration and The Promised Land
This presentation will focus around two poems in my book, “The Promised Land.” I will start with a short reading of the title poem of the book, “The Promised Land” and also read the poem, “Ellingtonia.” I will then briefly discuss how I think the poems interface and converse with each other in terms of how they address the issue of race, culture, and citizenship in the United States.
I will offer the idea of a migratory sense of American identity, an identity that is constantly on the move and migrating toward that ideal place where it could feel most like itself in all it’s colors, shades, and hues. I would like to pose the question that in a so-called plural, representative democracy as ours is there still a “Promised Land” left in our democracy for a multiracial and multiethnic American identity to migrate to? Can we still find an Ellingtonia anywhere in the America landscape today?
Philip Bryant is Professor of English at Gustavus Adolphus College and past radio-essayist for Minnesota Public Radio, a prize winning poet, who has been published in various publications, is author of four collections of poetry, the last titled The Promised Land, treating African American themes, receiving the Benjamin Franklin Award, Silver Winner from IBPA in 2019.This presentation will focus around two poems in my book, “The Promised Land.”

History Study Group
2021-06-02 10:00 - 12:00 | via Zoom
We will continue our discussion of the book, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary. For this meeting we will cover chapters 8 through 11, which chronicle the ending of the Islamic Golden Age.
Fortunately for you, the MISF History Study Group’s Golden Age is continuing. Getting Goldener even.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-06-09 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We are starting a new book, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (2014), by Jennifer Nagel. This book is a part of the Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University. A paperback costs about $12 and an ebook is around $7. For this meeting we will read the first three chapters, which cover the history of epistemology into the 20th century.
People have been challenging each other on why they know something for millenia. We will do the same. And by totally eliminating food fights, meeting on Zoom is actually more safe to do this.

Cass Gilbert's White Bear Cottages
2021-06-26 10:00 - 11:30 | via Zoom
Well-known Minnesota architect Cass Gilbert spent much of his early career designing homes and other buildings around the White Bear area. Rheanna O’Brien of the White Bear Lake Area Hustorical Society will present an illustrated program as we discuss his early work. Some of those buildings still stand, while others have either not survived or were never built.
Rheanna O’Brien is the Associate Director of the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society. She has conducted extensive research on Cass Gilbert and his local connections, including a fascinating trip to the Library of Congress where a collection of Gilbert manuscripts are held. Her prior experience as an educator make her presentations engaging and informative.

History Study Group
2021-07-07 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
This meeting will cover the last chapters of the book, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary. The author brings his story of Islam up to the present day. If you have an opinion about the Islamic world and the U.S., and the reason things are the way they are and what ought to be done about it, then you might be interested in this meeting.
f you don’t have an opinion, you clearly haven’t been paying attention.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-07-14 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
We will conclude our book, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction , by Jennifer Nagel. The last part of the book covers some of the major issues that are currently being debated in epistemology. Please come. With enough people and a little effort we should be able to take care of these problems in a couple of hours.

History Study Group
2021-08-04 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
The book we are tackling this time is From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia (2012) by Indian author Pankaj Mishra. A new paperback version of the book lists for $20, but can be found for less. An ebook is $13. This meeting will cover the first three chapters.
This is a book about some of the seminal thinkers who helped shape today’s Asian world. It was named a book of the year or an editor’s choice by the New York Times, The Economist, and the Financial Times. And if they had known about us, we would have been named the best History Study Group in Minnesota.

Philosophy Study Group
2021-08-11 19:00 - 21:00 | via Zoom
Zoom Link
For this meeting we will spend our time discussing Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous by George Berkeley. First published in 1713, it has become a part of the traditional epistemological oeuvre.
It is no longer in copyright and is readily available, both as a new book (usually with commentary) or used or for free online. With respect to the latter, your best bet is probably Gutenberg.org where it is available in several formats. This book is relatively short and not difficult to read, so we will only spend one session on it.
This book is the good Bishop Berkeley’s response to what he saw as the materialism of empiricists like John Locke. While no other philosopher ever endorsed his position, he is admired for his logical and coherent arguments which have made the book a classic. We will have our own dialogue about Berkeley’s Dialogues and hope to be as logical and coherent as he was. Unfortunately, in spite of repeated attempts, we were unable to reach either Hylas or Philonous, so neither will be in attendance.
