The MFU

The Melbourne Free University provides a platform for learning, discussion and debate which is open to everyone. The MFU was established in 2010 in response to Australia’s increasingly outcome oriented education system, and aims to offer space for independent engagement with important contemporary ideas and issues.

The MFU runs six-week courses on a range of subjects and themes, with classes taking place on weekday evenings from 6.30-8pm in Melbourne’s inner north. Each session starts with a 45 minute presentation by an expert on the issue at hand, followed by a 45 minute participant-driven discussion. This is not a Q&A session – we believe that everyone has something important to bring to the discussion, regardless of their education, job, or experience, and hope to create a space where the community can come together to learn off one another and debate salient current issues.

There is no enrolment, no registration, no fee; you are free to come to any session.

The MFU also runs once-off sessions on a range of topics throughout the year, keep an eye on this space for details.

All our past sessions are available for download on our Recordings page here.

Contact us: If you’d like to know more about the MFU or volunteer to teach at the MFU, please contact us at melbournefreeuniversity@gmail.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to our newsfeed, please use the subscribe panel on the right of this page, or email us at melbournefreeuniversity@gmail.com.

Renovations at the MFU:

We’re currently revamping our website to make it more accessible and user-friendly, so please be patient with us at the moment.

The updated website will have a fully integrated archival system which will provide for each past course the overall course information, poster, lecture blurbs, and audio links to itunes files of each lecture.

If you have been looking for the [recordings] or [course archives] pages or have been redirected to the [courses] page – please note all of our course, special series and special seminar information and lecture recordings can be found via links on the [courses] page. Any media artciles, stories interviews or web links can now be found via the [media] page. If you can’t find the recording you’re after please check under the right column heading “New posts & podcasts:” or you can listen to them on our MFU iTunes page.

We expect the bulk of these renovations to be completed by the end of April. If there is anything you are looking for but can’t find on our website at the moment, please contact us at melbournefreeuniversity [at] gmail.com and we’ll point you in the right direction.

In the meanwhile, you can keep updated of all things MFU on our Facebook page or by following us on Twitter @MelbFreeUni and check back here soon to see our new website in action.

MFU Manual Launch

!![special event]!!

May the 5th 2012

“How to Start a Free UNI”
(Clemens, Conor, Chapman)
‘How to Start a Free University: A Guide by the Melbourne Free University’
Since the MFU’s inception two years ago, we have been getting lots of feedback and requests to start free universities elsewhere in Australia and overseas. To allow more people to share in our endeavour we podcast most of our lectures, but want to do more. We want to support other communities to set up their own free universities.
We have written a simple manual on how to start your own free university, which takes people through our philosophy (why we started the MFU, and the free uni philosophy more broadly) and provides a simple and accessible guide on how to start a free uni in your own community. Because every community is different, this is not a step-by-step instruction manual, but rather an exploration of the issues people will need to consider and the questions they’ll need to ask themselves when setting up their own free uni. Topics covered range from defining your aims, objectives and expectations, to building an audience base, finding venues, designing courses, finding lecturers, and media, marketing and outreach. We share our experiences – the things we’ve found hard, the things we’ve found useful, solutions we’ve discovered, and so on. We also share the thoughts of others involved in the MFU as participants, speakers, supporters and course coordinators.
This manual is freely available to everyone: You can either download it here, or you can contact us and request a hardcopy to be sent to you. We would like to be able to post the hardcopies we printed out to community groups, community libraries, neighbourhood houses and other groups who are interested in starting a free university. If you are able, please send us a self addressed and stamped envelope and we’ll post a manual out to you, but if you’re not able to do this, please contact us and we’ll post one out to you anyway. We will post full details of how to order a manual here after the launch.
                *** Manual designed by Benjamin Portas benjaminportas.com ***
Saturday the 5th of May 2012, 6.30-8.30pm at The Alderman (upstairs), 134 Lygon St East Brunswick
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Current courses:

(course)

From the 17th April – 22nd May 2012

“On Language”
(Loakes, Rover, Nordlinger, McCormack, Cooke)
Speakers explore the study of language from different perspectives, to highlight the centrality of language in the wide arrays of human endeavour. Sessions explore different languages and their structures, how they vary and change, how they are learnt and used in different societies and cultures, and the links between language and literature, rhetoric, and philosophy.
Semester begins: 17th April 2012, Tuesdays 6.30-8pm at Dexter bar/cafe, 123 Queens Pde, Clifton Hill in the usual format: 45 minute presentation, 45 minute open discussion.
On_Language_-_Activists_course image

(course)

19th April – 24th May 2012

Activists, Activism and Change
(Willett, Connors, Tavan, Burgmann, Scalmer)
How does what activists do matter? How does actvism bring about social and political change? In this series a number of scholars bring their various perspectives to this very pressing issue.
Semester begins: 19th April 2012, Thursdays 6.30-8pm at The Alderman (upstairs), 134 Lygon St East Brunswick in the usual format: 45 minute presentation, 45 minute open discussion.
On_Language_-_Activists_course image

“It is true that we do not know that humans are equal. We are saying that they might be. This is our opinion, and we are trying, with those who believe as we do, to verify it. But we know that this might is exactly what makes a society of humans possible.”

Jacques Rancière