From March 18th through early June 2021, writer and scholar Roxanne Panchasi presented a virtual free school focused on the Paris Commune of 1871 in collaboration with UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness. The 10-week course and bonus material is available below until April 2022 — after which we cannot guarantee that all the hyperlinks are still active.

The free school is open to UNIT/PITT members and the wider public. Participants who registered between March and June 2021 received weekly newsletters with new episodes of radio 1871, reading lists, and online events (including screenings, discussions, and presentations by special guests, etc.) — all of which is linked below. Participants can follow the whole of the school’s run and/or drop in to check out specific materials on offer. How much or how little of the free school experience participants engage with is entirely up to them. Free in this instance means without charge, but also without course/attendance requirements, assignments, grades or participant evaluation of any kind.

UNIT/PITT also invited ten artists-in-residence to respond to La Commune 2021, resulting in a compelling series of new works by Ada Dragomir, Alysha Seriani, Emily Guerrero, Kara Stanton, Mary Rusak, Pippa Lattey, Rhys Edwards, Ryan Ermacora, and Stephanie Gagne.