Roxanne Panchasi: La Commune 2021 Free School

From March to June 2021, writer and scholar (and UNIT/PITT Board Member) Roxanne Panchasi presented a virtual free school focused on the Paris Commune of 1871. The course materials were initially delivered by e-newsletter, as 10 weeks of curated, open access readings that thematically mirrored the major events from 150 years before:

  • WEEK 1: Bienvenue/Welcome
  • WEEK 2: The Election of Paris Commune
  • WEEK 3: Women in the Commune
  • WEEK 4: Secularism and Outsiders
  • WEEK 5: Artists
  • WEEK 6: Barricades and Internationalism
  • WEEK 7: Algeria
  • WEEK 8: Semaine Sanglante
  • WEEK 9: Colonialism
  • WEEK 10: Karl Marx

In addition to the open access readings, the free school program featured live Zoom events, an interactive timeline of key historical dates, and weekly episodes of radio 1871, an original podcast where Roxanne interviews other scholars and artists on aspects of the Paris Commune and its legacy.

UNIT/PITT selected 10 artists, writers and cultural workers — Ada Dragomir, Alysha Seriani, Emily Guerrero, Kara Stanton, Manuel Axel Strain, Mary Rusak, Pippa Lattey, Rhys Edwards, Ryan Ermacora, and Stephanie Gagne — to respond to the free school material. Their responses can be seen HERE.

The COMMUNE-OPÉDIE was an extension of the La Commune 2021 Free School. These thematic pages on different aspects of the Paris Commune and its legacies were written by students in a seminar taught by Roxanne at Simon Fraser University in Spring 2021. Stacey Bischop, a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Michigan provided vital editorial and website development assistance.

Thank you to Communications Coordinator Lauren Lavery for design and administrative support on this project, and to Program Coordinator Rachel Lau for their work on La Commune Revisited (2022).