Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living:
A New Way to Learn General Semantics
An Online Course
May 4-25
Dr. Martin H. Levinson, Instructor
The Institute of General Semantics is pleased to sponsor an online course on general semantics to be taught by IGS Trustee and Past President Martin H. Levinson, author of 14 books, including the highly popular Practical Fair Tales for Everyday Living. The course will be discussion-based, consisting of 4 sessions, each 90 minutes long, taking place via Zoom.
Course Description: This course will focus on more effective ways to evaluate people and situations through stories contained in Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, a personal improvement book based on formulations from general semantics. Registrants for the course will be sent an e-copy of the book before the first session, which you should prepare for by reading the first 6 stories.
Reading Schedule:
May 4: Fairy Tales 1-6
GS ideas to be discussed: time-binding, maps and territories, dating, making accurate assumptions, operational definitions, delayed reactions.
May 11: Fairy Tales 7-12
GS ideas to be discussed: elementalism, etcetera, IFD disease, scientific method, the “is of identity,” going beyond dictionary definitions.
May 18: Fairy Tales 13-18
GS ideas to be discussed: the general principle of uncertainty, logical fate, GS happiness formula, facts v. inferences, self-reflexiveness, meaning is in people.
May 25: Fairy Tales 19-24
GS ideas to be discussed: how language can shape reality, the structural differential, asking answerable questions, human uniqueness, phatic communication, treating the familiar as unfamiliar.
About the Instructor: Martin H. Levinson, PhD, New York University, is a past president of the Institute of General Semantics, book editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics, and a contributing editor to The Satirist—America’s Most Critical Journal. He has published 14 books and scores of articles on topics ranging from self-help fairy tales to social and historical analyses. He is currently a faculty member with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Stony Brook University, a teacher for the United Federation of Teachers’ Si Beagle Learning Program, which is located in New York City, and a lecturer on contemporary and historical topics for schools and public libraries.
An ebook edition of the required text, Levinson, M.H. (2018). Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living (revised 2nd edition), will be provided free of charge.
The seminar fee is $50 for IGS members, $100 for non-members.
We will try to accommodate everyone interested in attending the seminar, but space will necessarily be limited, so register early to ensure your participation!
