The history of public lectures in the United States and New York probably begins in 1826 with the founding of the first Lyceum or "literary club" in Massachusetts. Whether for indoctrination or elucidation, private member societies around New England began to invite lecturers to speak on "politically neutral" and entertaining topics to the interested attendees. In the 1870's, the Lyceum was supplemented by Chautauqua and University Extension movements, which in their ways also devised to educate the adult public. In 1888 the popularity of the public lecture lead to New York state's legislative mandate to apply under-used city spaces as sites for lectures. For over thirty years, under the auspices of Henry M. Leipziger, Superintendent of Lectures for the NYC Board of Education, the city funded over 4,000 annual lectures in more than one hundred locations. Before the cancellation of this "university for the people," attendance reached one and a quarter million per year.
Today, most public lectures in New York are funded and hosted by non-profit institutions such as museums and universities as part of the supporting programs to exhibition and course offerings. The embedding of the public lecture in the institution's regular programming often results in a narrowing of attendees to those already initiated to the discursive terrain of the topic at hand or familiar with the host institution. The lectures included in Platform Mailer are selected from across disciplines and venues because we hope that our readers will attend a talk on a subject beyond the immediate field of their interest.
Platform for Pedagogy is an initiative to advance a culture of cross-disciplinary public lecture attendance and to develop the lecture as practice. We deal exclusively with public lectures. The determinate characteristic of the public lecture is form: the geographically bracketed transmission of knowledge by a privileged individual or group of individuals to an unsolicited public of mixed backgrounds and experiences. Donald M. Scott has written on the birth of the public lecture in mid-nineteenth century America as a form of supplementary instruction distinct from the sermon, speech or oration — and yet borrowing formally from all three — in that the lecture is mandated and shaped by the public's desire for a certain knowledge. These public lecture attendees sought to expand the trajectory of education typically confined to their formal or professional training by accessing these platforms for pedagogy.
Please, get in touch electronically: kontakt at platformed dot org.