The first annual Women’s Empowerment Conference Austin, which will be held March 22-23, is seeking panel and workshop submissions by December 13.

The conference will build connections and community among Central Texas women and girls; spark discussions about gender issues; and offer women and girls ways to learn and build skills. Topics of particular interest include: self-care, community and coalition building, fitting activism into your life, how to be an effective ally, practicing feminism in everyday life, reproductive justice, food justice, body image, and empowering girls. There will be a teen/tween programming track.

For more information, contact Carrie Tilton-Jones at carrie@womenscommunityctx.org. Information online.

MonkeyWrench Books’ benefit dinner will once again feature an ugly holiday sweater competition, along with a multi-course vegan meal. Dinner tickets are $15 (sliding scale). There will be two seatings, at 7 and 8:30 pm.

Online RSVPs are suggested, with seating preference to those who sign up.

Location: 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas 78723

Gar Alperovitz, a leading scholar and activist in the movement to build a new economy, will speak on “The Quietly Deepening Political and Economic Crisis: Possibilities for an America beyond Corporate Capitalism” on Friday, January 24, at 7 p.m. at University United Methodist Church. He also will participate in a conference on local efforts to build that new economy on the morning of Saturday, January 25, at the “5604 Manor” community center.

Cooperatives, social enterprises, public banks and other new structures provide a new vision for the next economy. Alperovitz, the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, will explain how this work, especially the various forms of cooperative ownership, is helping to lay the groundwork for important new directions in the coming era that will see major political and economic changes.

Alperovitz’s latest book is What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution, in which he argues for a new-economy movement that can democratize the ownership of wealth, strengthen communities in diverse ways, and be governed by policies and institutions sophisticated enough to manage a large-scale, powerful economy.

He is also the author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, which diagnoses the long-term structural crisis of the American economic and political system, and Unjust Deserts: Wealth and Equality in the Knowledge Economy (with Lew Daly), Making a Place For Community (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio), Rebuilding America (with Jeff Faux), Atomic Diplomacy and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

Alperovitz is a founding principal of the University of Maryland-based Democracy Collaborative, a research institution developing practical, policy-focused, and systematic paths towards ecologically sustainable, community-oriented change and the democratization of wealth.

The Saturday morning gathering will begin at 8:30 am with coffee and a light breakfast. The first panel at 9:15 am, “Worker Cooperatives 101,” will feature Cooperation Texas staff and worker/owners on the basics of worker cooperatives. The second panel at 10:45 am will feature Alperovitz in conversation with Don Baylor (the Senior Policy Analyst on Economic Opportunity for the Center for Public Policy Priorities) on “The Way Forward,” discussing challenges and opportunities in building the new economy.

The events are sponsored by the University United Methodist Church and Cooperation Texas, an Austin-based non-profit committed to the creation of sustainable jobs through the development, support and promotion of worker-owned cooperatives.

More information online or contact Robert Jensen, rjensen@austin.utexas.edu.

Location (Friday): University United Methodist Church, 2409 Guadalupe St., Austin, 78705 (free parking available; see map at http://www.uumc.org/?q=node/76)

Location (Saturday): 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, 78723

Gar Alperovitz, a leading scholar and activist in the movement to build a new economy, will speak on “The Quietly Deepening Political and Economic Crisis: Possibilities for an America beyond Corporate Capitalism” on Friday, January 24, at 7 p.m. at University United Methodist Church. He also will participate in a conference on local efforts to build that new economy on the morning of Saturday, January 25, at the “5604 Manor” community center.

Cooperatives, social enterprises, public banks and other new structures provide a new vision for the next economy. Alperovitz, the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, will explain how this work, especially the various forms of cooperative ownership, is helping to lay the groundwork for important new directions in the coming era that will see major political and economic changes.

Alperovitz’s latest book is What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution, in which he argues for a new-economy movement that can democratize the ownership of wealth, strengthen communities in diverse ways, and be governed by policies and institutions sophisticated enough to manage a large-scale, powerful economy.

He is also the author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, which diagnoses the long-term structural crisis of the American economic and political system, and Unjust Deserts: Wealth and Equality in the Knowledge Economy (with Lew Daly), Making a Place For Community (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio), Rebuilding America (with Jeff Faux), Atomic Diplomacy and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

Alperovitz is a founding principal of the University of Maryland-based Democracy Collaborative, a research institution developing practical, policy-focused, and systematic paths towards ecologically sustainable, community-oriented change and the democratization of wealth.

The Saturday morning gathering will begin at 8:30 am with coffee and a light breakfast. The first panel at 9:15 am, “Worker Cooperatives 101,” will feature Cooperation Texas staff and worker/owners on the basics of worker cooperatives. The second panel at 10:45 am will feature Alperovitz in conversation with Don Baylor (the Senior Policy Analyst on Economic Opportunity for the Center for Public Policy Priorities) on “The Way Forward,” discussing challenges and opportunities in building the new economy.

The events are sponsored by the University United Methodist Church and Cooperation Texas, an Austin-based non-profit committed to the creation of sustainable jobs through the development, support and promotion of worker-owned cooperatives.

More information online or contact Robert Jensen, rjensen@austin.utexas.edu.

Location (Friday): University United Methodist Church, 2409 Guadalupe St., Austin, 78705 (free parking available; see map at http://www.uumc.org/?q=node/76)

Location (Saturday): 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, 78723