Mission
Fourth World Cooperative (FWC) is a non-partisan, international not-for-profit cooperative that promotes cultural and political literacy through its quarterly journal and book-length publications. FWC’s mission is to define and occupy spaces in which co-creators who are dedicated to creatively reading and writing the world(s) around us can experiment, transmit their experience, and re-wild Word and World. Just as a true democracy derives its power from its people, so the cooperative derives its power from its readers and writers.
Creative cooperation and the Fourth World Journal
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“...a fourth thing there is carefully to be provided for…the common good (over) private self....”
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We are dedicated to creative collaboration and invite all to join.
Our 501(c)3 non-profit organization publishes an international, collaborative creative arts journal and supports creative work— literary, artistic, philosophic, scientific, religious and musical. We host musical, performative and artistic events and our Learning Exchanges, Birds of a Feather Day Camps and Repast Project Mealtime Conversations promote a lifelong love of books and foster passion for collaborative, creative expression.
In our busy and often frenetic lives, Fourth World believes we must purposefully make time to engage meaningfully with others and associate creatively.
We believe it a serious social ill which endangers fundamental democratic principles when reading rates, civil conversations and engagement with the arts and daily creative practices all dwindle.
So, Fourth World works, through unique events and cooperative activities, to encourage writers, artists, teachers, students and community leaders to practice creative cooperation.
Our recent activities include a 2017 Learning Exchange for members from Chile, Italy, Mexico and the United States to gather and read, write and talk together while visiting Yosemite, Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks in California.
Ultimately, this group worked collaboratively to publish "Struggle: Old and New," the inaugural issue of The Fourth World Journal in winter of 2018. A subsequent June 2018 Learning Exchange was held in The Hawaiian Islands and a new group traveled to workshops, book discussions and explorations of natural and cultural wonders of Kauai while also planning the second issue of our collaborative, creative arts journal. These members from Afghanistan, Chile, Georgia and California ultimately co-created, “Cives Sum: I Am Citizen.”
The 2019 Mount Shasta Learning Exchange was a special time for a dozen Fourth World members from various parts of the country to gather and begin considering how best to collaborate on the 2020 edition of The Fourth World Journal, our non-profit’s annual creative arts journal, next focused on the theme of “renewal.” Seeking inspiration and friendship, we met in Northern California to explore parameters for the journal while sharing mealtime conversations and day hikes to waterfalls and a subway cave. A Shasta vortex tour, led by a local adherent to legends of golden temples and entire forests within Mount Shasta along with a supernatural race, the Lemurians, got us considering a variety of creative approaches to the mythologization of place. Along the way, we discussed Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet by Will Hunt, while asking ourselves: “How do religious, scientific and creative works ask us to renew our perspectives of the everyday to reveal new dimensions of meaning?”
Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, much as changed at Fourth World during our current pandemic. One of the animating principles of the organization is “the lasting power of analog,” if you will, as we sponsor mealtime conversations and support creative collaborations of all kinds, from travelling in groups and attending artistic performance to having a meaningful mealtime gathering to talk about books. But, although the June Learning Exchange to the Chilean Atacama has been postponed to 2023 and our annual ranch-style Birds of a Feather Day Camp for youth and it’s art show, and a variety of collegiate mealtime conversations series and sponsored artistic performances, have been cancelled or postponed through the end of this calendar year, know that some of these gathering activities of our non-profit organization will return as soon as Summer 2022.
Currently, we are hard at work on the next issue of The Fourth World Journal with an August 2022 digital and print-on-demand release date. To be considered for publication in the upcoming edition of The Fourth World Journal, please send digitally reproducible creative content to fourthworldcooperative@gmail.com prior to May 15th.
Currently, we are also seeking paid interns (remote work only), who must be undergraduate or graduate students in any two-or-four-year, U.S. college or university during the calendar year. Interns serve on the Review Board to oversee the creation of the upcoming issue of the journal, collaborate to provide feedback and edit the galley copy, and work with other members of Fourth World to promote our mission and assist in the dissemination of our digital (and print-on-demand), international creative arts journal. If interested, please send a copy of your resume and a short cover letter explaining your interest in a virtual internship to fourthworldcooperative@gmail.com.
We encourage literacy, collaborative expression and the mutual pursuit of creativity through our Learning Exchanges, Birds of a Feather Day Camps, Repast Project Mealtime Conversations and our publications, including The Fourth World Journal.
Fourth World Friends and Supporters
Future(s) to come(2016) non-profit EIN # 82-0825630 / CA non-exempt Entity # 3999635
