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• March Third Sunday In-Person

  • When
    03/15/2026
  •  
    10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Location
    PSCC, Hardin Valley Road

  Our presentation will be given by Sequoia Conkling, who is a museum educator with the East Tennessee Historical Society. She will be speaking on "Tennessee's Role in the Revolutionary War."  In 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. While Tennessee was not one of the original 13 colonies, its residents played a pivotal role in the American Revolution. In this talk, Sequoia Conkling will discuss life in East Tennessee at the time of the Revolution and the ways in which the conflict played out on the Tennessee frontier.

  Coffee and other hot beverages will be provided. Bring a snack to share if you wish. 
  

  We meet in the Cafeteria Annex at the back of the Goins Administrative Building. Please enter through the direct access at the back of the building in order not to disturb others who rent different parts of he building. 

  For those who want to participate by Zoom, the link is included in the event announcements and the March RET Newsletter. 

  
  

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• March RET Reflections

  • When
    03/22/2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Are You Built for All This?

  
  

  A summary from current research:

  Human biology evolved for a world of movement, nature, and short bursts of stress—not the constant pressure of modern life. Industrial environments overstimulate our stress systems and erode both health and reproduction. Evidence ranging from global fertility declines to chronic inflammatory diseases shows the toll of this mismatch. Researchers say cultural and environmental redesign, especially nature-focused planning, is essential.

  Humans are built for nature not modern life | ScienceDaily

  Are you mismatched for the modern world - at least this one?  Maybe it's time to walk the dog in the woods.  Join us for a discussion.

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• Knox County Fourth Wednesday MEET-UP

  • When
    03/25/2026
  •  
    6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
  • Location
    Corner 16, 9637 Kroger Park Dr
Knoxville, TN 37922

  Come join an informal gathering for food and conversation at the Corner 16 Restaurant, 9637 Kroger Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37922 near Pellissippi and Northshore.

  If you are interested in seeing the menu beforehand, you can check it out here.  

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• April First Sunday In-Person

  • When
    04/05/2026
  •  
    10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Location
    PSCC, Hardin Valley Road

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• April RET Book Club

  • When
    04/12/2026
  •  
    4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology

  by Liliana Doganova

  A pioneering exploration of the defining traits and contradictions of our relationship to the future through the lens of discounting. Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Our relationship to the future has been trapped in the gears of a device called discounting. While its incidence remains little known, discounting has long been entrenched in market and policy practices, shaping the ways firms and governments look to the future and make decisions accordingly. Thus, a sociological account of discounting formulas has become urgent. Discounting means valuing things through the flows of costs and benefits that they are likely to generate in the future, with these future flows being literally discounted as they are translated in the present. How have we come to think of the future, and of valuation, in such terms? Building on original empirical research in the historical sociology of discounting, Doganova takes us to some of the sites and moments in which discounting took shape and gained momentum: valuation of European forests in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; economic theories devised in the early 1900s; debates over business strategies in the postwar era; investor-state disputes over the nationalization of natural resources; and drug development in the biopharmaceutical industry today. Weaving these threads together, the book pleads for an understanding of discounting as a political technology, and of the future as a contested domain. 325 pages.

  This book is rather deep into the subject and those of you with limited time would be better off to read two short articles which are more readable and more focused on climate change. Here are the links: The Discount Rate: A Small Number with a Big Impact and Critical Assumptions in the Stern Review on Climate Change.
  

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• April RET Reflections

  • When
    04/26/2026
  •  
    4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Is Socialism Back?

  
  

  As you have seen in the recent elections in NY, a democratic socialist was elected.  Is a new and improved version of socialism coming back?  Has capitalism burned too many bridges and dumped too many people into the gutter?  Or are the rules of game rigged by the rich so that the little guy can never win?  Systems or rules, or maybe buy the rules?  Dust off you bust of Karl Marx and join us for a conversation.  Some background to jog your memory:

  A reckoning over capitalism
  

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• 2026 Scholarship Application

  • When
    05/01/2026
  • Spaces left
    145

  Register

  
  

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