Creating Communities of Hope:
Introducing a Performatory Approach to Human Development and Its Community Stages

March 27 - May 8*
*Conversation is asynchronous and participants are in different time zones reading and posting messages according to their own schedule.
Registration: $135; Low Income: $85
The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners. Employing the unique methodology of social therapeutics, the Institute has played a leading role in supporting the growth of new kinds of institutions and organizations for human-community development and humanizing social change in the US and around the world. The Institute's work is also an influence among scholars and researchers seeking new ways to understand what it is to be human, impediments to transformative actions at the individual, community and global levels, and how the recognition and reinitiation of our ability to perform ourselves is ushering in a new tactic of positive resistance, Performance Activism.
 
Join Carrie Lobman and Melissa Meyer for an introduction to social therapeutics, As you explore social therapeutics, you will be introduced to some of its community stages in social change movements, psychotherapy, education, after-school youth programs and the workplace. We will also play with some of the practical tools of performance and philosophizing. 
 
Seminal readings and videos will bring to life the diverse practice of social therapeutics. This course will take place through zoom videoconference and asynchronous online conversation. Participants will be sent the Zoom schedule when they sign up.
Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. is associate professor and chair of the department of Learning and Teaching at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education and the leader of Education & Research at the East Side Institute. Carrie is a sociocultural scholar and play movement leader. She facilitates the Institute's "Play, Development and Social Justice" webinar series and co-leads, with director Lois Holzman, its flagship program the International Class. She serves as a mentor to emerging performance activists around the world and is on the board of directors of the All Stars Project, a national leader in after school development. Carrie is the author or editor of three books: Unscripted Learning: Using Improvisation Across the K-8 Curriculum , Big Ideas and Revolutionary Activity: Selected Essays, Talks and Articles by Lois Holzman and Performance and Play: Play and Culture Series, Volume 11. She has authored dozens of articles. She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University and is a past president of The Association for the Study of Play and the Cultural Historical Activity Theory SIG of the American Educational Research Association.

Melissa Meyer is associate director of the East Side Institute and a social therapeutic coach. She is sales director for Performing the World, a biannual gathering that takes place in New York City exploring performance as a method to help communities grow and create positive social change. She leads and co-leads three Developing Across Borders groups, weekly virtual development groups that bring people together from all over the world.
For more information contact mmeyer@eastsideinstitute.org.