JANUARY

The Autobiography of a Development Community
A Study Group with Dan Friedman
Bi-weekly Sundays, 4:00-5:30 p.m.
January 14, 28; February 11, 25; March 11, 25;
April 8, 22; May 13, 20; and June 3, 17
East Side Institute, 119 W. 23 St., Fl. 9, Ste. 902 (betw. 6 & 7 Aves.)
Registration: $15 per session. $45 three-session commitment required.
To register contact: mmeyer@eastsideinstitute.org

An ongoing study group led by Dan Friedman, exploring the history, concepts and methodology of postmodern Marxism and the development community.

FEBRUARY

Crossing Borders
with Lois Holzman and The International Class 2017-18
Hosted by the All Stars Project's UX
Tuesday, February 13, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
All Stars Project, 543 W 42 St. (betw. 10 & 11 Aves.)
Free to the public. RSVP to mfridley@eastsideinstitute.org

The International Class brings together therapists, teachers, social and youth workers, artists and community organizers from around the world in a unique study and training program in cultural and creative approaches to human development and learning. Crossing Borders brings members of this year's International Class to the All Star's Project's UX - members come from Brazil, Canada, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Serbia and the US - and will share their work and the impact of the program.

Therapeutics @ the Grassroots and in the Academy Social Therapeutics @ the Grassroots and in the Academ

Online with Lois Holzman & Guests
February 23-May 20*
Application deadline: Sunday, January 21.
*Conversation is asynchronous - participants are in different time zones, and read/post messages on their own schedule.
Tuition $850. (Students are responsible for purchasing required texts).
Click here to apply

An intensive study of Newman and Holzman's Unscientific Psychology: A Cultural-Performatory Approach to Understanding Human Life, which introduces a non-epistemic, activity theoretic, group performatory approach to human development and learning. We examine the contributions that cultural-historical activity theory, social constructionism, performance studies and philosophy of language have made to social therapeutics. We follow with a reading of Holzman's Vygotsky at Work and Play (2nd Edition) in tandem with presentations by, and intensive dialogue with, guest faculty. What are these scholars, psychologists and therapists, theatre artists and practitioners discovering about human development and building community using the conceptual tools of social therapeutics? What new discoveries have these conceptions produced, and can our class investigation continue to advance these discoveries?

MARCH

Mad in America: Where Can We Go From Here?
An Online Revolutionary Conversation
with Lois Holzman & Robert Whitaker
Friday, March 9 - Monday, April 2*
*Conversation is asynchronous - participants are in different time zones and read/post message on their own schedule.
Registration: $150; Student/Retired/Low Income: $75
Click here to register

By the mid-1900s, psychology and psychiatry ushered in a medical framework for understanding human emotionality and the treatment of mental distress. This framework has won the day-currently, in the U.S. alone 42 million people (1 out of 5) are diagnosed with an emotional 'disease,' and 8 million young people are taking psychotropic drugs for ADHD, depression and other 'psychiatric illnesses.' And the medical model is spreading rapidly across the globe, as more and more nations adopt the U.S. way of doing things, often unwittingly.

Join two long-time activists and scholars for a wide-ranging conversation on the madness of contemporary society, the medical model in psychiatry and its use in psychotherapy and counseling, efforts to engage and transform it, and what more we might do. Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, and developmentalist Lois Holzman, director and co-founder of the East Side Institute and author of The Overweight Brain and The End of Knowing, will lead this four-week (asynchronous) online conversation to explore the role that psychology and psychiatry play in our madness and offer ways to cultivate different ways to see, be and become.

WHAT IS 'SOCIAL THERAPEUTICS?'
Introducing a Postmodern, Performatory Approach
to Human Development & Its Community Stages
A 5-week, online seminar with Carrie Lobman & Melissa Meyer
Monday, March 12 - Monday, April 16*
Registration: $125; Student/Retired/Low Income: $85
*Conversation is asynchronous - participants are in different time zones and read/post message on their own schedule.
Click here to register

Join Carrie Lobman and Melissa Meyer for an introduction to the methodology of social therapeutics, a postmodern, performatory approach to human and community development and learning. As you explore social therapeutics in the course of this five-week online conversation, you will be introduced to some of its community stages in psychotherapy, education, after-school youth programs and the workplace. Seminal readings and videos will help bring to life the diverse practice of social therapeutics. Readings: Holzman, L. (2016) Vygotsky at Work and Play (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. (purchase from Amazon.com). Additional materials will be provided.

APRIL

Community Meeting & Fundraiser
Sunday April 29, 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Location TBA
All welcome! RSVP to mmeyer@eastsideinstitute.org

Want to make a difference? Invest in human development. The East Side Institute is an independently funded 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We rely on contributions from supporters like you. All are welcome! Please bring your checkbooks.

Play, Perform, Learn, Grow: Exploring Creative Community Practices
Friday-Sunday, April 13-15
Anatolia College, Thessaloniki, Greece
Click here to register

As Europe faces a host of challenges (the migrant crisis, increasing poverty, terrorist attacks, Brexit, etc.) people all over Europe and beyond are seeking new ways to respond creatively to these changes. "Play, Perform, Learn, Grow: Exploring Creative Community Practice" (PPLG) is being organized to bring together people from all walks of life (educators and researchers, psychologists and therapists, social workers and political activists, doctors, artists, refugees, migrants and locals) who are seeking new ways to address the pain, alienation and violence of our times, re-create their lives, and build new kinds of communities. PPLG invites practitioners and researchers from throughout the world who are, in various ways, exploring performance, play and the arts as alternative approaches to traditional ways of educating students, practicing therapy, engaging social problems, and activating communities across geographical, language, religious and ideological boundaries. The conference is an opportunity to share practices, ideas and experiences with others who have similar concerns yet come from different intellectual, experiential and cultural backgrounds.

Events later in the year:

Remix: The Mundane Joy of Playing with Words and Sounds
A workshop with Gwen Lowenheim and David Belmont
Saturday, June 16, 11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
The Smooth Spot, 454 W. 46th St. #1A-S (betw. 9th and 10th Aves.)
Fee: $70 Low Income: $30
Click here to register

Join the 2017-18 International Class in making some music with composer/arranger David Belmont and creativity maven Gwen Lowenheim. We'll create an improvised musical ensemble, lay down some beats, lyrics and eclectic themes, and then play around with some simple re-mixing and riffing that takes us somewhere new. Collective re-mixing helps to root out barriers to creativity. In this workshop, we will research, uncover and introduce ourselves to tools that support ordinary people to build environments where everyday creativity can thrive. Be prepared to have some unscripted playful/philosophical fun. For music lovers and mix-masters of all persuasions and abilities. (No technical proficiency required).

Performing the World 2018: Let's Develop!
Co-sponsored by the East Side Institute & The All Stars Project, Inc.
Friday-Sunday, September 21-23
All Stars Project, 543 W 42St. (betw. 10 & 11 Aves.)
Fee: $260 on or before June 1. After June 1: $325
There is no day rate for this conference.
Click here to register

These are very uncertain days. So much is, or seems to be, falling apart - nations and government apparatus, norms of diplomacy and civil discourse, civil society, the glaciers of the Arctic, and much more. Is there anything we can count on? Hold on to? Such uncertainty brings fear, anxiety and despair. But it also brings opportunity and possibility. When things fall apart, something new -something other - can be created.The question is not so much what can be created but how? What is needed in order for people to see possibility, to imagine the inconceivable, and to take action? Can humanity seize the day? It is from these questions that we come to the theme of Performing the World 2018. In order to see, imagine and create new ways of living, we need to develop. We need to qualitatively transform how we relate, think, feel, live and die.Thus, our call to action is Let's Develop! Let's develop our world. Let's develop performance activism. Let's develop PTW.

For more information go to:
East Side Institute | 212-941-8906, ext 304
mmeyer@eastsideinstitute.org | eastsideinstitute.org/events

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