The Jam | Political Therapy in a Squeeze

Do you have political problems? 

Are you in a jam? Can we go on like this?

Some of us have been feeling the need for spaces to hold our feelings and contemporary experiences of politics. In response to that need, we will be hosting weekly sessions dedicated to opening up new and healing ways of speaking, listening, feeling, and enacting politics. 

Inspired by Denise Ferreira DaSilva and Valentina Desideri's work on "Political Therapy," our improvisational political therapy for Simon's Rock focuses on developing our skills at speaking about and doing politics differently. They quote Franco Berardi, “Therapy is not the re-conduction of the sick body to normality but of Being to what is possible to be.” What of our bodies, and also the body politic that is sick, with all the contemporary crises? 

 

Each session will open by featuring two different Simon's Rock alums every week who will bring their "political problems" and work with each other to formulate it as a political question and to occasion "languages," "speculation" and a feeling of politics. In doing so, we will learn about them in a different way, and connect to their journeys. This might also help give us a window into a process of embodying politics, dealing with our feelings about politics, and healing that involves relying on others, not to find a "solution" to the problem or to "fix" oneself, but to find new ways to understand and embody what is possible, including the joy of being together, and being in something together! Desideri defines a political problem as "something that bothers or preoccupies her, regardless of whether it is primarily lived out on a practical, personal, ideological, conceptual or existential level." Everyone present will be involved in the discussion after the two alums have engaged with each other to start us off.  

The Jam sessions are open to Simon's Rock students, faculty, staff, and alumni only. Please note, it is recommended that you register in advance to reserve a spot. Look for the registration and Zoom links in the Weekly Events Roundup Email, and feel free to contact aabbas@simons-rock.edu if you have any questions. The sessions will not be recorded.

 

We will announce the alumni guests weekly!