Community Organizing

November 3, 2012 Far Rockaway, Queens is one of the poorest, most isolated and forgotten neghborhoods of New York City,  About  60,000 people live there on the Rockaway penisula jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. More than 80% of them are Black and Latino, and the median income is under $28.000/year. Until...

September 24, 2012 Today I’m going to do some more promotion for Performing the World 2012 (PTW 2012)—because I’m so excited about it! The opening reception on Thursday evening October 4 will be a community welcome to New York—featuring food prepared by dozens of New York City friends; greetings by myself and...

September 13, 2012 It's the last few weeks leading up to the 7th Performing the World gathering taking place October 4-7 at the All Stars Project headquarters on 42 St in NYC. Amidst all the details and fine tuning of schedules and staffing, there's the bigger picture—the historicity of the activity,...

June 19, 2012 I’ve been immersed in PTW—that’s Performing the World, an international festival/conference/happening I launched eleven years ago. This October, we’re hosting the 7th PTW, “Can Performance Change Save the World?” (recasting the 2010 PTW theme, “Can Performance Change the World?” because of the  increasing intensity of the challenges facing...

May 31,2012 For the past three Tuesday evenings, I’ve been leading “Making a Conceptual Revolution: The Practical-Critical Philosophy of Fred Newman”—an offering in the Institute’s Revolutionary Conversations series. It’s been delightful spending time with 30+ people from varied walks of life and varied levels of familiarity with Newman and his work...

May 9, 2012 The Institute jumped into the free webinar field at the beginning of this year. It's much simpler than I would have thought! We give people access to an audio or video. After listening/viewing, they can join an hour-long live chat, email questions and comments, or do nothing. I’ve led the...

May 5, 2012 In addition to Catherine Jackson’s thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the issues involved in the DSM-5 controversy I wrote about  yesterday, there’s some other worthy reading. That’s partly due to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) holding its annual meeting this weekend in Philadelphia. Last week the APA posted the...

May 4, 2012 There’s an extensive and excellent discussion of the DSM-5 controversy on Therapy Today.net , an online publication of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. The article—“Diagnostic Disarray” by Catherine Jackson, Therapy Today’s Deputy Editor, which appeared in April—is unique compared to the dozens of news items, essays...

April 30, 2012 Right after being at TEDMED I flew to Vancouver, British Columbia for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). There are 25,000 members! And about half that number actually come to the five-day meeting. These are the folks who teach education courses at colleges and...

February 23, 2012 I don't usually promote activities here but now is an exception. Recent posts on the DSM-5 and all that it reveals about the ways our culture relates to human emotionality have drawn new readers (much thanks to everyone who’s reposting!). I've been introduced to many others who are...