About this Event
Join us in Bloomington, Indiana, on September 5-8 for an opportunity to deepen your understanding of Relational-Cultural Theory. Our theme for 2024 is “Playful Connections” focusing on Relational Cultural Practices in Play. With special guest Dr. Amy Banks, we will be offering training, experience, and discussion on three tracks: Performing Arts, Clinical, and Gaming.
The Speakers
We are thrilled to have Dr. Amy Banks help us explore how Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) can inform the dynamics of play and the essential role of play in mental health and connection. Dr. Banks is a psychiatrist and educator dedicated to spreading the scientific knowledge that people need healthy human relationships for emotional and physical growth, and that promoting a culture of individualism and power over others leads to chronic stress and chronic disease. As a Founding Scholar at the International Center for Growth in Connection (ICGC), Dr. Banks is the first person to bring RCT together with neuroscience and is the foremost expert in the combined field. She is also the creator of the C.A.R.E. assessment—featured in her book, —an easy-to-use and practical guide for both clinicians and individuals to examing the quality of their existing relationships.
As part of our focus on play, we are also excited to have Dr. Kat Castiello Jones and Dr. Evan Torner share their experiences with immersive games. They will be curating Live-Action Role Playing games (LARP) at the Summit to provide active exploration of some of our themes of play (see below). Dr. Castiello Jones research focuses on gender, sexuality, and culture. They also write extensively on topics related to games and game design including sexuality in games, inclusive design, and integrating feminist theories of play into game design scholarship. Dr. Torner wrote his dissertation on race representation in East German genre cinema and spent 2013-2014 at Grinnell College as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow. He has published several articles pertaining to East Germany, critical race theory, DEFA Indianerfilme, science-fiction, transnational genre cinema, and game studies, as well as co-edited several books. His volume co-edited with William J. White was published with McFarland Publishing in 2012, and he is one of the founding editors of the Analog Game Studies journal (http://analoggamestudies.org).
A full profile of all speakers and panelists will be published soon.
The Schedule
Our Relational Summit will span four days of activities with most of the content slated for Friday, September 6 and Saturday, September 7. These two days will follow a similar format: community-wide gathering of all participants for play and a shared activity to start the day; morning and afternoon focused content in one of three tracks; and a final keynote presentation as all participants reconvene. A break for lunch will be provided between morning and afternoon sessions.
On Thursday evening, September 5, we will have an informal greeting for Summit participants at the Bloomington Center for Connection at 315 W. Dodds. There will be games and other playful activities, giving people a chance to arrive and meet each other before the main content is presented the next day.
On Sunday afternoon, September 8, we will again meet at the Bloomington Center for Connection for a Summit retrospective to process how the previous days went, what can be improved for next time, and to start planning the theme for the next Summit.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bloomington, United States
USD 250.00
