Call for Presentations: Pedagogy of the Oppressed Annual Gathering

Posted by on October 6, 2008

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
http://www.ptoweb.org

Deadline Dec. 1, 2008

Mad as Hell? Now Move (or Draw, or Act…): Organizing for Social Justice @ PTO Gathering ‘09

What makes you mad? What injustices compel us to act? What are the success stories? How do we organize long-standing and sustainable changes for the good of our communities? How might we use problem-posing to address the conflicts that confront us? How do we navigate the spaces between the World As It Is and the World As It Should Be? The PTO Board and the Local Organizing Committee request proposals for interactive presentations, panels, performances, dialogues, and workshops that wrestle with our organizational mission: To challenge oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice.

In particular, we invite proposals that reflect participatory models of engagements, that speak to broad audiences and cross borders of environmental justice, immigrant rights, racial justice, growing poverty and wealth, militarism and peace, and the other great issues of our time; and that bridge academic work and community organizing.

Presentations might include:

* Issues central to people of color and lower-income communities;
* Case studies of organizing that effectively used the arts to address a particular issue;
* Workshops or discussions about the use of PO and TO in community organizing;
* Workshops, presentations and investigations into the practice of Theatre of the Oppressed; the relation between Joker, actor and spectactor; and their potential to change people and institutions;
* Proposals that prescribe or examine what happens after TO workshops: in other words, how to move from theatre to action.
* Dialogues between creative organizers and activist PTO artists;
* Problem-posing and popular education;
* Investigations, through PO or TO or related practices, into the nature and causes of class relations, how they have come into existence, and how they can be overturned;
* Investigations into the use of dialogue, creative expression and physical activity (movement) as tools for social and political engagement.

Please note that proposals that model interactive critical engagement will receive preference.

Local Organizing Committee: Charles Adams  (University of Minnesota); alejandra tobar alatriz (PTO board member, Grassroots Nonviolence); Victor Cole (Metropolitan State University); Ben Fink (conference office manager, University of Minnesota); Shannon Gibney (lead conference organizer, Minneapolis Community and Technical College); Andrew Granger (Minneapolis Community and Technical College); Dana Jeffries (St. Paul Central High Black Box Theater); Rachel Johnson; Sonja Kuftinec (PTO board member, University of Minnesota); Michael Kuhne (lead conference organizer, Minneapolis Community and Technical College); Elle Meza (PTO board member, Multicultural Indigenous Academy); Chaka Mkali (PTO board member, Hope Community Center); Mankwe Ndosi (Center for Independent Artists); Larry Olds (The Popular Education News); Crystal Spring (St. Paul Central High Black Box Theater); Diane Scovill (Minneapolis Community and Technical College); Deborah Torraine; Cheryl Wilson (PTO board member, organizer).

For questions contact: [email protected], or call Ben Fink, conference office manager, at 612-840-0141.