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. Please block your calendar and make plans to join us!
Early-bird registrations are available by submitting an interest form before tickets go on sale. Doing so will allow us to let you know with an email when tickets will be released, giving you a chance to register early and claim discounted prices. Early registration helps us plan the event and make final decisions about content and logistics.
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, Wired to Connect—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 Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media 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 in the coming months.
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.
Content for the Summit will explore our themes of play, which are currently being discussed in monthly Relational Cadre sessions:
World Building: Co-creating Context — Explore how shared and co-created narratives enhance connection and allow us to play with how our cultures support and challenge connection with each other.
Imagining Together — Engage in a shared creative process that includes improv and storytelling, and explore how that helps us imagine relational possibilities and process feelings that arise in a safer context than interactions with higher stakes.
Sharing the Experience — Use expressive play to co-create meaning through the power of symbolism and metaphor in connection, bringing a shared language to future interactions.
Healthy Conflict — Embrace play as a means to explore conflict through expressive play: embracing the villain, trash-talking, and identifying and communicating when things aren’t fun.
Co-creating Memories — Retell our stories through play, with a focus on changing perspective and exploring both implicit and declarative memories that influence how we connect with others. Move from re-enacting to re-experiencing, releasing, and reorganizing.
How To Play — Articulate the constraints, actions, and consent that create safe and inclusive play, including using boundaries as places of meeting and growth, and deciding what and when to show yourself.
Spreading Play — Play connects people, and we all benefit from connection. Explore play as a way to build and strengthen community, collaboration, and growth.
This page will be updated with more information and ticket information when they go on sale.