2020 Presentations (Communicative Events)

Care for the Polis: Collectives of Care (5.21.20)

Robcis, Camille; TenHoor, Meredith

Camille Robcis begins by giving a historical overview of Institutional Psychotherapy, which emerged in the Saint-Alban Clinic as a reaction against the humanitarian disaster in French psychiatric clinics and as an anti-fascist movement during World War II. Meredith TenHoor builds on this context to talk about the architectural design of collective facilities—which we might consider to be a form of urban care—drawing on research about architect Nicole Sonolet and her work at the CERFI (Centre d'Études de Recherche et de Formation Institutionnelle), a multidisciplinary research collective born amidst the social upheaval of late 1960s France.

Care for the Polis is a conversation that exists in a multi-temporal and virtual space, a space designed to reimagine how medical humanities and public humanities shape, and are shaped by, the city and its diverse publics. In a series of weekly Z-Panels, our invited speakers will discuss the effects of health on the conception of cities and publics—including, in the context of pandemic, the foreclosure of public space and what it means to become an online yet domestic-bound public. Together, we will address emerging concerns such as economic impact and recovery, domesticity and democracy, public care and public reconstruction.

Keywords: architecture, psychotherapy, institutional analysis, French