Sidewalk Study DUMBO
Text: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Guides: Kyle & Abbi
Place: DUMBO
Gumbs' masterpiece of ecological writing takes the world of marine mammals as a source of urgent wisdom for collective survival under adverse conditions. We'll consider what it means to listen "across" species — "across" extinction, even. In our Practice, we'll take tips from a few of our aquatic kin, exploring how echolocation, the acoustic technique that many marine mammals use to navigate, can change our understanding of ‘vision’ and visionary action.
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Seeing Through Walls: Captive Audiences and the Carceral State (Session 2 of 3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
READING PARTY
Join us on Thursday, November 14th, for a READING PARTY with Princeton Prof. Jeff Dolven. Over the course of an evening, we'll experiment with five distinct reading techniques dating from antiquity to the internet age. As it turns out, there are countless ways to read — we'll try our hands (and eyes, and ears) at a few of them. Drinks and snacks provided.
We ask that all attendees make a $15 donation at the door (cash or PayPal). Thank you!
REGISTER HERE
WEBINAR: Attention Sanctuaries in the Home
Join us ONLINE as we share the insights from our inaugural workshop series, How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians led by SoRA faculty (and parents) Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Attention Lab Mount Saint Vincent
This Lab is open to USMV students and faculty.
To host an Attention Lab at your University, Please email us at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Attention Labs HERE.
Psychoanalytic Topologies: Attending to One's Self, Attending to the Other (Session 2 of 3)
This course will be an entry into the historical, theoretical, and material underpinnings of psychoanalysis. It will introduce its participants to one of the most radical and committed modalities of sustained self-attentiveness.
Taught by Anaís Martinez Jimenez, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a psychoanalyst in training at the National Psychological Association of Psychoanalysis
Enroll HERE.
Sidewalk Study Lincoln Center
Text: Reflections on the Sonic Commons by O+A
Guides: Flip & Genevieve
Place: Lincoln Center Plaza
The "sonic commons" is our shared acoustical world. This world behaves differently from the "visual commons" (one can hear, but not see, around corners, for example), and thereby creates different forms of collective experience. In cities, the "commons" is constructed architecturally. But architecture is a primarily visual medium, not auditory. This suggests that the sonic commons we occupy are, as likely as not, unintentional — unplanned! In our Practice, we'll seek to discover what these invisible (but audible) cities can teach us, and what possibilities they hold for alternative modes of shared life.
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Seeing Through Walls: Captive Audiences and the Carceral State (Session 3 of 3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
Sidewalk Study Williamsburg
Text: Lectures on Silence by John Cage
Guides: Czarina & Nathan
Place: Williamsburg
In 1952, John Cage composed perhaps his most famous work: 4'33", an instrumental performance where the musicians took the stage, sat at attention, and played… nothing. Four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. No twentieth-century artist challenged more powerfully the meaning of silence and nothingness than Cage, whose work drew deeply on his commitment to Zen philosophy. We'll read from his famous "Lectures on Nothing," and will ask what there is to be heard in silence — which may prove to contain a good bit more than nothing at all!
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Sidewalk Study DUMBO
Track: from World of Echo by Arthur Russell
Guides: Nicholas & Malaya
Place: Dumbo
When American cellist and composer Arthur Russell released a 1986 album using only cello, voice, and echoes, he was at the leading edge of experimental, minimalist composition. In the nearly forty years since World of Echo, digital tools have vastly expanded the range of sonic possibility. But the weirdness — and the beauty — of Russell's music has only deepened. In our first-ever music-centered Sidewalk Study, we'll listen to Russell's album (at SoRA's echoey Sanctuary in Dumbo), then set out into the city with attention to acoustical curiosities.
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Psychoanalytic Topologies: Attending to One's Self, Attending to the Other (Session 3 of 3)
This course will be an entry into the historical, theoretical, and material underpinnings of psychoanalysis. It will introduce its participants to one of the most radical and committed modalities of sustained self-attentiveness.
Taught by Anaís Martinez Jimenez, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a psychoanalyst in training at the National Psychological Association of Psychoanalysis
Enroll HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Attention Activism 101: ONLINE (Session 1/3)
Attention is the touchstone problem of our age. Over the last twenty years, an unprecedented concentration of technical and financial power has successfully monetized human attention. The harms of this new system — in effect, the "fracking" of our most intimate selves — are familiar to all. Less widely understood is the nature of the movement that has emerged to fight back against this historic injustice: ATTENTION ACTIVISM.
In this course, we will survey the intellectual and practical foundations of the nascent ATTENTION ACTIVISM movement. We'll draw on texts by Karl Marx, Guy Debord, Shoshana Zuboff, Tim Wu, and Yves Citton among others. What do the extractive incursions of the Attention Economy mean for shared life in the twenty-first century — and how are communities of activists already working to resist them?
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
Attention Activism 101: ONLINE (Session 2/3)
Attention is the touchstone problem of our age. Over the last twenty years, an unprecedented concentration of technical and financial power has successfully monetized human attention. The harms of this new system — in effect, the "fracking" of our most intimate selves — are familiar to all. Less widely understood is the nature of the movement that has emerged to fight back against this historic injustice: ATTENTION ACTIVISM.
In this course, we will survey the intellectual and practical foundations of the nascent ATTENTION ACTIVISM movement. We'll draw on texts by Karl Marx, Guy Debord, Shoshana Zuboff, Tim Wu, and Yves Citton among others. What do the extractive incursions of the Attention Economy mean for shared life in the twenty-first century — and how are communities of activists already working to resist them?
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
Attention Activism 101: ONLINE (Session 3/3)
Attention is the touchstone problem of our age. Over the last twenty years, an unprecedented concentration of technical and financial power has successfully monetized human attention. The harms of this new system — in effect, the "fracking" of our most intimate selves — are familiar to all. Less widely understood is the nature of the movement that has emerged to fight back against this historic injustice: ATTENTION ACTIVISM.
In this course, we will survey the intellectual and practical foundations of the nascent ATTENTION ACTIVISM movement. We'll draw on texts by Karl Marx, Guy Debord, Shoshana Zuboff, Tim Wu, and Yves Citton among others. What do the extractive incursions of the Attention Economy mean for shared life in the twenty-first century — and how are communities of activists already working to resist them?
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
Dream-States of Attention: A Course in Self-Experimentation (Session 1/3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
Dream-States of Attention: A Course in Self-Experimentation (Session 2/3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
Dream-States of Attention: A Course in Self-Experimentation (Session 3/3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
After Literacy: Planning for a World Without Writing (Session 1 of 3)
Just as a fish doesn't notice the water until it's gone, we're only now grasping the profound impact of the written word as it recedes from our lives. For centuries, text has invisibly shaped our cognition, institutions, and sense of self. Now, as AI models pen Joycean prose while humans increasingly struggle with multisyllabic words, we're witnessing an unprecedented reversal: swarms of machine intelligence processing text with superhuman ability, while adult literacy rates plummet to middle-school levels. Welcome to the Age of Detextualization.
This transformation reaches far beyond mere communication. As AI enables speech-to-data conversion and voice-activated operations, we're transitioning from a text-centric world to one where AI-mediated speech reigns supreme. This shift isn't just changing how we communicate; it's rewiring human cognition and attention at a fundamental level.
Our generation faces a crucial challenge: how to preserve the benefits of literacy as we transition to a potentially post-literate era. Can AI interfaces foster the deep engagement we associate with reading? Is it possible to maintain the clarity of thought cultivated by writing in a world of speech-to-speech communication? Or are we witnessing an inexorable trade, where machines inherit our textual capabilities while humans slip into terminal illiteracy?
This seminar will explore these questions, with special attention to an emerging paradox: as general literacy declines, the cognitive formation provided by deep reading may become even more crucial—perhaps our key to meaningful interaction with increasingly sophisticated AI models in the years ahead.
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
After Literacy: Planning for a World Without Writing (Session 2 of 3)
Just as a fish doesn't notice the water until it's gone, we're only now grasping the profound impact of the written word as it recedes from our lives. For centuries, text has invisibly shaped our cognition, institutions, and sense of self. Now, as AI models pen Joycean prose while humans increasingly struggle with multisyllabic words, we're witnessing an unprecedented reversal: swarms of machine intelligence processing text with superhuman ability, while adult literacy rates plummet to middle-school levels. Welcome to the Age of Detextualization.
This transformation reaches far beyond mere communication. As AI enables speech-to-data conversion and voice-activated operations, we're transitioning from a text-centric world to one where AI-mediated speech reigns supreme. This shift isn't just changing how we communicate; it's rewiring human cognition and attention at a fundamental level.
Our generation faces a crucial challenge: how to preserve the benefits of literacy as we transition to a potentially post-literate era. Can AI interfaces foster the deep engagement we associate with reading? Is it possible to maintain the clarity of thought cultivated by writing in a world of speech-to-speech communication? Or are we witnessing an inexorable trade, where machines inherit our textual capabilities while humans slip into terminal illiteracy?
This seminar will explore these questions, with special attention to an emerging paradox: as general literacy declines, the cognitive formation provided by deep reading may become even more crucial—perhaps our key to meaningful interaction with increasingly sophisticated AI models in the years ahead.
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
After Literacy: Planning for a World Without Writing (Session 3 of 3)
Just as a fish doesn't notice the water until it's gone, we're only now grasping the profound impact of the written word as it recedes from our lives. For centuries, text has invisibly shaped our cognition, institutions, and sense of self. Now, as AI models pen Joycean prose while humans increasingly struggle with multisyllabic words, we're witnessing an unprecedented reversal: swarms of machine intelligence processing text with superhuman ability, while adult literacy rates plummet to middle-school levels. Welcome to the Age of Detextualization.
This transformation reaches far beyond mere communication. As AI enables speech-to-data conversion and voice-activated operations, we're transitioning from a text-centric world to one where AI-mediated speech reigns supreme. This shift isn't just changing how we communicate; it's rewiring human cognition and attention at a fundamental level.
Our generation faces a crucial challenge: how to preserve the benefits of literacy as we transition to a potentially post-literate era. Can AI interfaces foster the deep engagement we associate with reading? Is it possible to maintain the clarity of thought cultivated by writing in a world of speech-to-speech communication? Or are we witnessing an inexorable trade, where machines inherit our textual capabilities while humans slip into terminal illiteracy?
This seminar will explore these questions, with special attention to an emerging paradox: as general literacy declines, the cognitive formation provided by deep reading may become even more crucial—perhaps our key to meaningful interaction with increasingly sophisticated AI models in the years ahead.
Led by Jac Mullen, writer, teacher, and former Executive Editor of The American Reader.
Psychoanalytic Topologies: Attending to One's Self, Attending to the Other (Session 1 of 3)
This course will be an entry into the historical, theoretical, and material underpinnings of psychoanalysis. It will introduce its participants to one of the most radical and committed modalities of sustained self-attentiveness.
Taught by Anaís Martinez Jimenez, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a psychoanalyst in training at the National Psychological Association of Psychoanalysis
Enroll HERE.
Sidewalk Study Greenpoint
Text: Sounds Wild and Broken by David George Haskell
Guides: Kyle & Ben
Place: Greenpoint
Haskell's sonic portrait of the more-than-human world casts the trajectory of life on earth as one continuous, polyphonic song. We'll explore this auditory approach to the planet's ecological diversity — and to the ecological crisis that we face. What kinds of sounds do we lose as species disappear, and what kinds of worlds do those sounds take with them? In our Practice, we'll take listening as an act of ecological worldbuilding.
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 6 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Seeing Through Walls: Captive Audiences and the Carceral State (Session 1 of 3)
Mass incarceration today succeeds—tragically—by insulating the majority of free society from the deep injustices of a system that transfers massive amounts of wealth from working class communities into the hands of a few private individuals, at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. (Of course, many people are directly affected by the carceral state, and don’t need to read a report to understand the damage it is doing.)
How do we oppose a system that is adding another layer of exploitation by making incarcerated people and their loved ones products of the attention economy? In this course we will read selections from Danielle Allen's Cuz (2017), along with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and others, and we will delve into working resources that are actively being used to mount nationwide campaigns to ensure people are valued over profit.
Co-taught by Len Nalencz, Professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and educator at the Bard Prison Initiative, and criminal justice advocate Amber Pedersen.
Enroll HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Sidewalk Study Longmont, Colorado 3/3
This Study will be in collaboration with LAUNCH: Longmont Housing and take place in Longmont, Colorado.
This event takes place on Mountain Time.
To take Sidewalk Studies to a University or Organization near you, please contact us at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net.
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Sidewalk Study Longmont, Colorado 2/3
This Study will be in collaboration with LAUNCH: Longmont Housing and take place in Longmont, Colorado.
This event takes place on Mountain Time.
To take Sidewalk Studies to a University or Organization near you, please contact us at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net.
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Sidewalk Study Longmont, Colorado 1/3
This Study will be in collaboration with LAUNCH: Longmont Housing and take place in Longmont, Colorado.
This event takes place on Mountain Time.
To take Sidewalk Studies to a University or Organization near you, please contact us at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net.
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Sidewalk Study: Goodnight, Moon
Text: Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Guides: Nicholas & Jordan
Place: LES, Manhattan
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 5 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Three Modes of Attention: Plants, Rocks, and Smoke (Session 3 of 3)
In this course, we'll think about and practice radical attention in relation to plants, rocks, and smoke, exploring these three modes of more-than-human attention both in material terms and as metaphor. We’ll look into the history of poetry and prose on such subjects, and we’ll seek to form and reform our own understanding of attention by exploring the relation of this human faculty to the more-than-human world.
Session one: plants. Arturo D. Hernandez refers to densely intertwined plant life as “civilized collectives.” It’s been suggested that plants have up to eighteen senses and remarkable powers of prognostication. In the face of widespread social disorientation and haste, we’ll see what we can learn from such models of exquisite slowness and balanced concentration.
Session two: rocks. Diamond cutters are sensitive to the sound a stone’s carbon lattice makes when it’s held against a polishing scaif—called the stone’s song, which is what gives it life. The thirteenth-century Andalusian writer Ibn ‘Arabi claims Everything wet or dry hears the sound of the muezzin. How do we imagine rocks responding to the call to prayer?
Session three: smoke. Smoke finds cracks and crannies, fills rooms, passes through tiny openings with great elegance. What can that teach us about sensitivity, the smallest movements, subtle understandings? Smoke kills, disinfects, disguises, offers protection. Our minds could do worse than advance like smoke.
Combining roundtable discussion, hands-on activities, and readings from the likes of Arthur Sze, Madhu Kaza, Ibn ‘Arabi, Hugh Raffles, Cesar Calvo, and Arturo D. Hernandez.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by Brad Fox, author of The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths.
Sidewalk Study: Amelia Bedelia
Text: From the Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish (1963-1988)
Guides: Amalia & Jordan
Place: Flatbush, Brooklyn
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Sidewalk Study: In The Jungle There Is Much To Do
Text: In The Jungle There Is Much To Do by Mauricio Gatti (1977)
Guides: Genevieve & Flip
Place: Ridgewood, Queens
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
The History of Happiness (Session 1 of 1)
The History of Happiness
In this practice-based seminar, Darrin McMahon will share his long standing research on the history of human happiness. McMahon will frame the session by identifying a number of crucial historical shifts in the way human beings have conceived "happiness" since antiquity. Following a close group reading of a primary text, we will perform a joint Practice of Attention to activate key questions raised by McMahon's research. Participants can expect to leave with a deeper historical sense of "happiness" and human flourishing (and, we dare to hope, with additional first-hand experience of happiness itself!).
Darrin M. McMahon is the David W. Little Class of 1944 Professor of History at Dartmouth. Educated at the University of California, Berkeley and Yale, where he received his PhD in 1998, McMahon is the author, among other books, of Happiness: A History (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), which has been translated into twelve languages, and was awarded Best Books of the Year honors for 2006 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Library Journal, and Slate Magazine.
$25 for admission. Enroll HERE.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 4 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Three Modes of Attention: Plants, Rocks, and Smoke (Session 2 of 3)
In this course, we'll think about and practice radical attention in relation to plants, rocks, and smoke, exploring these three modes of more-than-human attention both in material terms and as metaphor. We’ll look into the history of poetry and prose on such subjects, and we’ll seek to form and reform our own understanding of attention by exploring the relation of this human faculty to the more-than-human world.
Session one: plants. Arturo D. Hernandez refers to densely intertwined plant life as “civilized collectives.” It’s been suggested that plants have up to eighteen senses and remarkable powers of prognostication. In the face of widespread social disorientation and haste, we’ll see what we can learn from such models of exquisite slowness and balanced concentration.
Session two: rocks. Diamond cutters are sensitive to the sound a stone’s carbon lattice makes when it’s held against a polishing scaif—called the stone’s song, which is what gives it life. The thirteenth-century Andalusian writer Ibn ‘Arabi claims Everything wet or dry hears the sound of the muezzin. How do we imagine rocks responding to the call to prayer?
Session three: smoke. Smoke finds cracks and crannies, fills rooms, passes through tiny openings with great elegance. What can that teach us about sensitivity, the smallest movements, subtle understandings? Smoke kills, disinfects, disguises, offers protection. Our minds could do worse than advance like smoke.
Combining roundtable discussion, hands-on activities, and readings from the likes of Arthur Sze, Madhu Kaza, Ibn ‘Arabi, Hugh Raffles, Cesar Calvo, and Arturo D. Hernandez.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by Brad Fox, author of The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths.
Fiesta de las Frutas // Fruit Party
Join SoRA and artist/filmmaker Claudia Claremi in this celebration (you guessed it) of fruits: their beauty, their nourishment, and the deep webs of story, relation, and memory that they sustain. We'll have a banquet of the best fruits NYC's markets have to offer — you're invited to bring your own (and tell your story, too).
Bring a friend, make a friend, eat some fruit! Claremi will present a screening of her ongoing "La Memoria de las Frutas" project, with a Q&A to follow.
We ask that all attendees make a $15 donation at the door (cash or PayPal). Thank you!
REGISTER HERE
"La memoria de las frutas" (The Memory of Fruits) is a large-scale research-based project that explores the sensory and emotional bonds people have with fruits. "La memoria de las frutas" has been displayed in numerous media, combining film, video installations with overhead projectors, photographic installations, and publication formats. The project is a series in which each chapter addresses a specific context or community from the Caribbean and its diaspora. To date, it has been produced in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and in Miami, NYC, and Madrid, archiving dozens of fruit varieties through people’s memories.
Claudia Claremi is an artist and filmmaker. Her work combines video, analogue film, photography, installation, sound, and text. She graduated from the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños (Cuba) and the University of the Arts London (UK). Claremi is currently a CCI + WOPHA Fellow at PAMM (Miami) and has been an artist-in-residence at Beta Local (Puerto Rico), CRA Matadero (Madrid), VSW (Rochester, NY), and The Clemente (NY). Her films have screened at festivals like Ann Arbor, Rotterdam, Raindance, Oberhausen and Guadalajara, and her work has been shown in CVA Denver, BICA Buffalo, MAMM Medellín, HKW Berlin, La Casa Encendida, CA2M and Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid among others.
Sidewalk Study: The Little Prince
Text: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
Guides: Rai & Amalia
Place: Riverside Park on the UWS, Manhattan
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
University of Houston Lab
The Attention Labs are SoRA’s experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them. This Lab is open to participants through the University of Houston's Mitchell Center for the Arts.
To schedule a Lab at your university or with your work team, contact us at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net.
Sidewalk Study: The Giving Tree
Text: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (1964)
Guides: Kyle and Czarina
Place: Fort Greene, Brooklyn
To participate in a Sidewalk Study, Please email us the Study you are interested in at strotherschool@sustainedattention.net
Read more about Sidewalk Studies HERE.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 3 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Three Modes of Attention: Plants, Rocks, and Smoke (Session 1 of 3)
In this course, we'll think about and practice radical attention in relation to plants, rocks, and smoke, exploring these three modes of more-than-human attention both in material terms and as metaphor. We’ll look into the history of poetry and prose on such subjects, and we’ll seek to form and reform our own understanding of attention by exploring the relation of this human faculty to the more-than-human world.
Session one: plants. Arturo D. Hernandez refers to densely intertwined plant life as “civilized collectives.” It’s been suggested that plants have up to eighteen senses and remarkable powers of prognostication. In the face of widespread social disorientation and haste, we’ll see what we can learn from such models of exquisite slowness and balanced concentration.
Session two: rocks. Diamond cutters are sensitive to the sound a stone’s carbon lattice makes when it’s held against a polishing scaif—called the stone’s song, which is what gives it life. The thirteenth-century Andalusian writer Ibn ‘Arabi claims Everything wet or dry hears the sound of the muezzin. How do we imagine rocks responding to the call to prayer?
Session three: smoke. Smoke finds cracks and crannies, fills rooms, passes through tiny openings with great elegance. What can that teach us about sensitivity, the smallest movements, subtle understandings? Smoke kills, disinfects, disguises, offers protection. Our minds could do worse than advance like smoke.
Combining roundtable discussion, hands-on activities, and readings from the likes of Arthur Sze, Madhu Kaza, Ibn ‘Arabi, Hugh Raffles, Cesar Calvo, and Arturo D. Hernandez.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by Brad Fox, author of The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths.
Attention Lab DUMBO
The Attention Labs are an experiential, participatory workshop curriculum dedicated to the joint exploration of radical human attention. Through group attention practices and guided discussions, we create and test tools to build sanctuaries of attention — as well as networks of solidarity to sustain them.
Register for our DUMBO Lab HERE.
Sidewalk Study: LATE-CAPITALIST TIME in Midtown
SIDEWALK STUDY is a form of group inquiry combining theory, practice, and public space.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 2 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The Choreography of Attention (Session 3 of 3)
This course considers dance as a mind-body practice through which we can stretch, deepen, and grow our capacity for sustained attention. By practicing ways of moving, looking, and improvising, we call into focus our sense of time, space, and cooperative relational attention. Exercising these faculties–consciously, together–is a form of embodied attention activism.
In each of the three sessions, participants will move through a guided physical practice grounded in contemporary dance, improvisation, and personal kinetic discovery. We will examine works by landmark choreographers such as Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch, William Forsythe and others, explore introductory choreographic methods, and invent our own methods– those yet to be discovered. In our culminating session, participants will develop their own choreographic study through which to practice a specific facet of attention– physical, spatial, temporal, or relational.
How to Build an Attention Sanctuary: A Six-Week Journey for Parents and Guardians (Session 1 of 6)
An attention sanctuary is a space—physical, mental, or temporal—where meaningful connection flourishes, free from the tug of digital distractions. In our hyper-connected world, attention sanctuaries offer a refuge where families can cultivate presence, rediscover the joy of undivided attention, and shape children's attentional abilities without the warping effects of commercial interests. No attention sanctuary is more critical than the family home.
Building on the insights from "The Great Rewiring of Parenthood" seminar (see participant feedback HERE), this six-week workshop series invites concerned parents from the greater NY area to join a supportive "parents working group" dedicated to creating attentional sanctuaries for their families.
Enroll HERE.
Taught by SoRA Faculty Jac Mullen and Adam Pearce. Jac is a writer, teacher, former Executive Editor of The American Reader, and father living in New Haven, Connecticut. Adam Pearce is a coach, writer, and parent of two living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Sidewalk Study: KINSHIP TIME in Fort Greene
SIDEWALK STUDY is a form of group inquiry combining theory, practice, and public space.