Thursday, March 28, 2024

Roundtables

Lonely
Infrastructure

Weaponizing Loneliness

Nonhuman
Kinship

Participatory Research Project

There is much to learn about the topics of loneliness, isolation, kinship, and connection from experts. Loneliness is also a lived experience–a state of living or feeling that connects many different kinds of people. We want to hear from you.

To help us better understand loneliness and connection, we invited the public to participate in a crowdsourced research project. We circulated an anonymous survey asking 10 brief questions about what loneliness and connection can look like, sound like, be like, and transform into. This was stage one of our project and we have now moved forward to stage two: our call for creative contributions.

The results of our survey are manifold, and we invite creative contributions from artists, writers, and change-makers to animate and activate this data. Access the final report below, available for download as well as through an interactive map.

Map of Participants

Lonely No More! - Art Exhibit

In the Spring 2022 semester, the Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) hosted a series of events for Lonely No More!: The making and unmaking of loneliness, isolation, and connectedness. Roundtable discussions, short-form podcasts, and an Interactive Book Club anchored the programming which focused on the infrastructural, nonhuman, and carceral dimensions of loneliness. A story-collecting survey circulated across social media from January to February 2022 jump-started the symposium. 

The survey results went on to inspire this exhibition. Featuring seventeen pieces by local, national, and international artists, Lonely No More! is a meditation on the ways loneliness and connectedness can be expressed through visual art, audio, and poetry.

Recordings of Lonely No More! Symposia Roundtables

Recordings of all of the roundtables for the Lonely No More Symposia are available, click the button below to view!

Host a Book Club!

C21 will host a limited amount of Book Club events. However, we would love to boost your related book club! Are you reading one of the works on our list in your classes? Hoping to read it with your community center, or neighborhood book club? We want to know! Fill out this form, or contact us if you would like guidance for planning your own book club event!