Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015
< span style="color:#000000">Location: NY NATAS, 1375 Broadway (betw een 37th and 38th Streets), Suite 2103
Reception: 6:00-6:30 PM ~ Program: 6:30-8:00 PM
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*Free t o NY NATAS Members!
$15 for tho se without current NY NATAS membership.
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&ldquo\;Is Anybo dy Listening?&rdquo\;
Paula J. Caplan grew up listening to &ndash\; but not remembering &nd ash\; the stories her beloved father, Jerome A. Caplan, told every Decembe r about the time he spent as Captain of an all-Black artillery battery in The Battle of the Bulge. Her bewilderment about why she did not remember t hose stories led her to try to understand the experiences of both military veterans and the nonveterans (like her) with whom they share their commun ities or even their homes. Through decades of work in the mental health sy stem as a psychologist, she had learned to her surprise that psychiatric d iagnosis is not scientific and often harmful. When the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, she foresaw that their veterans would speedily be diagnos ed as mentally ill rather than as experiencing the deeply human consequenc es of war, sexual assault in the military, and the culture shocks of going from civilian to military life and back again. She has acted to try to st op this harmful pathologizing and advocate for humane, often community-bas ed ways of offering help. What Col. (Ret.) David Sutherland calls &ldquo\; the epidemic of disconnection&rdquo\; between veterans and nonveterans lea ds to each group&rsquo\;s stereotypic views of the other that keep them ap art and feed the isolation that leads to veterans&rsquo\; alarming rates o f suicide, homelessness, substance abuse, and family breakdown. Recognizin g that the divide both arose from and helped maintain the nation&rsquo\;s war illiteracy and even military illiteracy among people of all political stripes, Caplan a dozen years ago began listening to whatever any veterans wanted to tell her. That gave rise to The Welcome Johnny and Jane Home Pr oject, which simply consists of pairing a (combat or noncombat) veteran fr om any era and having the nonveteran only listen to whatever the veteran w ants to say. Both veterans and nonveterans describe the sessions as commun ity-based connections that are meaningful, helpful, even transformative fo r both. Using her interviews with veterans including a 96-year-old, Black man who served with Captain Caplan\; Col. Sutherland\; and more recent vet erans from Veterans in Film and Television\; as well as archival footage a nd photos and artist Amy Smith&rsquo\;s illustrations, Paula&rsquo\;s film takes us with her on her journey to understand veterans and bridge the di vides between them and others in the communities where they live. \;< /span>
Paula J. Caplan, a clinical and research psychologist, is author of eleven nonficti on books and numerous awardwinning plays, an actor, director, and producer . Her book When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans, won three national awards for nonfiction, and her plays about veterans have won awards and been produced across the United States and i n Canada. She was a psychology professor at the University of Toronto and has taught at Harvard University, where she is Associate at the DuBois Res earch Institute and did a two-year fellowship in the Women and Public Poli cy Program of Harvard Kennedy School. She is honored to be invited to do t his event with the deservedly esteemed and gracious Sumner Jules Glimcher.
Space is \; limite d. \; You \; must \; RSVP \; to \; info@ny emmys.org to reser ve a seat
Plea se write &ldquo\;Is Anybody Listening?&rdquo\; in the Subject Box