JONESTOWN SURVIVOR to Present in Zoar, Ohio at Communal Studies Association Conference
JONESTOWN SURVIVOR to Present in Zoar, Ohio at Communal Studies Association Conference
Jonestown Survivor will participate in the Communal Studies Association Annual Conference in Zoar, Ohio. I am a Board Member of the CSA and have gained insight into my own experiences living in the communities of Peoples Temple and Synanon. I reflect and present about my evolution of understanding in these settings.
THE THEME: To succeed, grow and survive, all successful communal groups have had to adapt to changing situations, be they internal or external: internal changes in their leadership, in their environment, and in their membership, as well as those changes taking place in the outside world. For this conference, which helps celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Separatists of Zoar in 1817, a communal group that successfully adapted to change for 79 years, we invite submissions of papers showing how communal societies, past and present, have adapted, or not adapted, to changing situations, both those they could control and those they could not. We also, as usual, invite paper submissions or panel discussions on other subjects relevant to the study of intentional communities.
Friday, October 6, from 3-4:30
Session D-2 School (downstairs)
Laura Johnston Kohl – Peoples Temple – Change and the Chameleon that was Jim Jones
Catherine Abbott – Racial Thinking in Jim Jones' Peoples Temple
Laura Johnston Kohl and Catherine Abbott – Peoples Temple – What label defines it?
Saturday, October 7, 10-noon
Ronald Kohl – Charles E Dederich, Synanon Founder, Believed in Change for the Sake of Change
Alison Bass – How growing up in a progressive intentional community shaped my worldview
Tom Kendig – Can An Unintentional Group Be Considered A Communal Society?