Content:

Join us for a book launch and signing with Lara Sheehi, author of From the Clinic to the Streets. Presented in collaboration with The Arab American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), The Social Justice Initiative at UIC Global Middle East Studies Program at UIC and the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

Psychoanalysis is having a resurgence in popularity—but it is not helping patients navigate the harm of modern-day capitalism. Instead, it continues to enforce oppressive structures, state power, and reactionary politics. Practising psychoanalytic clinician Lara Sheehi creates a thrilling argument for how seizing the means of psychoanalysis can transform it into one of many tools in service of revolution, showing how psychoanalysis can help unpack how psychological and emotional processes are mobilized by political power, capitalism, the state, oppression, and even genocide. Arguing for a new, liberatory psychoanalysis, she calls for us to harness its radical power from the clinic to the streets.

Lara Sheehi is a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa's Institute for Social and Health Sciences, a licensed clinical psychologist, and the host of the Psychic Militancy podcast. Lara's work focuses on psychoanalysis, the psychic refusals central to liberation struggles and life- making in the Global South, the psychic dimensions of resistance and revolution, and critical Zionism studies. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine which won the Middle East Monitor's 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Lara is a member of the founding collective for the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and is on the advisory board for Forensic Architecture.

In conversation with:

Shereen Abu Bader is a scholar from Palestine. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She graduated from Crown with an AM in social work. Shereen also has a master’s in counseling psychology with a concentration in Drama Therapy from California Institute of Integral Studies. She participated in many initiatves such as Bedouins of the Naqab: resisting erasure in ’48 Palestine, where she joined the initiative of providing emotional and psychological support for families of young people who were arrested by Israeli forces. Her work includes culturally sensitive mental health care, race and ethnicity and culture, violence and trauma as well as global health, with a special focus on Palestine.

Tareq Yaqub is an assistant professor of Psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He has an extensive experience in Neurodevelopmental disorders. He currently serves as the Medical Director of Psychiatric Acute Care Services at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. He completed his medical training at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine.

Moderated by:

Souzan Naser is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and a Doctor of Education in Educational Stewardship, Leadership & Learning from the University of St. Francis. She is a counselor and professor at Moraine Valley Community College in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, where she has won awards for her work. She servs at the board of the Arab American Action Network, a community leader and a leading member at US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

With opening remarks by:

Camille Odeh worked as a lecturer in social work at Chicago State University and Saint Xavier University. Camille has over 40 years of experience working in communities with both non- governmental and governmental organizations. Most importantly, Camille has founded and led so many organizations and key leader in Palestinians struggle in Chicago. Camille is a graduate University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration.