Jan 27, 2024
Student Workshop “Manifesting Self-help” with special guests
In connection with Professor Junker’s seminar “‘Love My Naps, But Stay Woke’: The Rhetoric of Self-care,” the manifesto project conducted a workshop on the topic of “Manifesting Self-help.” Seven student presentations were held over the two days on 26th and 27th January on topics ranging from reflecting the relevance of Michel Foucault’s “Technologies of the Self” for the self-help book The Lightmaker’s Manifesto (2021) by Karen Walrond to discussing how the American myth of the self-made man is present in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life (2023). The highlight of the workshop were the two virtual guest-lecturers given by Dr. Elisabeth Punzi (https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/elisabethpunzi) and Dr. Annelie de Cabo Y Moreda (https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/anneliesiring), both from the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Under the title “Self-care and Mental Health Tools: Possibilities and Drawbacks,” Dr. Punzi gave insights into the rhetorical and pragmatic ‘tool-ification’ and therefore objectification of self-help present in mainstream discourse on mental health, using literature and case studies of patients. Dr. de Cabo focused on discussions of mental health and self-harm in the context of sex work in Sweden by asking the titular question of her talk: “Sex work as Self-harm (as) in neglect of self-care?”.