Photo by Zach Williams, JMU Libraries
Creating Space: Be)Holding Love & Loss
“Be)Holding was a true and humane service to our community,” said Erica Cavanagh, Professor of English. This past fall, Michael Trocchia, Instructor of Philosophy and Collections coordinator for the JMU Libraries, orchestrated “Be)Holding Love & Loss,” an ambitious interdisciplinary arts and humanities events series on grief. The series, which ran from September through November, included exhibits, readings, talks, and performances. Trocchia designed the event to foster intercommunal connection through conversation and art. "I wanted to create a program with several entry points into a sustained consideration of grief, to provide ways in which the arts and humanities open up our experiences and understanding of love and loss,” Trocchia added. “It was important to have a number of opportunities and settings for the community to participate and engage in, to create an extended and collective reflection on the theme.” 9
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JMU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
Pursuing that vision meant mobilizing an enormously wide-ranging group of scholars and artists, writers and thespians, and dancers and social scientists from JMU, Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), and across Harrisonburg. “What Michael and his collaborators pulled off in organizing this thoughtful interdisciplinary series is stunning,” added Cavanagh. Events held on campus included a public conversation between Trocchia and Jesse Ball, internationally acclaimed author of Autoportrait, Silence Once Begun and many other creative works, about how loss and grief — particularly after losing both his father and brother as a young man — have shaped his work. The offerings also included grief-inspired exhibitions. Furious Flower Poetry Center (FFPC) invited Trocchia to curate its first broadside exhibit of the semester, and JMU Libraries assembled a book and media display composed