what we do

Soul Session Sundays is a casual space for a microcosmic community of black Harvard students to relax, reflect, and connect each Sunday, for a full semester. We’ve found the best way to explain Soul Session Sundays to be through its name…

SOUL:

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness… two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder”

DuBois, 1903

We use the word soul for two reasons:

(1) The word “soul” has been used for decades to describe black music, and has since evolved to become a term to more generally characterize black expression.

(2) Soul refers to W.E.B. Dubois’ The Souls of Black Folk. SSS addresses the issue of double consciousness, “two-ness of souls”, and the joys/pains of being black at Harvard

*joins fingertips Cornel West-style*

In this same spirit, Soul Session Sundays is a place for students to ask questions and tell funny/silly/deep/confusing stories about this “two-ness” and its implications for our experiences with fellow black and non-black friends in our communities across campus.

SESSION:

By definition, a session is one part of a series of meetings that lead to accomplishing a goal. That goal could be anything from a healthier body (therapy session) to a mixtape (music production session) to law (a legislative session).

Soul Session Sundays works to accomplish a few goals:

  1. SSS is a space to chill out – over food, music, and good conversation. 
  2. SSS is a space to form close relationships with those whose black experiences we, otherwise, may have never crossed paths with (those of black athletes, black artists, black scientists, black off-cycle students, black travelers, black skiers…)
  3. And, finally, SSS provides a space for personal reflection on the person you were when you came to Harvard, who you are now, and the person you’re becoming. You’ll not only be reflecting on your blackness, but the many other parts of your being (or soul , if you will) that make you… you. 

SUNDAYS:

from 1-3pm.