Ram Dass: The Vicissitudes of Devotion and Ferocity of Grace, with IMA faculty member Francis Charet. Recently I researched and wrote up an essay for publication on Ram Dass (a.k.a Richard Alpert). It focused on his personal and spiritual journey from Harvard psychology professor to experimenter with LSD to spiritual pilgrim in India to New Age guru. His journey is a fascinating one and has been the subject of a film entitled Fierce Grace that I will show that paints a portrait of a sincere and gifted spiritual teacher. After the film, I will present my research that offers an additional picture of Ram Dass’ struggle that indicates how beliefs and practices undergo a transformation from one cultural context to another and raises the issue of appropriation and authenticity.
Seeing: an erotic philosophy of visual perception, with IMA faculty member Ellie Epp. I am impressed by two things about visual perception: how much we can know by looking, and how much pleasure we can take in seeing. This two–part workshop will attempt a deep reorientation to the potentials of our human situation based on our most remarkable sense.
“Somebodies and Nobodies”: Identity and Power through the Lens of Rankism, with faculty members Celia Hildebrand (HAS) and Karen Campbell (IMA). This workshop will begin by introducing Robert Fuller’s notion of “rankism” followed by a roundtable discussion of how these ideas might apply to our community. We propose exploring Fuller’s “Eight Ways You Can Stop Rankism” and considering how we as individuals might work to increase dignity for all during the residency, and in our lives outside Goddard. We hope this approach will allow us to transcend overly– familiar narratives of identity and allow us to look at each other anew, as unique individuals, setting some of the tone for the week and inspiring other activities that will promote healthy communication.
Mythopoetics, Old Stories That Tell Us Who We Are and How to Live, and New Ways to Write Critically & Creativity About It All, with Faculty Member Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg: “Poesis,” the Greek root word for poetry, means, “to make,” and in making poetic language (through poetry, fiction, drama, mixed genre), we remake language to bring the world alive in new ways. Myth, a word which encapsulates our dominant cultural narratives, tells us who we are, where we come from, and how we are to live our lives. No wonder then that poetic and myth are often irresistible to one another – historically (look at the whole oral tradition, which often uses poetic devices as vessels to hold myths), culturally (look at how cultures around the world across time combine myth and poetry), and epistemologically (look at how both poetry and myth embrace how we know what we know). Many contemporary writers continue this tradition as way to question and subvert cultural traditions by examining the cultural, religious, political and other myths of our time, and/or creating whole new mythologies that map out new stories (or recovered old stories) that show us how to live. In this workshop, we’ll look at how contemporary poets – especially women, people of color, and others who don’t hold often hold the keys to societal power – make myth and poetry together as a path toward freedom, justice, healing and visibility. We’ll also do some of our own mythopoetics.
Is Facebook a Place? Would Thoreau have a Blog?, with IMA faculty member Jim Sparrell. In considering diverse sources ranging from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows to Thoreau, and Rebecca Solnitt, we will contemplate questions such as, what constitutes place? What are the implications of these examples of social revolution on how we think, experience ourselves, and relate to the world? What is a friend? Are we using Facebook or is Facebook using us? This workshop will emphasize the process of perspective–taking in developing and investigating relevant questions.
This entry was posted in Activism, Consciousness Studies/Transpersonal Psychology, Creative Writing, Cultural & Cross-Cultural Studies, Embodiment Studies & Body Image, Faculty, Global Studies, Identity, Multiculturalism & Diversity Studies, Mythopoetics, Sexuality & Erotic Studies, Spirituality & Religion, Theater, Drama & Playwriting, Workshops and tagged Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Celia Hildebrand, Ellie Epp, Francis X. Charet, Jim Sparrell, Karen Campbell, Katt Lissard, Lise Weil. Bookmark the permalink.