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THE BUZZ
A Newsletter for the Transformative Inquiry Community
Issue 4, March 2020
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DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE
JOCELYN CHAPMAN, PhD
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Greetings! The January Intensive is still on my mind and I’m smiling as I recall the talent show, among other highlights. It was terrific to welcome five fantastic new students into the Transformative Leadership MA program. I continue to be inspired by a theme that emerged during the Intensive: fungi! This was a topic at the (very fun) Open Space Technology event, during dinner, at the bar, and elsewhere. As Spring approaches, I wish you all growth and joy.
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REMEMBERING CYNTHIA VALE, PHD
The Transformative Inquiry community lost a cherished member with the death of Cynthia Vale, PhD (TSD 2019). Her passing took place on December 12 in Portland, Oregon. Cynthia was a transhumanist theorist and scholar whose work was at the intersection of the cyborg self and brain-to-brain/brain-to-machine interfaces and consciousness. In addition to her trailblazing theoretical work, she authored the book Side Effects or Schizophrenia: The Secrets of Antidepressants (2016). She performed ethnographic research on the effectiveness of “mind treatments” for 100 participants within the Science of Mind community as part of her Master’s in liberal arts. Meanwhile, her undergraduate work was in Industrial Technology focusing on Interactive Computer Graphics, 3-D animation, and Virtual Reality. A world traveler with a taste for fine wine, conversation and good times with friends, her infectious laughter will be missed. She leaves us with beautiful memories and the groundwork for future transhumanist research.
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A panel of CIIS faculty that included May Elawar, PhD, presented at the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) National Conference in November 2019 in San Francisco, CA. The conference theme was Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing. The CIIS panel was entitled, "Loving Justice: Revolutionary Models of Healing and Reconciliation." As part of this panel, Elawar's presentation was on Feminism, Palestinian Rights, and Transformative Justice.
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In April, Daniel Deslauriers, PhD, will be giving a workshop entitled, “The Roots of Acceptance: Improvisation, contact, and the nature of what is” at the Moving Soma Center of Cheltenham, England. He will also give an invited address entitled, "The Full of Weight of Offerings: Contact improvisation and transformative learning." He says: “At CIIS, I offer Contact Improvisation (CI) sessions to students to explore the intricacies of relational dynamics central to participatory learning. In this practice, we explode the fears of being too 'heavy' (for others), too 'pushy,' or taking too much 'space.' We learn to trust group intelligence as we test the boundaries between personal agency and letting go. In brief, we learn to be better learners alongside other learners.”
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Jocelyn Chapman, PhD, presented at the Instructional Technology Council’s annual eLearning Conference in Charleston, South Carolina on February 9-12. Her presentation, titled “How Online Education Provides Unique Opportunities to Transform Student Thinking and the System That Shapes Student Thinking,” was inspired by her doctoral research and the outstanding online programs in the Transformative Inquiry Department. Jocelyn is pictured here with Olivia Sun, having a conversation about conversation-based learning.
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Contro Gaia e Complessità: Interdipendenza e autoritarismo. (Against Gaia and Complexity: Interdependence and Authoritarianism). Omaggio a James Lovelock (Homage to James Lovelock). Centro Studi Complessità Edgar Morin, Messina, Italy, December 19-21. (Video participation).
Professor Alfonso Montouri was in Patio de Ochun Studios in Alameda, California recording saxophone for a track by UK singer-songwriter Mark Blanchard and several tracks for the new CD by the Roadhouse Dogs.
Montuori and Transformative Studies alum Gabrielle Donnelly, PhD '16, now assistant professor at Acadia University in Canada, have signed a contract with Routledge to co-edit the Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures.
Montuori was scheduled to give a series of lectures on complexity and transdisciplinarity at the University of Bergamo in northern Italy, as well as participate in a dissertation defense at the University of Delft in the Netherlands, but will zoom in instead of participating in person due to concerns about the coronavirus. He was also an external member on a transdisciplinary dissertation at the Universities of Lüneburg in Germany.
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Transformative Studies doctoral student Marianne Ingheim is launching a new book, Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion, out May 26, 2020 from She Writes Press. In short and personal pieces, Ingheim tells the story of how the practice of self-compassion changed her life in ways big and small—inspiring readers to unlearn self-critical patterns in their own lives and live a happier, more courageous life. Learn more on her website: MarianneIngheim.com.
Ingheim will be interviewed about her book on September 10, 2020 for CIIS’ Public Programs. Book launch is June 6, 2020, at 4:00 p.m. at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California.
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CONGRATULATIONS!
The following PhD candidates defended their dissertations this spring semester.
Chimine Arfuso
"Illuminations: An Auto-historia-teoría of the Cuban-American Experience Healing Trauma Through Mothering and Breastfeeding"
Arturo Javier Dueñas Rosas
"The Transformative Power of Partnership amongst Latino/a Immigrants of the Parent Project®: A Qualitative Study in Community Building"
Russell Fitzpatrick
"A Developmental Approach to Leadership Training"
Cynthia Gadsden
"Shaping Lives: The Everyday Hero as Transformative Agent"
Anne G. Kinne
"Re-Cognizing the Divine Feminine: An Autoethnographic Account of Healing Through Nature"
Andrea Montgomery Di Marco
"Refugee-Immigrant Women in Metro Vancouver Define Flourishing through Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR)"
Joy Ada Onyesoh
"Transformative Leadership of African Women in Conflict and Post Conflict Societies: Lessons Learned from women-peace-builders in Nigeria"
Frances White
"Resolving the Missing Link within Eating Disorder Treatment: Bringing the Science of Physics, Cosmology, and Consciousness Inquiry toward a New Era in Mental Health"
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ROBIN S. BROWN, PhD '15
Congratulations to Robin S. Brown on the publication with Rutledge of his newest book Groundwork for a Transpersonal Psychoanalysis. This book brings relational psychoanalysis into conversation with Jungian and transpersonal debates. Brown explores how a deeper engagement with the theme of spirituality can challenge and stimulate contemporary psychoanalytic discourse. He also demonstrates the importance of questioning an implicit reliance on secular norms in the field. With reference to recognition theory and shifting conceptions of enactment, Brown shows that the continued evolution of relational thinking necessitates an embrace of the transpersonal and a move away from the secular viewpoint in analytic theory and practice. With an outlook at the intersection of intrapsychic and intersubjective perspectives, Groundwork for a Transpersonal Psychoanalysis will be a valuable resource to analysts looking to incorporate a more pluralistic approach to clinical work.
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DEBBY FLICKINGER, PhD '18
Recently, I had the privilege of co-presenting "Creating a Culture of Care and Social Justice through Education Policy and Practice" at the 26th Nordic Intercultural Communications (NIC) Conference in Riga, Latvia. This led to an invitation to present a workshop on the Caritas Processes™ in Prague this March. Titled "Traveling with the Caritas Processes ™ through a Caring Science Lens," this will be a participatory workshop exploring the ways in which care and compassion can reshape one’s travel experience and lead one to embrace a shift in consciousness and self-knowing.
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JEFFERY JAMERSON, PhD '16
Jeffery Jamerson's dissertation was titled, “Expressive Remix Therapy: Facilitating Narrative Mash-Ups Through the Use of Digital Media Art.” Jamerson's early work as a filmmaker, disc jockey (DJ), and break-dancer showed him the power of story and creative self-expression. Hoping to create a shift in how therapy is conducted with foster children, he has integrated Narrative and Expressive Arts modalities with Digital Media Art, forming a model which he calls Expressive Remix Therapy. In the past few years Jamerson has contributed chapters in two different books that demonstrate how to use technology in therapy:
Brooke, S. L., & Horovitz, E. G. (2017). Combining the creative therapies with technology: Using social media and online counseling to treat clients. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher.
Malchiodi, C. A. (2018). The handbook of art therapy and digital technology. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley.
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KERRI LARYEA, PhD '16
My experience in the Transformative Studies program was rich with deep reflection, starting with creative inquiry, leading to perspective shifts, and concluding with profound connections that I continue to weave into my current work as a learning and transformation consultant. My article "Disruptive Parallels in Competency-Based Education and Agile Development" is one example of my continued practice in making creative and sometimes profound connections. My most cherished gift from this program is the co-learning that I have been privileged to experience with my dissertation writing circle, a group serendipitously assembled in one of our final intensives for the literature review class; a group that continues to meet many years after the course ended and dissertations have been written. My dissertation explores deep listening and wisdom – themes that I frequently dance with in my current client engagements.
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JESSICA SPRING WEAPPA, TSD
Jessica Spring Weappa will present on her practice of a/r/tography in a discussion about ancestral landscapes and healing motherlines at The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology "Rivers of Change: Prophecies and Possibilities" conference in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, this March. Weappa also leads a policy task force and serves on a steering committee for the International Association for Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS). She will present a paper at their "Caring About Mothers" conference in Chicago, Illinois, this May and will lead a panel discussion and round table on her topic of Nested Mothering. Outside of academia Weappa is a narrative therapist and serves as vice president for Pacific Sámi Searvi, a nonprofit devoted to expanding awareness of Sámi culture, history, and issues. Weappa's writing has been published in the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI).
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KELSAY MYERS, TSD
Kelsay Myers will be presenting in Chicago, Illinois, for the International Association for Maternal Action and Scholarship conference in her colleague Jessica Spring Weappa’s panel discussion and round table on Nested Mothering. Myers will share her approach for whole self trauma healing from her experiences of mother loss as a transnational Korean adoptee, focusing on how she came to complete her grief of the primal wound by reconnecting to her lineage through embodiment, the Halprin’s Life/Art Process®, and Reiki. Myers also recently launched a new business, Dialogical Persona Healing Arts, based on her work in the Transformative Studies program so far.
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GERRY EBALAROZA-TUNNELL, TSD
What does a thriving society look like? As a culture, we seem so focused on the trials beset before us that the question thriving seems to be swept away in the rush of it all. Ebalaroza-Tunnell delivered a Ted Talk on Saturday, February 22, 2020, where she discussed a prescription for cultural healing and a path towards building a thriving society. She reached back to the origins of a commonly known and widely enjoyed word that greets everyday travelers to an island paradise: Aloha. This word is well documented and understood to mean hello and goodbye in the indigenous Hawaiian language. Ebalaroza-Tunnell flushed out a far deeper meaning of Aloha and demonstrated how an ancient indigenous idea of 'community' could provide a way forward for our future.
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THE SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS | TSC 2020
April 13-18, 2020 | Tucson | Arizona
Loews Ventana Canyon Resort
A unique institution whose aim is to bring together the perspectives of philosophy, the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, the social sciences, medicine, and the physical sciences, the arts and humanities, to move toward an integrated understanding of human consciousness. This is the largest and longest-running interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to the study of conscious awareness probing fundamental questions related to conscious experience. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, biology, quantum physics, meditation and altered states, machine consciousness, culture and experiential phenomenology and contemplative approaches.
This is a unique opportunity for students, especially for those who are in the Consciousness Studies track. Professor Leslie Combs will be facilitating a workshop on Education in Consciousness Studies.
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The Qualitative Report is a peer-reviewed, on-line monthly journal devoted to writing and discussion of and about qualitative, critical, action, and collaborative inquiry and research. The Qualitative Report, the oldest multidisciplinary qualitative research journal in the world, serves as a forum and sounding board for researchers, scholars, practitioners, and other reflective-minded individuals who are passionate about ideas, methods, and analyses permeating qualitative, action, collaborative, and critical study. These pages are open to a variety of forms: original, scholarly activity such as qualitative research studies, critical commentaries, editorials, or debates concerning pertinent issues and topics; news of networking and research possibilities; and other sorts of journalistic and literary shapes which may interest and pique readers.
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Fantastic Fungi: The Mushroom Movie, directed by Louie Schwartzberg, is a consciousness-shifting film that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions the fungi kingdom offer us in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges. - synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes
Recommended by Jocelyn Chapman, PhD
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New Thinking Allowed:
Conversations on the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery with Parapsychologist Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD.
This program features many of the world's leading scholars, researchers, writers and teachers and covers a broad range of topics including: Consciousness, Creativity, Death and Dying, Global Awareness, Healing, Metaphysics Mind-Body, Mythology, Personal Development, Philosophy and Psychology, Self-Awareness, Social Responsibility, Spirituality, and Transformation.
CIIS has been represented multiple times , including by Jorge Ferrer, Debashish Banerji, by graduate Jeffrey Martin (TSD 2010), and most recently in a series of interviews with Mary Baxter, (TSD 2016).
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25 WAYS TO MAKE LOVE TO THE EARTH
By Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens
1. Tell the Earth, “I love you. I can’t live without you." 2. At first you may feel embarrassed to be lovers with the Earth. Relax. Let it go. It’s OK. 3. Spend time with her. 4. Ask her what she likes, wants, and needs—then try to give it to her. 5. Massage the Earth with your feet. 6. Admire her views often. 7. Circulate erotic energy with him. 8. Smell her. 9. Taste her. 10. Touch all her all over. 11. Hug and stroke his trees. 12. Talk dirty to her plants. 13. Swim naked in their waters. 14. Lay on top of her, or let her get on top of you. 15. Do a nude dance for her. 16. Sing to her. 17. Kiss and lick her. 18. Bury parts of your body deep inside his soil. 19. Plant your seeds in her. 20. Love her unconditionally even when she’s angry or cruel. 21. Keep him clean. Please recycle. 22. Work for peace. Bombs really hurt. 23. If you see her being abused, raped, exploited, protect her as best you can. 24. Protect their mountains, waters and sky. 25. Vow to love, honor and cherish the Earth until death brings you closer together forever.
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Photo by Julie Morley, Transformative Studies student and photographer
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We would love to hear from you!
Contribute to our newsletter by submitting news and images to jchapman@ciis.edu.
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ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATIVE INQUIRY PROGRAM
Learn more about our MA and PhD program by signing up for an info session!
Register for a Transformative Studies, PhD program online info session here.
Register for a Transformative Leadership, MA program online info session here.
For more information, contact Admissions Counselor Richard Wormstall at rwormstall@ciis.edu or 415.575.6156.
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