Discussion
Events
Ecological Civilization and Global Citizenship: Reflections on a Year in China with Wm. Andrew Schwartz
The path toward ecological civilization asks us to confront a basic contradiction of our time: our greatest challenges are planetary, while our dominant forms of identity and political action remain divided along national, cultural, religious, and ideological lines. Building a more just and sustainable world will require unprecedented cooperation across these boundaries, and new ways of understanding what it means to belong to a global community. Drawing on a year of living, teaching, and working in China, Andrew Schwartz reflects on global citizenship, cross-cultural encounter, and ecological civilization through the lens of process-relational thought, asking how we might cultivate forms of identity, responsibility, and cooperation adequate to our shared planetary future.
Free
Remembering Transformative Leaders: Wendell Berry, Gloria Steinem, Dolly Parton
The fall series of Process Explorations explores Compassion, Creativity, and Global Citizenship. At a time when many parts of the world are in political, economic, ecological, and ethical turmoil, what might process thought and ways of life contribute to the deepening of compassion and creativity and to practices of global citizenship? The session on September 22 explores this question through the lives of three remarkable persons who contributed in quite different ways to the quality of life in the United States, both for human communities and for the entire ecosphere.
Free
Running for Office in a Very Red State with Doug Corbitt
In this presentation on running for office during the present moment of time, Doug Corbitt will share his experiences running as a Democrat in a rural, poor, very Red district in Arkansas. He will speak to why he thinks it worth the effort, what he has learned, and what he has found most surprising.
Free
Continuing Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity with Bishop Mary Ann Swenson
In this session of Process Explorations, Bishop Mary Ann Swenson will reflect on her recent experience with the World Council of Churches Reference Group on the Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity. The group met in Vancouver, British Columbia to discuss the theology of Companionship as it relates to faith and order, climate justice, education and ecumenical formation, and international affairs. Following the presentation, there will be discussion of process thought and relational theology to explore connections between these topics and what Bishop Swenson presented.
Free
Concrescence: Artistry of SPARKS Community Cohort with Kaeti MacNeil and SPARKS Artists
In this special session of Process Explorations, members of the SPARKS Community Cohort share work from Concrescence, the first online gallery of the Center for Process Studies' arts collective. The session includes a live digital tour of the virtual gallery, led by Kaeti MacNeil. As the tour stops at each piece, featured artists will speak about their work and the influences it draws together. A conversation with attendees will follow.
Free
Art, Gardens, Horses, and Home: The Many Become One with Melissa Cowper-Smith
Whitehead is famous for saying that, in each moment of our lives, "the many become one and are increased by one." The phrase well describes the life of many an artist. Melissa Cowper-Smith is a living exemplar of the organic nature of an artist's life, inspired by her many loves. She is drawn to the arts making visual art, tending the land, caring for horses, and helping people find a home. Her visual art explores landscape, memory, and our relationship with nature, often using handmade paper made from plants she grows herself. She also helps farm Wildland Gardens on eight acres near Morrilton, Arkansas, growing vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit, and fiber plants. Add to this her love of horses and her work helping people find homes and you have a creative and caring life inspired by multiple loves. In this conversation, facilitated by Jay McDaniel, Melissa will share her story and images of her art, garden, horses, and homes, inviting us to consider how our own multiple loves might shape a meaningful life.
Free
Modernism, Postmodernism, Metamodernism with Greg Dember
What comes after postmodernism? Can we embrace sincerity without losing our capacity for irony, or recover hope while remaining aware of uncertainty? In this Process Explorations session, Jay McDaniel interviews Greg Dember about metamodernism, an emerging cultural sensibility that brings renewed interest in feeling, connection, and meaning into conversation with the questioning spirit of postmodernism.
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Seeking a Whole Brain Experience: The Need to Right Our Mind with David Roy
In this presentation, David Roy will weave together several strands of knowledge to help explain why it is important that we in the West increase the role of the right hemisphere in our whole brain’s experience of the world. This includes the rich psychological facts and ideas of Iain McGilchrist, Allan Schore, and Darcia Narvaez, among others. The understanding of intersubjectivity is deepened by process metaphysics.
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