Workshops From Recent Residency: A World of Change In Action -- A Sampling

Qualitative Research Methodology with IMA Faculty Member Karen Campbell: Research projects with human subjects are often the focus of IMA theses: An African American lesbian interviewed African American lesbians about their experience of acceptance/rejection in relation to their churches and local communities; the High Chief of Tobi Island designed a community visioning process toward taking charge of the conservation of their remote island environment in Palau; another student conducted oral histories with elderly Appalachian musicians. These projects took considerable planning around culturally‑appropriate and ethical styles of obtaining informed consent, “interviewing” participants, and the final presentation of the research data. This  will be an interactive workshop so come prepared to give a succinct overview of  your project (even if vague as yet) so that we can help guide you to the best resources.

Memoir, Narrative Construction, and Change, with IMA Faculty Member Jim Sparrell . In this workshop we will consider the role of memoir for personal/self/psychological change in the context of a constructivist perspective to more deeply explore heory underlying TLA and narrative medicine. I will touch on recent neurocognitive research from Joseph LeDoux and Deana Schilling, as well as work from Matthew Lieberman. In understanding the process of writing memoir we will use Sven Birkerts’ lovely little book, The Art of Time in Memoir.

Rethinking Right Livelihood from the Ground Up, with IMA faculty member Katt Lissard: At progressive institutions like Goddard, where many of us have been drawn to pursue our studies in order to create a more sustainable and satisfying life, the term ʺright livelihoodʺ can take on an oppressive quality, positing the necessity to find ʺthe ʹworkʹ that expresses and fulfills our needs, talents, and passionsʺ – and leaving us with a sense of dismal failure if we havenʹt figured out a plan for just how to do that. While we all want to discover and pursue our ʺcallingʺ or ʺmissionʺ and also find a creative, just and economically viable living in the process, in this workshop weʹre going to look at ʺright livelihoodʺ from the ground level, and move up from there.

What Does It Mean To Facilitate Change For Other People? With IMA Faculty Members Caryn Mirriam‑Goldberg and Francis X. Charet: We often talk about how our work and studies relate to changing the world, but what does it mean to actually help a person or community change for the better, particularly through workshops, coaching, consulting, activism and/or community building? To
truly facilitate change, we need to widen our perspective to understand the cultural, mythological and historic context of our work and those with whom weʹre doing this work. In this workshop, weʹll open up some of the big questions informing the theory, practice and ethics of helping others change their lives as well as our own assumptions about transformation, healing, creativity and liberation.

How Songs Find Stories: Music, Memory, and Narrative, with IMA Faculty Member Jim Sparrell: This writing workshop will include a demonstration of the musical timeline as a means of
accessing neglected memories, as well as some discussion of cognition, memory, and music, and time for participants to begin composing a personal essay or poem based on the construction of their own musical timeline. In addition, I will present this with illustration of ethical practices for giving
workshops in the community.

Jungʹs Red Book: Liber Novus, with IMA Faculty Member Francis X. Charet: The psychologist C.G. Jung has made major contributions to several area of thought and influenced people in the arts as well. His notion of the mandala or magic circle as an integrative symbol has caught the attention of many people. With the recent publication of what amounts to his own richly illustrated diary of fantasies and visions entitled The Red Book: Liber Novus we get a chance to peer into the remarkable
processes this man underwent.

The sky inside a stone, with IMA Faculty Member Ellie Epp: One long tradition says humans are made of two kinds of thing, a material body and an immaterial spirit, soul or mind. This ancient contrast between material and immaterial substances has persisted even in very recent thinking, where it takes the form of a contrast between matter and energy. But what IS matter? A stone in our hand is a dense, heavy thing, completely solid, and yet the physicists who are our authorities on such questions tell us that, seen at the level of atomic structure, even the densest physical matter is nothing but open space.
 
“I, You, and It”: Exploring Meaning through Audience and Form, with IMA Program Director, Ruth Farmer: Please bring something you have composed: a poem, an essay, or something visual/aural. You will use the piece as a starting point for exploring how form and audience affect meaning. We will discuss and practice James Moffett’s “four stages of discourse – inner verbalization, outer vocalization, correspondence, and formal writing."