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."

Graduating Student Workshops at IMA August 2010 Residency

At each Individualized MA residency, graduating students present their studies to the Goddard community. Here are the presentations students will be giving for the Aug. 6-13 residency. Altogether, these workshops give us a sense of the scope and depth of what students do when they can design their own studies.

Crossing Into Presence: Graduating Student Bernard Carey with Visiting Scholar DawN Crandell, Haybarn Theatre. “This theater piece is about my abandonment of my daughter and the pain that it has caused her.” It highlights the struggle that millions of families are going through, all across America. The consequences of father absenteeism are too devastating to our children and the fathers themselves to let this societal ill continue to run amok in our communities. The piece explores how Bernard and DawN were able to redirect the focus of
their relationship from a state of absence to a state of presence in this eye opening autobiographical work. In exploring ways to get their message out, they have come up with an empowering way to facilitate discussion in communities around the country on the issues of abandonment, responsibility and healing between a father and his children.

Unveiling Aphrodite: Examining the Mythology of Romantic Love, Graduating Student Amanda Lacson. My thesis is a personal and critical inquiry into Western myths of romantic love that have guided my expectations in relationships. I investigate the stories of my intimate relationships, linking my experience to popular Western myths and fairy tale, family
myths, and lesser-known non-Western and Western myths. I examine the meaning of mythology and its connection with cultural expectations of romantic love, discovering a conflict between the storied images and my personal experience.

Through the Lens of Speculative Fiction with Graduating Student Jacqueline Elmo. Humans use storytelling as a tool for communication, creative expression, instruction, social
cohesion, and self-reflection. This workshop explores how western fiction, particularly the speculative genre, is an exercise in the human capacity to empathize, imagine, and exist beyond the dominant stories and ideals propagated by culture. Drawing from my own relationship with fiction and with works from authors such as J.K. Rowling, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick, this presentation will chronicle my own evolution from a passive observer of culture to an active
commentator by means of immersion and authorship.

Suicide, Creativity, and the Self, Graduating Student Mike Alvarez. Experience the songs of Phyllis Hyman and Kurt Cobain, the photographs of Kevin Carter, screen shots from Jeremy Blake's 'time-based paintings', and much more as we examine the paradoxical relationship between suicide and creativity. What do self-destructive behaviors and creative activities have in common? Is creative work intrinsically healing? And how does the disease model of mental disorders diminish our understanding of the human meaning behind suicide and creativity? These are some of the pressing questions my presentation will address--questions that have
far-reaching implications in a time and place where the self, and its manifold human dimensions, are radically medicalized.

Constructing the Monster with Graduating Student, Angela Davis. What is a monster? How is monstrous identity constructed? What is the function of the monster? My thesis explores these questions within medieval European representations of the Other through the lenses of language, culture, location, and the body. Come for the illustrations, stay for the discussion! Are you a monster?

“Girl from the Gold Country,” with Graduating Student, Jes Wright. Come learn more about how a young woman, who grew up eating pomegranates with fool’s gold dust fingertips
and leaping off rock walls, jumped into the role of the “good” mother, and wrote her way out of it through poetry. I will discuss how motherhood, as an experience and an institution, is assumed to be a woman’s ultimate role in the United States. Drawing from Feminist Theory, I will examine the oppressive experience of the “good” mother role, the historical causes and
consequences of this role, and explain how poetry within the site of Feminist Mothering may challenge patriarchal motherhood. I will share excerpts from my memoir, Girl from the Gold Country, and present a short slide show of my journey.

Becoming Slyboots with Graduating Student Griffin Brady. Feeling Sly? Keeping your head above water in the music industry can be tricky. As an aspiring professional musician and educator you will undoubtably have to be sly and rely on every ounce of cunning and intellect that you have in order to make a living. Truth be told, music is not about money. There is a much bigger picture when looking at music as an art form to be honed and refined through a dedicated life of study and practice. As a result of these notions I have found that making a living and making a life are not always the same thing. Through my study at Goddard, I have worked hard to uncover my inner Slyboots and heal that disconnect. Come enjoy a short presentation on my process becoming Slyboots and be prepared to drum.

Exile at the Cusp of Memory, with Graduating Student Jame Vincent. Exile at the Cusp of Memory: Reflections on Exile and Creativity, with Graduating Student Jame Vincent. The threads in my study of writing and memory connect and shape my understanding of the dynamics of exile, language and place. In my presentation, I will speak of familial and cultural memories as active and continual forces.

Discovering a Sense of Embodied Home with Graduating Student Jenny Gundy. My journey began with a desire to reconnect to a once fluent and fearless voice that had gone dry. I’d hoped this voice would empower me to speak out and work toward more sustainable ways of living. My goal was to empower my self and others to live simply, in harmony with the Earth. As I studied place, bioregionalism, homesteading, and renewable energy, I realized that the effort to reconnect with my voice was really a quest for home. What made home so elusive? The global system of patriarchy, assuming an unnatural split between mind and body and humanity and
nature, causes dissociation from our selves and the larger body of nature. Furthermore, the dominant narratives about women’s lives contributed to my feelings of “homelessness” in
this culture. Eventually, I came to understand that home is an embodied state, a feeling of integration in my self, my human relationships and nature.

A Marriage of Spiritual Memoir & Community Workshops: Suzanne Adams

When Suzanne Adams started IMA's Transformative Language Arts concentration, she was already changing her life as a freelance writer and suburban stay-at-home Houston mother in a household of males. While she didn't know what she was shifting toward, she had a sense that this change involved creative writing, community work, and spiritual growth.

She soon herself immersed in writing as a spiritual practice, studying spiritual autobiography, and TLA as a tool for social change and personal growth for girls. One faculty member with an evangelical Christian background suggested Suzanne explore healing stories within the framework of Christianity; another faculty member, who specialized in feminism, prompted Suzanne to write about feminist theology and mythology. Another faculty member’s expertise in workshop facilitation was invaluable in furthering Suzanne’s goal of offering expressive writing workshops in the community. By the end of her studies, she wrote Reclaiming the Lost, a powerful body of essays on spiritual questioning and questing, writing as a calling, and how her changes catalyzed profound changes in her marriage. Accompanying the memoir was a study of mythology, theology, history, literature, sociology and psychology as it related to her topic; and a practicum focused on expressive writing for teenage girls. The writing especially allowed her to write herself into voice, identity, and stronger connections with her family, female divinity, and the wild.

Since graduation, Suzanne was admitted into the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, where she found strong encouragement to revise the essay collection toward a memoir about how one spouse's spiritual development can actually strengthen, and not necessarily, tear apart a marriage. She found even more support from her husband who, after reading her essays, even ones that weren't very flattering of him and their relationship, said to her, “This is your story, and I think you've written it in such a way that would help others, and I encourage you to continue this work.” Suzanne says that his response, “helped us to work for more transformation along the way.” She soon starts working with Farnoosh Moshiri through Moshiri's Studio 16, a highly competitive writing workshop. She's also presenting "The Sacred Knowledge of Myth," a workshop at the Power of Words conference at Goddard College Sept. 3-7, organized by the TLA Network.

She also started leading workshops in her community. “It's All About You,” a workshop fostering empowerment, self-discovery and self-esteem for middle school girls, that she first piloted as her TLA practicum at Goddard, is now on its feet at a Houston area middle school as a project of ARTreach, a local grassroots arts organization. Adams is in the middle of facilitating two 90-minute sessions twice a week for five weeks, helping girls negotiate media influences, discover their voices and visions and dismantle damaging messages through writing and art exercises and discussions.

Suzanne found her time at Goddard turbo-charged her quest to write and seek spiritual connection. “When I finally got there, that (being at Goddard) was the biggest catalyst of all. I was taking little baby steps up until that point, and the transformation that came propelled me full-speed ahead,” Suzanne explains.

Right Livelihood

The term "Right Livelihood" may be rooted in Buddhism, but it's particularly relevant in a time of economic crisis, and many people needing to re-evaluate how they make a living and new ways to do work in the world. Right Livelihood connotes using your gifts, talents and experience to serve your community, doing work of meaning. In the IMA program, we focus quite a bit on Right Livelihood and how you can design a course of study that enhances how you interface with your work, community and passions.

Over recent semesters, here's a list of Right Livelihood workshops offered at residencies:

* Right Livelihood Panel (featuring faculty and students): What do we mean by this term, and what are ways to bring right livelihood to our current work, create new work, and help others find their own right livelihood?

* Connecting with Community: Making a Living Doing What You Love: How do you make meaningful connections with organizations, businesses and institutions in your community, and how do you nurture and grow those connections in search of relevant, important work that helps you enhance your gifts and also make a living along the way? This conversational workshop will include lots of tips as well as information and handouts on strong proposals, resumes, background material and more.

* Grant-Writing For Your Education and Work: An exploration of grant-writing resources, strategies, follow-up and other considerations, including ample information on where to find arts-based grants, awards and fellowships.

* Finding Your Calling & Making a Living From It: Two-part workshop on bringing to the surface more of what you feel called to do for a living, and then investigating how to begin and sustain an ongoing dialogue with that calling, including using tools such as writing, art, business plans, mapping, visualization and more.

* Planning, Facilitating and Assessing Workshops and other Other Arts-Based Community Projects: Come discuss how to set up workshops, coaching and consulting projects in your community, including ways to make contacts with local organizations, institutions and businesses; how to design and publicize (or assist the hosting organization with publicity) your group; screening participants; developing facilitation arts and skills; and general assessment information.

* How & Why You Do What You Do: Ethics from the Inside Out: All community work has ethical connotations, and how you handle those ethical questions that come up greatly influences the effectiveness of any work you do in your community. Come learn about the ethical dimensions of your work, and join us for a discussion of possible issues you might encounter, how to navigate your way through to the benefit of all, and why community work entails such ethical considerations in the first place. We'll have time for trouble-shooting, role-playing and lots of inspirational stories about how to make your practicum truly rewarding for all involved.

* Whole-Self, Real-World Facilitation: This workshop focuses on how to bring all of your wisdom and intuition to the real and outrageously dynamic world of facilitation. We’ll discuss how to forge a clear understanding of your own motivations and expectations; the role of the facilitator overall and as it applies specifically to you; the importance of sticking to that role (listening versus trying to rescue or fix); and intervention, confidentiality, and resource management for issues bigger than the group. Come share your experiences, callings, gifts and challenges in being facilitated and in facilitating at this interactive workshop.

* How to Do Arts-Related Work & Transformative Language Arts In Your Community: People, Places and Practical Possibilities: Panel discussion featuring students and faculty on specific ways to work with various populations, and approaches such as poetry therapy, journal therapy, educaitonal drama autoethnography, narrative theory, storytelling and coaching.

* Writing Business Plans for Changing the World: Begin creating your own business plan for launching the work of your dreams into the world, and look at how to further develop that plan over time, find needed resources, and start your own right livelihood.