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.

Music on the Sly: Griffin Brady Unplugged

Sometimes the best art comes to us on the sly. So what better way to
to enjoy the summer than to chill to some new versions of oldies, particularly when they include astonishing drumming. Griffin Brady, who's going to graduate in IMA with a focus in music, culture and change, performs "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" with Larry LZ Dillon at the AAAlliance Regional Rebirth show, held in Fredonia, NY. You can also hear Griffin at Slyfest IV (held in Buffalo, NY), performing on a Dagara xylophone. In between performing, Griffin has founded the Slyboots School of Music and Arts, which encourages musicians to "hone your craft, motivate the masses, discover your voice, spread your message, travel, record, tour and broaden your mind. Your dreams don't have to be simply dreams... you just have to be a little sly about it." The Slyboots staff travels to the Dagara Music Center in Ghana, West Africa to perform and teach, and Griffin himself has been a frequent world traveler, performing with the Dagara Music Center, Buffalo Based on the Sly, You Are Sly and other groups. His thesis project includes a book-length manuscript, The Slyboots Guide to Life and Drumming, and future plans include performing in Senagal, Ireland and Northern India.

Connecting with Self, Others & Nature: Brian Moore & Transformative Language Arts

Brian Moore, a graduate of the Transformative Language Arts concentration of the IMA, writes about how we can use the written word to connect with ourselves, our communities and the earth for Alternatives Magazine:

Within and around the earth,
Within and around the hills,
Within and around the mountains,
Your authority returns to you.
–A Tewa Pueblo Prayer

The poem above has great significance, for it is in the context of the earth, hills, and mountains—indeed, the landscapes in which we live, move, and breathe—that we express and embrace our own unique authority, connecting with those other sentient beings, human and other-than-human, with whom we share this planet.

To read more, visit the site,

In Praise of Goodness

Goddard faculty member Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg was recently interviewed by Diane Silver, a writer who keeps up the blog, "In Search of Goodness," a 365-day quest to answer an impossible question. Here's an excerpt from Mirriam-Goldberg's interview:

DIANE: What about poetry and goodness?

CARYN: Poetry and poetic language – which I would extend to memoir, novels and short stories, spoken word and song writing, just everything we can do with language — it’s all about, at its best, taking life and encapsulating it, and passing it on to us in a way that we can see more who we are and how we live. Even speculative fiction shows you a lot about how you live or about how people could live or what people could become. I think the arts serve as a mirror of where we are, but also of a larger vision of where we could be and also historically where we have been. For people trying to cultivate goodness in their lives I don’t think they can do better than to turn to the arts because you’re going to see things there. You can hear it in song, you can see it in painting, you can listen to it in a spoken word performance.

DIANE: It’s a matter of looking at it, but also maybe participating in it? I know that writing has taught me a lot about myself.

CARYN: Creating it, looking at it, doing it. You can see in all these things — what’s the word I want? — you can see your reflection. You can also see where you might be limiting yourself, where you might go instead, through the use of writing, through imagery and rhythm. Imagery speaks to our five senses: smell, taste, touch and so on. Rhythm — just the sounds words make when they’re put together — kind of jars us out of that thick layer of stories and myths that I talked about earlier. We can kind of lift it up and look underneath it. You can use that as pathway to connect to who you are.

Pictures: Above: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg; below: Diane Silver

Helping Teens Empower Themselves Wherever She Lands: Heather Davis

When Heather Davis was in the Individualized MA program (Transformative Language Arts concentration), she focused on how spoken word performance and writing could help at-risk teens find their feet and walk toward better lives. She didn't realize at the time that she would be aiming her own two feet around the country, starting up projects for teens to empower themselves.

While she did her practicum in New York City, she soon moved to Austin, Texas, where she co-founded an affiliate of 826, a non-profit focused on empowerment through literary. The Austin Bat Cave now has several staff people, vibrant community support, and offers after-school, in-school and other programs such as music writing, gender identity exploration, filmmaking, hip-hop poetry, college essay writing and making literary journals.

About three years, pregnant with her first child, Heather and her husband decided to move to Portland, ME to be closer to their families. Once she arrived, she discovered the Telling Room, which was modeled after the 826 program, and she showed up on their doorstep. "They needed someone with my skills, so I started coordinating volunteers and grantwriting, and now I work on fundraising, grantwriting and future program development." She's currently raising funds to launch an after-school program for refugee and immigrant teens from the war-torn, impoverished countries of Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan who have settled in the Portland area. "Schools have a limited ability to serve these kids because of budget cuts," she explains, and furthermore, the kids have just come through horrendous losses as well as dislocation. "Some of them had their parents killed and all kinds of things. We help them tell their stories and also find emotional support, and the academic and literacy component they really need."

Looking back at Goddard, which she graduated from in 2005, she says, "I went there knowing I wanted to do something in the education world and writing world, and it all clicked. Before I came to Goddard, I wasn't really part of any serious discussion about how to do the kind of work I wanted to do. The emphasis on right livelihood helped me move beyond the 9-5 capitalist worker bee mentality. The freedom of the individualized program let me design exactly what I wanted to do."

In addition to living out her own right livelihood in Portland, she's also joined a writing group with several TLA graduates, and she's taking writing workshops to work on a book about the six months she lived in a teepee in the desert, another place her feet took her.

International Sustainability: Camille Mata is Recognized for Thesis!

Camille Mata, an IMA graduate who specialized in international sustainability and community building, won an honorarium and potential book project with the University of Minnesota Press through its Quadrant Fellowship. The honorarium includes a stipend and all-expense paid trip to the University of Minnesota where Camille will give a lecture on her thesis, and a workshop focused on a chapter of her thesis. She also plans to head to the Third World for a six-month or longer project involving

According to her faculty advisor, Ralph Lutts, "Camille Mata did an excellent research project examining the possibility of providing a sustainable system of providing healthful (organic) foods (community food security) to lower income folks in Oakland, California.This began with a study of the history of community supported agriculture, urban agriculture, etc. This was her third masters thesis, so she knew how to do a good job when she arrived at Goddard."

Quadrant is a program that promotes interdisciplinary publication and research, and strives to be a new model for Press-University partnerships that bring humanities scholars into dialogue with those in the sciences and professional schools

Intercultural Understanding, Overcoming Racism and Young Adult Fiction: Cynthia Curley Obrero

Cynthia Curley Obrero (IMA ’09) has worked in Theatre and the Music Industry since receiving her Bachelor’s in 1989. Throughout that time she believed theatre was, and still is, able to present to the public different ideologies, lifestyles, cultures, and ways of thinking about common ideas. Through the Performing Arts she felt she could help break down some of the barriers that stand between people of differing backgrounds. “I saw, and still do see, theatre as a tool for teaching and starting conversations about those concerns that affect us on a global scale. By placing very important yet shunned or ignored topics before individuals, I was hoping to create conversations, new ideas, or a different perspective that could cause positive change within those issues that seem easier to avoid: such as genocide, AIDs, domestic and child abuse, gender identity, prejudice, and politics - just to name a few.”

As she continued to work in the entertainment industry she found herself craving a larger role in creating change for better understanding between individuals and groups of differing backgrounds. After two years of “mind numbing brainstorming” she decided the best avenue to take would be to learn more about intercultural issues through the study of Anthropology. Goddard’s IMA program appealed to her for several reasons. “Since receiving my Bachelor’s degree I had learned that linear thinking does not include all or many of the aspects of an idea, ideology or theory and thereby does not allow for full or multi-dimensional understanding. In order to create systemic understanding more than one ideology needs to be analyzed, criticized and either incorporated or rejected in order to discover the answers to any question. I not only wanted to study the many facets of Anthropology, but Philosophy, Psychology, and whatever else might organically grow from my studies.” In her search for solutions to prejudice her studies eventually took her into Semiotics, Social Constructionism, Conflict Resolution, Cosmopolitanism, and Group and Individual Identities.

In the process of her Master’s she discovered a way to combine her creative side with the theoretical. She decided to write a young adult’s novel. The novel is action-adventure based yet it introduces the reader to new cultures – their histories, folktales, beliefs, languages, surrounding environments, etc. - in a way that allows for learning positive interaction with cultural and ethnic groups rather than labeling them, which so often leads to prejudice. The novel is the first in a series, which will take its characters and readers around the world. “I had the idea floating in my head before entering Goddard. Early on in my studies I discovered the book actually solidified my academic and creative backgrounds into something I could give to the public. Something that is educational, fun, creative, and may help to prevent prejudice.”

She went on to say, “I am very excited about it, but in the beginning I felt otherwise. I had never written anything before and was extremely nervous by the prospect of putting details and dialogue, especially dialogue, down on paper, let alone writing enough of it to fill a book. The more I wrote the more I became absolutely surprised by how much I enjoy writing. It still amazes and delights me that I achieved such a large task. I do believe my background has helped me far more than I knew or expected it would. I’m an introvert, which means I have usually sat on the fringes and watched people - their gestures, postures, speech, and interactions. This helped me a great deal when envisioning the characters and their personalities. My theatre background gave me an understanding of staging and intentions. And reading books and watching movies gave me a sense of suspense and pace.”

Since her book takes place in several countries Cynthia has done research online, through documentaries, books, and conversation through emails. This past year she traveled to Iceland to further enhance her understanding of the country and to better describe it in her book. “I had never been there. I had done plenty of research, but I felt I needed to actually see it and experience it myself in order to represent it appropriately. Quite honestly, Iceland had never been on my list of places to go. I am very grateful my book took me there. Iceland has an amazing history, literary and folk heritage, environment, and wonderful people. By traversing the locations I describe in my book and interacting with Icelanders I learned some of the nuances of the country and of some of its individuals that I would not have known otherwise. I would never have known about the colors, textures, scents, sounds, the Icelanders’ strong sense of connection with their history and their visions for the future, the pride in who they are, their generosity, their incredibly good English, and a magnificently diverse environment that seems to lend a beauty and a resolve to many who live there. It was a wonderful trip. My aim is to incorporate that experience and knowledge into my book.”

Cynthia is presently editing her book and hoping to have it ready for publication by the end of the year. “Goddard gave me the direction and freedom to think organically, logically, linearly, critically, and creatively. I was given threads of connection and foundation to my whirlwind of thoughts, ideas, images, and imaginings. From my academic studies of Intercultural Interaction and Prejudice Prevention I became a writer with direction and passion. Now I hope to use what I have learned from my life and my studies to plant a seed of understanding between peoples.”

Photos from Cynthia's trip to Iceland