A Summer Institute
Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet
August 1 - 6, 2010
at Lama Foundation
San Cristobal, New Mexico
$700, including room and board
Application and registration are available at http://lamafoundation.org/Summer%2008/DHO.htm
View/download a .pdf containing information about this event
Environmental challenges call into question not simply our technological, economic, and political capabilities, but also our fundamental understandings of who we are as a species, and how we fit into the broader more-than-human world. The Summer Institute aims to launch an effort within higher education to develop tools for teaching and researching environmental dilemmas with this broader sensibility in mind. It focuses on the interface between environmental challenges and contemplative practices with the understanding that the latter can provide access to inner resources for understanding and responding meaningfully to environmental issues. Through a combination of discussions with distinguished scholars, focused conversation among colleagues, artistic exercises, and regular contemplative practice, participants will collectively fashion the emerging discipline of Contemplative Environmental Studies into a pedagogical tool capable of assisting humanity in addressing environmental dilemmas. Part workshop and part retreat, the Institute seeks to open the doors wider to our own capabilities as teachers committed to education on a fragile and wild planet.
The Summer Institute builds on the work of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education. The Association is a network of institutions and academics committed to restoring and renewing the contribution that contemplative practices can make to teaching, inquiry, and scholarship. The Association supports exploration into the ways that practices aimed at developing concentration, deepening understanding and insight, and cultivating awareness and compassion can enhance higher education. Such practices are particularly appropriate to environmental studies. The Summer Institute provides an opportunity for those in a variety of disciplines to share their insights, and learn about cutting edge research at the interface between contemplative practice and global environmental challenges. For this reason, we invite participants from the full range of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives including the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
THE SETTING AND FORMAT
The Institute will take place at the Lama Foundation in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Lama is a beautiful, off-grid community committed to sustainable and mindful living. It sits on 100 acres surrounded by National Forest land and offers stunning views. Its power comes from the sun, water from a spring, and much of its food in the summer comes directly from the garden. At 8500 feet, Lama provides an ideal setting for reflection and engagement with contemplative environmental issues.
Each day will include sessions on pedagogical issues, such as how different disciplines approach environmental dangers, the relationship between course content and contemplative practices, the challenge of introducing nontraditional teaching methods into the classroom as well as practical matters such as evaluation, grading, and connecting with students. Additionally, there will be sessions that substantively explore the contemplative nature of environmental affairs, such as the role of compassion, silence, direct experience, and engaged social action in responding to environmental dangers. Each day will also include substantial contemplative practice time. As a group, we will engage in meditation, yoga, journaling, nature walks, and community tuning. There will also be opportunities for participants to partake of other contemplative activities hosted by the Lama community, and to use free time to deepen one’s personal practice (or simply relax).
Accommodations at Lama are relatively rustic. There are men and women yurt dormitories, and beautiful spots on which to camp in tents. Most Lama workshop participants sleep in tents close to bathrooms, showers, meeting rooms, and Lama’s historic library. The weather is close to perfect in August. We see the natural setting of Lama enhancing the workshop goals.
An agenda and logistical information will soon be added to this website (www.acmhe.org/ces.html) and sent to all registrants.
FACULTY
Paul Wapner, associate professor and director of the Global Environmental Politics program in the School of International Service at American University, and author of Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics, and Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism.
Nicole Salimbene, visual artist whose work explores themes of sustainability, intimacy, political voice, and devotion, and leader of workshops on Contemplative Sustainable Design at the Lama Foundation.
Matthew Jelacic, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado focusing on socially just environmental design, and involved with constructing affordable housing using compressed earth blocks for the Crow Nation in Montana, and incorporating sustainable materials for sheltering displaced people in various parts of the world.
GUEST TEACHERS
Richard Falk, Albert Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of over twenty books including the path-breaking, This Endangered Planet: Prospects and Proposals for Human Survival, and, most recently, Achieving Human Rights.
David Abram*, director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics and author of The Spell of the Sensuous and the forthcoming book, Becoming Animal.
*Invited, to be confirmed
TO REGISTER, VISIT:
http://lamafoundation.org/Summer%2008/DHO.htm