Evolutionary Epic


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Speakers

Below is the list of participants who presented at the Evolutionary Epic conference. 
Bios will continue to be posted as they are received.
Please check back for regular updates.

        
Click Here for Speaker Pictures and Bios (posting in progress)
          Click here
for Speaker Instructions                 

 

                                                            INAUGURAL SPEAKER
BRIAN SWIMME -
Prof of
Mathematical and Evolutionary Cosmology, California Institute for Integral Studies
                                    Co-author with Thomas Berry of "The Universe Story"

                                                                  LUAU SPEAKERS
   JOEL PRIMACK (Physics) and NANCY ABRAMS (Lecturer)-
University of California, Santa Cruz
                                 Co -Authors of "The View from the Center of the Universe"   
 

ALOHA BANQUET SPEAKER
PETER HESS - Director Faith Project National Center for Science Education
       "Theological Problems and Promises of an Evolutionary Paradigm"


General and Special Focus Speakers


See Special Focus page for complete listing of discussion and panel sessions and participants
See Detailed Agenda page for conference presentation schedule

Click on names that are underlined below to see personal bio

Walter Alvarez
- Professor of Geology University of California Berkeley
        "The Character of Big History: A Geological Perspective"

Alan Almquist, Anthropologist, California State University, Hayward.
         “Human Origins and Human Education: Communicating Palaeoanthropology to
          Students and the Public”

Rebecca Cann
, Anthropologist and human geneticist, University of Hawaii, Manoa.
        “DNA and Divergence: The Molecular Evidence for Human Origins”

Craig Benjamin - Assistant Professor of History Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids MI
        “The Convergence of Logic Faith and Values in the Modern Creation Myth”

Jane Bramadat - Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Victoria,  Canada
        "Cultural and Religious Evolution in Particular"

 Cynthia Brown - Professor of History Dominican University of California San Rafael
        “Accounts of the Whole Story Since 1990: A Look at the Genre”

Joseph Bulbulia - Professor of Religious Studies Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand
        "Where Insight Lies: Evolution, Self-Deception, and the Prospects for Wisdom"

Josephina Burgos - California Institute for Integral Studies
        "The Role of Imagination in the Process of Evolution"

Carlos Camargo - Emeritus Clinical Professor Of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
       
" Fire and Civilization"

Fernando Castrillon
- California Institute for Integral Studies
        "Digital Teleologies, Imperial Threshold Machinic Assemblages and the Colonization of the Cosmos: A Post- 
         Structuralist Interpretation of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey"

David Christian - Professor of History California State University, San Diego
        "History Complexity and the Chronometric Revolution"

Chris
Corbally -  Astronomy, Vice Director- Vatican Observatory, Tucson AZ
       “An Astronomer’s Faith within an Evolutionary Cosmos”

Dwight
Collins - Pres., Collins Family Foundation; Prof., Sustainable Ops Mngnt, Presidio School of Mngnt,
         "The Epic, Sustainability, and the Future"

Richard Coren - Emeritus Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering Drexel University of Pennsylvania
       “The Law of Entropy and Information in Evolution”

Henry Corning, Artist and sculptor, Corte Madera, California.
         “Symbols in Stone, Bone, and Clay: The Beginnings of Art”

Drew
Delinger - John F. Kennedy University – Social Ecology
             “The Poetic Cosmos”           


Robert Duisberg -
UIEvolution - Senior Research Engingeer
       "Toward an Information Morality: Imperatives Derived from a Statistical Mechanics of Meaning

Todd Duncan - Pacific University
       "Our Cosmic Context"

Jerome Feldman - Professor of Art History, Hawaii Pacific University
        "Conversations in Heaven: Council houses and Oratory in Nias, Indonesia and Samoa".

Cheryl Genet - Professor of Philosophy, Cuesta College; Director, Orion Institute
        “Science and the Human Spirit”

Russell Genet - Professor of Astronomy and Cosmic Evolution Cuesta College; Director, Orion Observatory
San Luis Obispo, CA
        “Humanity: The Chimpanzees Who Would Be Ants”

Linda Gibler
- Dominican Sister, California Institute for Integral Studies graduate
        "Listening to the Voice of the Earth: A Catholic Perspective"

Marc Gilbert
- National Endowment for the Humanities Endowed Chair/World History, Hawaii Pacific University
       “The Devolution of Revolution: The Shrinking World of Human Political Change”

Paul Harris Prof. of English - Loyola Marymount University; President, Int. Society for the Study of Time
            "Cosmic Epics and Global Ethics: Evolution, Complexity and Cooperation”


Louis Herman -
Professor of Politics, University of Hawaii
            "Future Primal: An Old-New Politics for Evolving Humanity"

Peter Hess - Faith Project Director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)
           "Theological Problems and Promises of an Evolutionary Paradigm"

John Irwin - Stanford Linear Accelerator Collider
       "Following the Energy and Entropy"

Jeff Jenkins - California Institute for Integral Studies
       "Alchemical Ritual Evocation of the Epic of Evolution in our Cellular and Psychic Memory"

Bruce Latimer
- Human paleontologist, Director, Cleveland Museum of Natural History.   
       “Upstanding Apes: The Rise of Bipedalism and the Hominid Lineage”

Pauline Le Bel - Screenwriter, novelist, songwriter, and playwright
      
"“Bringing the Universe Story Home”

Rod Mann
- Managing Director, CMP Group, Inc.
       "Entheogenesis: Awakening the Divine Within

John Mears
 - Associate Professor of History Southern Methodist University
       “Implications of the Evolutionary Epic for our Understanding of Human History”

Gregory Mengel - California Institute for Integral Studies
       "The Future is and is not the Past: The Ecology of Meaning in an Expanding Universe"

Jacquelyn Miller - Associate Provost of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, Seattle University
       Presenting in Big History Special Focus Session


Gary Moring
- California Institute of Integral Studies
       "Quantum Psychology-Bridging Science and Spirit"

Winslow Myers - Retired Instructor - Bancroft School, Assumption College / Rhode Island School of Design
       "Already Living: An Artist's Perspective on the Evolution of the Human"

Jack Palmer and Linda Palmer - Jack - Professor of Psychology, University of Louisiana at Monroe; Linda – psychology researcher and writer/editor, Jiva Institute
       “Transcending Cultural Indoctrination: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff”
 
 
Sheri Ritchlin
 - California Institute for Integral Studies
      
"Eastern Sages and the Western Epic: Viewing Cosmos with Both Hemispheres of the Global Brain"

Stephen Sass
 - Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Cornell University
       "The Substance of Civilization: Materials and Human History from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon"

Kathy Schick and Nick Toth 
- Profs. of Anthropology / Cognitive Science / Indiana University; Co-Drctrs, Stone Age Institute
       "Techno-organic Evolution: Human Origins Technological Innovation and our Biological-Behavioral Synergy"

Trileigh Tucker -
Associate Professor and Director, Environmental Studies at Seattle University
        "Contemplatio Ad Amorem Naturae: Contemplative Practice in Ecozoic Education

Paul Wason, Archaeologist, the John Templeton Foundation.
         “The Postglacial World: The Rise of Farming and Civilization ”

John Wilkinson
-  Liberal Studies Instructor - Art Institute of California (AICA), San Francisco
       "Beyond Machines: Metaphor in Biology"

Alan Wood - Professor of History, University of Washington Bothell
       "Global Systems History"

 

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Participant's Bios are presented here in alphabetical order.

  Name   Biography Other Information
     
Nancy Abrams
Lawyer, writer, and former Fulbright scholar

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Nancy Ellen Abrams is a lawyer, writer, and former Fulbright scholar, with a long-term interest in the history, philosophy, and politics of science. While working on the staff of the U.S. Congress, she co-created a novel method by which government agencies can make wise policy decisions in cases involving scientific uncertainty, and she has consulted on this for the Swedish government, several state governments, and various corporations. Her articles have appeared in journals, magazines, and books. She has also released three albums of her songs and performed in eighteen countries.

Primack and Abrams are co-authors of The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos (Penguin/Riverhead 2006). See viewfromthecenter.com For a decade, Primack and Abrams have been co-teaching a course at the University of California Santa Cruz called "Cosmology and Culture" from which their book developed. They are married and have a daughter, Samara Bay (samarasworld.com).
http://viewfromthecenter.com/
mediakit/index.html
Craig Benjamin
Assistant Professor of History at Grand Valley State University in West Michigan


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Prior to taking up an academic career, Craig was a professional musician and jazz educator for 25 years in Australia. After enrolling at Macquarie University in Sydney in the early-1990s to pursue a degree in ancient history, Craig was fortunate enough to become associated with leading ‘big’ historians David Christian and Marnie Hughes-Warrington. He subsequently worked for five years as a teaching assistant for both David and Marnie, teaching big history to thousands of young Australians. Upon gaining his PhD in 2003, Craig and his wife Pamela moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. At Grand Valley State Craig teaches big history, world history, ancient Eurasian history and historiography to students at all levels, from first years to graduates. He is the author of fifteen published chapters and essays on ancient Central Asian nomads and world history historiography, and co-editor (with David Christian and Sam Lieu) of three volumes in the Brepols Silk Roads Studies Series. In 2007 his book ‘The Yuezhi: Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria’ was published by Brepols, as volume XIV in their Silk Roads Studies series. He is currently working on a big history ‘text book’ with David Christian and Cynthia Stokes Brown. Craig is passionate about big history, which he has now been teaching professionally for ten years. Full  CV
Cynthia Brown
Professor Emerita (History) at Domincan University of Californial
Cynthia Stokes Brown is professor emerita at Dominican University of California. She has written history and biography, including the American Book Award-winning Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement, Connecting with the Past, and Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights. With the publication in 2007 of Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present, her focus is now on encouraging the teaching of big history. She is currently teamed up with Craig Benjamin and David Christian to write to the first college textbook in big history, which McGraw-Hill will publish about 2011. She lives in Berkeley, California.  
Josefina Burgos
M.A. degree in Philosophy and Religion
Ph.D. candidate at CIIS

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Born in Santiago, Chile, Josefina Burgos came to reside in the U.S.A. in 1976 with her son and husband. She lived in Washington, D.C., where she approved the Architectural Registration Exam (ARE), became a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and practiced architecture for sixteen years. She became an American citizen in 1986. She then moved to San Francisco, California, where she joined the California Institute of Integral Studies. There she obtained a master of arts degree in philosophy and religion. Burgos is currently completing the dissertation phase of her doctoral studies. In 2003 she published a short story, Thoughts on a Theme by a Seagull, in the Newsletter of the Center for Process Studies (CPS) in Claremont, CA, Process Perspectives, Vol. 26, Number 1, Winter 2002-2003. That same year another of her stories, Adelaide, was accepted by Process Perspectives and made available as a paper to the membership of the CPS.  In 2006 she was selected to give a presentation – Meaning in a Post-Modern Universe -- at the 10th Annual Conference, Exploring the Boundaries of Experience and Self, organized by the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology (CEP) Section of the British Psychological Society, at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, UK .  
Carlos Camargo
Faculty, Stanford Medical School (since 1967)

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Dr. Carlos Camargo was born in Colombia, South America, and received his medical degree from the National University in Bogota. He trained in Internal Medicine at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and in Endocrinology at Stanford University. He is the Director of the Medical History course and is a three time recipient of the Kaiser award for Excellence in Teaching. He has been the Director of the Endocrine Clinic at Stanford and has done research on adrenal steroids and pituitary diseases. He is interested in the connection of Medicine and other aspects of culture and has given courses on the interaction of Medicine with Art, Religion and Magic throughout history. Dr. Camargo speaks fluently Spanish, French and Italian and has lectured in numerous occasions for Stanford Alumni travel-study trips in Mediterranean countries. His son is a young faculty member at Harvard Medical School and his daughter is an artist in Japan.  
Fernando Castrillon
Adjunct Faculty: Interdisciplinary Studies Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)

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Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D., earned a masters in sociology from the University of California and a doctorate in clinical psychology from CIIS and is a licensed clinical psychologist (CA PSY 24815). He serves as core faculty in the Community Mental Health Department at CIIS and is the founder and former director of CIIS' The Clinic Without Walls. Dr. Castrillon is also a candidate analyst at the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in Berkeley, Calif., and is on the editorial boards of the journals Ecopsychology and Universitas Psychologicas, among others.
His clinical, teaching, and research interests include the production of subjectivity (both human and more-than-human), psychoanalysis, community mental health, ecopsychology, poststructuralist social/cultural theory, schizoanalysis, liberatory politics, cosmology, entheogens, the impact of hypervelocity technological change on human psychology and intersubjectivity, the intersection of critical social theory and psychology, contemporary approaches to the treatment of psychosis, xenopsychology, violent political movements, war, terrorism, and revolution. He recently coedited, with Doug Vakoch, a special double issue of ReVision, entitled "Ecopsychology."  Dr. Castrillon maintains a private practice in the East Bay and in San Francisco.
www.drcastrillon.com
His dissertation, entitled "Digitizing the Psyche: Human/Nature in the Age of Intelligent Machines," examines the psychological and intersubjective consequences of the hyper-digitization of contemporary Western culture. He is currently coediting, with Doug Vakoch, an ecopsychology anthology titled "Ecologies of the Psyche: Transdisciplinary Migrations of Critical Ecopsychology".

 

David Christian
San Diego State University, Professor of
Big History, World Environmental History, Russian History, and the History of Inner Eurasia

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David Christian was born in New York, and grew up in Nigeria and Britain. He completed an undergraduate degree in History at Oxford University. He took an MA in Russian history at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), and a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford on 19th century Russian history. As a graduate he spent a year in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during the Brezhnev era. From 1975-2000, he taught Russian history, European history and world history at Macquarie University in Sydney. He has written on the social and material history of the 19th century Russian peasantry. He has also written a history of modern Russia, and a synoptic history of Inner Eurasia (Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia), from prehistory up to the time of the Mongol Empire. (He is currently writing a second volume of that history). David is a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. He is on the Executive of the World History Association, and was one of the editors of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History. He also participated in the creation of the world history website, World History for Us All. Recent Publications

David Christian and the History of Big History.

Dwight Collins
Professor of Sustainable Operations Management at the  Presidio School of Management. President of Colbridge & Company and the Collins Family Foundation.

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Dwight Collins, Ph.D. teaches Sustainable Operations Management at the San Francisco based Presidio School of Management. He is the founder and president of Colbridge & Company. Previously, Dwight directed Aspen Technology’s Strategic Planning Practice, which provided strategic planning optimization consulting services to senior executives. Dwight founded a Semiconductor Industry Practice at Chesapeake Decision Sciences through which he was instrumental in devising strategic enterprise planning and customer order promising systems for several semiconductor companies. In this time frame, Dwight also implemented supply chain optimization capabilities for Shaw Industries, the largest carpet producer in the US, and chemical company Rohm & Haas.  Earlier in his career, Dwight worked as a Senior Operations Analyst at Exxon Corporation, a Senior Consultant at the Logistics Management Institute (LMI) (a Washington, D.C. think tank), and as Captain in the US Air Force. Dr. Collins earned a BS degree in Engineering Physics, and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Operations Research, all from Cornell University.

Collins Family Foundation
www.collinsff.org

Presidio School of Management
www.presidiomba.org

olbridge and Company
www.colbridgeandco.com
 

Christopher Corbally
Vice Director
of the Vatican Observatory

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Father Christopher J. Corbally, S.J. oversees the Vatican Observatory's research group in Tucson, while maintaining contact and occasional visits to the Observatory's headquarters at Castel Gandolfo, Italy.  He is an Adjunct Associate Astronomer at the Department of Astronomy, University of
Arizona.  He is also a past president of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, which holds a meeting to reflect on science and religion once a year on a "small but beautiful" island off Portsmouth, NH. This society has been reflecting on science and values since 1954 and is a co-publisher of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science.
http://vaticanobservatory.org
 
Richard Coren
Emeritus Professor of Engineering from Drexel University

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Richard L. Coren received the Ph.D. in Physics from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. After several years in industry he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dep’t. at Drexel University. He has over seventy publications, dealing primarily with ferromagnetic materials, electromagnetic analysis, and non-traditional education. He has received many awards and honors and is listed in several “Who's Who” and technology and Science publications. For the past 10 years his research interests have changed to mathematical analysis of evolution and the history of science.
He is the author of three books:
"Basic Engineering Electromagnetics" (Prentice Hall - 1989),
“The Evolutionary Trajectory: The Growth of Information in the History and Future of Earth” (Gordon and Breach publishers - 1998)
“God and Science Among the Infinities” (BookSurge LLC - 2006)
 
Todd Duncan
Assistant Professor of Physics, Pacific University
Ph.D. in astrophysics, University of Chicago (1997)

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Todd is a cosmologist in the broad sense of the term. His work is guided by the theme of looking for meaning in the modern scientific universe. Science has uncovered remarkable insights that have profound implications for our perspective on who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. But it can be difficult to translate this knowledge into a form that concretely helps us see ourselves as part of the cosmos. In fact, the scientific picture of the universe can be alienating, presenting a challenge to our ability to find a true home for ourselves within the model of the universe it describes. Todd’s work focuses on developing ways for people to see a place for themselves within the context of our scientific understanding of the universe. Teaching and research form two complementary and equally important aspects of this "science integration" effort, which is articulated in the Science Integration Institute (link to http://www.scienceintegration.org) he helped create. He is coauthor of the general education text “Your Cosmic Context: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology” (Addison-Wesley, available January 2008).
 

Faculty web page (link to http://www.pacificu.edu/
as/physics/faculty/
Todd_Duncan.cfm)

 

Jerome Feldman
Art Historian and Professor of Art History, Hawaii Pacific University

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Jerome Feldman is an art historian specialized in the arts of Tribal Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. He received his Ph.D. in tribal art history from Columbia University and has conducted field studies in remote islands of Indonesia, and Polynesia. He has studied museum collections in Europe, Asia and America and has aided in several exhibitions including Ban Chiang Archeological Exhibition at Hawai`i Loa College, The Eloquent Dead at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Nias Tribal Treasures at the Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara in Delft, and Beyond the Java Sea, a Smithsonian sponsored traveling exhibition. In 2004 he was the Slade Visiting Professor at Cambridge University. He has written books and articles and lectured extensively on Tribal Southeast Asian, Micronesian and Polynesian art and architecture.  
Cheryl Genet
Professor of Philosophy at Cuesta College and Director of the Orion Institute

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Cheryl Linda Genet earned her doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Science and Theology. As director of the Orion Institute’s Science and Human Meaning program, she focuses her research on scientific paradigms, cosmological stories, interfaith relations, and understanding our emerging global community. She taught at Central Arizona College and more recently at California Polytechnic State University Osher Institute for Life-Long Learning.  Currently she teaches philosophy at Cuesta College, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Collins Foundation Press. www.OrionInstitute.org
Russ Genet
Research Scholar in Residence at California Polytechnic State University, Professor of Astronomy at Cuesta College, and Director of the Orion Observatory

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Russell Merle Genet, PhD, is the author of a dozen books and over one hundred scientific papers. He observes eclipsing binary stars and studies cosmic evolution. Russ, who pioneered the world’s first fully robotic observatory (featured in the PBS special The Perfect Stargazer), was the 51st President of the Astronomical Society of the PacificHis latest book, Humanity: The Chimpanzees Who Would Be Ants, tells the evolutionary story of how we came to be, drawn from the best science of our time, and suggests possible future scenarios. www.OrionObservatory.org
Linda Gibler
MA and PhD in Philosophy and Religion with an emphasis in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, CIIS.
Masters of Arts in Pastoral Studies at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, MO

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Overwhelmed by the first Hubble Deep Field picture, Linda, a Dominican Sister of Houston, became enchanted with the magnificence of the Universe and intrigued by the image’s significance for a Catholic understanding of God.
In 1999, she began formal study of cosmology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Before her cosmic epiphany, Linda was the director of social ministry for a parish in Houston where she coordinated direct services, social outreach, and social justice programs. She has also served on a hospital medical ethics board and worked for a Texas agency to insure health care for indigent women.
 
Paul Harris
Professor of English
Loyola Marymount University

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Paul Harris received his B.A. in English from McGill University in 1984 and his Ph.D. in English and Critical Theory from University of California, Irvine, in 1991. He has taught at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles since 1992. His areas of interest include the interdisciplinary study of time, literature and science, and aesthetic approaches to spirituality. He has served as President of the International Society for the Study of Time since 2004, and is Co-Editor of the journal SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism. He is Founding Director of the SynThink Forum at Loyola Marymount, through which he teaches interdisciplinary courses and holds conferences on themes such as Nothing, Chaos, Time, Fakes and Forgeries, and Wisdom Literature. He is currently completing a manuscript entitled Bergson in the Shadows of Science/Science in Light of Bergson, and beginning work on a book on Cosmology, Art and Ethics. He is also writing a series of essays on what he terms "Outsider Spirituality."
Website: http://myweb.lmu.edu/pharris/index.htm
http://myweb.lmu.edu/
pharris/index.htm
Peter Hess
Faith Project Director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California.

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Dr. Peter M. J. Hess - His position as Faith Project Director involves outreach to churches and other faith communities to promote the compatibility of evolutionary biology and religious belief. Peter earned his M.A. in philosophy and theology from Oxford University, and his Ph.D. in ecclesiastical history from the Graduate Theological Union. His scholarly work focuses on the interactions between science and religion in the modern world, particularly the impact of theology on the Scientific Revolution (1600-1900) and the response by theologians to discoveries and new paradigms in the developing sciences. His book on Catholicism and Science, co-authored with Paul Allen of Concordia University, will appear in April, 2008 (Greenwood Press); he is also writing on the religious and ethical implications of the rapidly approaching end of affordable oil. Peter has taught theology, philosophy and history since 1980, and currently teaches in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California. A fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR), he is also an active member of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT), the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), and the Metanexus Institute of Philadelphia. An avid rock climber and volcano mountaineer, Peter and his wife Viviane have two sons, Michael and Robert. Theology Issues
 
Louis Herman
Professor of Politics
University of Hawaii
West Oahu Campus

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Professor Herman is a political philosopher and head of the political science program at the University of Hawai`i-West O`ahu. He was born and raised in South Africa, educated at Cambridge, England (medicine and the history and philosophy of science), and was initiated into utopian politics through involvement with the Israeli Kibbutz movement. He came to Hawaii to get some philosophical distance from his origins and complete a PhD in politics. He now returns regularly to his birthplace in South Africa for his work as executive producer with an international team on a feature length documentary film Primal Quest, dealing with the convergence between the ancient shamanic wisdom of the San Bushman, the hunter gatherers of the Kalahari, and the latest scientific insights from evolutionary cosmology. His book manuscript, Future Primal: A Politics Beyond Modernity provides the background research and vision for the film. He has also authored articles and papers on related themes. Primal Quest website

http://socrates.uhwo.hawaii.edu/
SocialSci/louisher/LHerman-Quest.html

Pauline Le Bel
Screenwriter, novelist, songwriter, and playwright

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Pauline Le Bel has been a fulltime artist for over 30 years – an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, award-winning novelist, songwriter, playwright, voice teacher, festival organizer and “evolutionary troubadour”. She is an experienced actor/singer who has worked professionally in theatre, film and radio. She was called "a musical instrument linked to a soul" for her dramatic portrayal of chanteuse, Edith Piaf, in a play she co-wrote. Her published/produced writing credits include: a novel, two screenplays (The Song Spinner, a family movie for Showtime), 4 musicals, a radio drama, songs for films, 3 CDs of her own songs, and articles for various publications. Her powerful, earthy voice has been heard in theatres and concert halls across Canada, in the U.S. and the U.K. and her poetic, musical interpretation of the universe story has delighted international audiences. For three years, she was Artistic Director of Voices in the Sound, an arts and nature festival she created and organized, and is the author of a cosmological musical about her home, Bowen Island, Canada. She is part of a growing community working to integrate art, nature, science and spirit to support a radical transformation in human consciousness. www.suncoastarts.com/paulinelebel.html  www.suncoastarts.com/
paulinelebel.html 
Winslow Myers
Artist and Studio and Art History Instructor (Retired)

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Winslow Myers was born in New York City in 1941 and grew up on the Maine coast. He studied painting with Walter Murch and James Brooks, and was awarded a Max Beckmann Fellowship at the Brooklyn Museum. For forty years he taught studio art and art history at various institutions, including Exeter Academy, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and Assumption College. In 2000 a thirty year retrospective of his paintings and drawings was shown at the Round Top Center for the Arts in Maine. His work is in various private and institutional collections. He shows his paintings at Clarke Galleries, 39 East 72nd St., NYC, Gallery 170, Damariscotta, Maine,
and on his website, www.winslowmyers.com  .
www.winslowmyers.com
Jack Palmer
Professor of psychology at the University of Louisiana at Monroe

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Jack A. Palmer, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where he has taught since 1989. Jack and his wife Linda coauthored a text human evolution, Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior, published by Allyn & Bacon in 2002. Jack primarily teaches Neuropsychology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Positive Psychology. His evolution courses and textbook take the larger “Evolutionary Epic” perspective, which is somewhat rare in psychological science. Jack’s current research focuses on investigations of the effect of rearing experiences (ontogeny) on adult psychological traits; and the neurological substrates of moral reasoning. He has been named “Researcher of the Year” and “Professor of the Year” by his dept. The Palmers are long-time practitioners of the meditative discipline Sant Mat. Their daughter works in television and film production on the West Coast, and their son (now deceased) was a computer programmer and graphic designer.
Vita and narrative bio:
About our book, Evolutionary Psychology:
Jiva Institute:
Sant Mat:

 

Linda Palmer
M.S. in Experimental Psychology

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Linda K. Palmer, M.S. is co-author (with Dr. Jack A. Palmer) of Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior. Early in life, Linda made her living as an artist. Later she worked as manager of the Survey Research Institute, University of Georgia, and editor-in-chief of Edition Naam publishing. She has served on numerous non-profit boards, taught psychology at Louisiana universities, and was a therapist in private practice. In 1998, Linda left academia and spent seven years in spiritual centers, studying full-time with renowned mystic, Thakar Singh. She produced over a dozen books from his discourses, including his last work, Live the Life of Soul. Linda currently conducts psychological research with Jack, serves as editor for Jiva Institute, and does freelance editing and writing. Linda and Jack have a daughter who works in television and film production; their son (now deceased) was a computer programmer/graphic designer.  
Joel Primack
Professor of Physics at the University of California Santa Cruz

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Joel R. Primack, a professor of physics at the University of California Santa Cruz, has done foundational research in cosmology. He and his team use some of the world's biggest supercomputers to simulate the evolution of the universe, and they compare the results with observational data. He has recently chaired the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physical Society, as well as the Committee on Science, Ethics, and Religion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a coauthor of Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena.

Primack and Abrams are co-authors of The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos (Penguin/Riverhead 2006). See viewfromthecenter.com For a decade, Primack and Abrams have been co-teaching a course at the University of California Santa Cruz called "Cosmology and Culture" from which their book developed. They are married and have a daughter, Samara Bay (samarasworld.com).

http://viewfromthecenter.com/
mediakit/index.html
Sheri Ritchlin
Ph.D. - California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)

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Sheri Ritchlin's  dissertation—The Return of the Sage: A New Cosmology Meets the Way of Heaven and Earth in the I Ching—was written under the guidance of Yi Wu, Brian Swimme and Richard Tarnas. She is the author of One-ing and Dream to Waken as well as articles for the Institute of Noetic Sciences Review (Shift), and Parabola Magazine, including an article in the forthcoming Spring 2008 issue. She is currently at work on Fields of Light: The 2012 Venus Transit of the Sun. Writings, lectures and dream workshops  www.SheriRitchlin.com
Stephan Sass
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell

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Stephen L. Sass, , joined the Cornell faculty in 1967. Received his B.Ch.E. from the City College of New York in 1961 and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from Northwestern University in 1966. Fulbright Scholar at the Technische Hogeschool, Delft, The Netherland, 1966-67. Fellow of the American Physical Society and ASM International. In 2001, named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, a university-wide honor recognizing “effective, inspiring and distinguished teaching of undergraduate students”. His research interests include the structure and properties of internal interfaces in solids and the development of methods for the fabrication of periodic surface structures with spacings on the nanometer-length scale. Has more than 180 technical papers and 3 patents. In 1998 published The Substance of Civilization: Materials and Human History from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon, which was written to make science and technology accessible to non-scientists, by putting them into an historical and human context.  
Brian Swimme
Ph.D., Mathematical Cosmology,
(Gravitational Dynamics)
University of Oregon, 1978 • Evolutionary cosmology, science and spirituality, the role of humanity in the unfolding story of Earth.

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Brian Swimme's research focuses on the evolutionary dynamics of the universe, the relationship between scientific cosmology and more traditional religious visions, the cultural implications of the new evolutionary epic, and the role of humanity in the unfolding story of Earth and cosmos. In 1998 he founded the international Epic of Evolution Society, a forum for artists, scientists, ecofeminists, ecologists, religious thinkers and educators interested in the new story. He is the author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (Orbis, 1996), Manifesto for a Global Civilization (with Matthew Fox) (Bear and Company, 1983), The Universe is a Green Dragon (Bear and Company, 1984) and The Universe Story (Harper, 1992) which is a culmination of a ten-year collaboration with cultural historian Thomas Berry. Brian's media work includes the video series, Canticle to the Cosmos and The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos.  
Alan T. Wood
History, University of Washington Bothell

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Alan Wood is currently a professor of history at the University of Washington Bothell, where he was a founding faculty of the new campus in 1990.  He served there as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1995-1999, and as Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Washington Tacoma from 2006-2007.  His academic field is Chinese history, and for the last ten years he has published in the area of world history.  He is working on a world history for a general audience, tentatively entitled One World: A Biography of Humankind.  His other books include Limits to Autocracy, World Civilizations (a co-authored textbook), What Does It Mean to be Human?, and Asian Democracy in World History.