Faculty Excellence Abounds in 2023

Spanning subject matter from philosophy to neuroscience to religious history, CIIS professors are pushing the boundaries of knowledge forward with their research. Check out the books, scholarly articles, art exhibits, and poetic achievements below!

Books by CIIS Professors

Prof. Debashish Banerji and Prof. Emeritus Robert McDermott recently co-edited Philo-Sophia: Wisdom Goddess Traditions, a collection of essays by scholars and practitioners revealing the Goddess of Wisdom in her myriad forms.

Prof. Jason Butler co-edited Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing, a ground-breaking, evidence-based collection that explores how psychedelic medicine can be incorporated into psychotherapy.

Prof. Jeanine Canty released Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet, which explores how cultural narcissism can be repaired via ecopsychological insight.

Prof. Alfonso Montuori, co-editing with Acadia University professor and CIIS alumna Gabrielle Donnelly, has developed a collection of essays that reimagine futures beyond dystopia or utopia. The Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures also features Professor Jeanine Canty and Associate Professor Nick Walker, who contribute insights that thread the needle between despair and naivety to map out realistic optimism for all (more details below!).

Prof. Matt Segall will soon publish Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead, a philosophical experiment in thinking, feeling, and willing beyond the transcendental threshold of Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy.

Prof. Brian Thomas Swimme recently published Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe, a fresh look at how science and spirituality have influenced contemporary consciousness.

Articles by CIIS Professors

Prof. Elizabeth Allison has placed “Collective responsibility and environmental caretaking: Toward an ecological care ethic with evidence from Bhutan” in Ecology & Society. She examines Bhutan’s successful response to Covid-19, and how Bhutanese Buddhist values and practices provide an example of mutual care and flourishing.

Prof. Jeanine Canty has contributed the chapter “Inhabiting Brilliance: wrestling the gifts of Narcissism” to the Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures.

The European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, which publishes collectively to reflect the mode of knowledge construction, and which was formed at CIIS, has published “Role Play to Practice Skills and Expand Consciousness” in the forthcoming Methods for Facilitating Adult Learning: Strategies for Enhancing Instruction and Instructor Effectiveness. The collective is comprised of Carole Barlas, Elizabeth Kasl, Alec MacLeod, Doug Paxton, Penny Rosenwasser and Linda Sartor.

Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (ESR) alum and adjunct Prof. Dr. Chantal Noa Forbes just published an article in Dialogue and Universalism entitled, “Environmental Philosophy as World Philosophy”.

Prof. Meg Jordan has published the timely and essential "The power of connection: Self-care strategies of social wellbeing" in The Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, where she discusses how social contact improves health outcomes.

In addition to his book, Prof. Alfonso Montuori has been very busy writing the following list of articles and chapters:

• Introduction for the Handbook of Transdisciplinarity: Global perspectives. 
• Introduzione [Introduction] for Razzismi [Racisms].
• Introduction for The Challenge of Complexity: Essays by Edgar Morin.
• “Integrative Transdisciplinarity: Explorations and Experiments in Creative Scholarship,” in Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science.
• With Gabrielle Donnelly, “Engaging creative tensions in activist and social movement spaces,” in Creative Activism Research, Pedagogy and Practice.
• “Complexity,” in the Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible.
• “Ne gioco dell’arte e della vita,” in Cento Edgar Morin [Hundred Edgar Morin].
• “Interdependence is the key: Mary Catherine Bateson and the myth of individualism,” in Cybernetics and Human Knowing.

The prolific Prof. Willow Pearson Trimbach has published the following chapters and articles:

• “Welcoming dreams” in Dreaming the Undreamable Object in the Work of Michael Eigen: Becoming the Welcoming Object (forthcoming).
• “On the way to the altar: An illustration of transpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy” in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies(forthcoming).
• “Integral relational practice of dreaming the caesura,” an article in two parts (Part 1: Opening further through the spiritual psyche, and Part 2: Dreaming Charlotte Small Thompson) in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche.
• “Windows of faith: Collective resistance and creative process in mourning the disappearances in Kashmir,” also in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche.
• Along with Shifa Haq, "Dreaming, mourning, transformation, and truth: Shifa Haq and Willow Pearson Trimbach in conversation” in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche.

Prof. Rachael Vaughan has published “The World of Wetiko: An Investigation” in Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy. This paper explores the Algonquin concept of wetiko, or windigo—a ruthless cannibal spirit—to explain the state of America today.

Prof. Nick Walker has also contributed to the Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures with “The Use of Transformative Somatic Practices in Processes of Collective Imagination and Collaborative Future-Shaping.”

Prof. Chris Walling, along with his co-authors, has published “Association of childhood maltreatment with adult body awareness and autonomic reactivity: The moderating effect of practicing body psychotherapy” in Psychotherapy. They compare body psychotherapists to the general population exploring the effects of practicing body psychotherapy (BPT) on the link between early maltreatment and autonomic reactivity in adulthood.

Prof. Annette Williams has written the searingly vulnerable “Deconstruction and Reclamation: A Black Woman’s Healing Journey,” part of Spiritual Healing from Sexual Violence: An Intersectional Guide. She examines concomitant contributors to sexual abuse of the Black female child and incorporates elements of her personal journey and process of reclamation.

Art by CIIS Professors

Prof. Jeanine Canty, uniting her scholarly expertise with artistic sensitivity, has published “An unexpected joy” in Dawn Songs, an anthology about the poetics of migration released by Talking Waters Press. 

Prof. Alec MacLeod has been included in several juried shows recently. See and learn more about his extensive and explosively creative body of work, all of which is rooted in social justice.

Prof. Willow Pearson Trimbach plaits together music and mental health as a music therapist, and is an accomplished musician with seven albums and counting. Her work is available to explore here.