Charlotte María Sáenz
Associate Professor
Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies
School of Undergraduate Studies
MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
EdM, Harvard University
Charlotte María Sáenz has worked globally over the past 25 years across various educational settings: K-12 schools, universities, refugee camps, autonomous zones, and traveling programs to challenge dominant narratives, expand awareness and collective knowledge, while connecting people to support greater socioecological health.
In her native Mexico, her current research studies how the Zapatista movement engages global civil society in an integrated ethical-political educational process she calls Seed Pedagogics. Previous collaborations with Universidad de la Tierra, Oaxaca as well as Universidad de la Tierra, Chiapas brought various student and faculty groups to the Indigenous Center for Integral Learning (CIDECI). She was Ecology faculty for World Learning's program engaging diverse indigenous knowledges from around the world. She lived and worked for several years in Lebanon with Palestinian refugees through Al-Jana, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts, and was Artist-in-Residence at Brummana High School.
In the United States, she co-directed Chicago’s Street-Level Youth Media and served on the board of the Women in the Director's Chair, which for 25 years held the largest and longest-running women, girls, queer, and transgender film festival. In San Francisco, she teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies since 2007. Currently, she is part of local efforts to rematriate land back to indigenous communities through the Deep Medicine Circle, working to heal the wounds of colonialism through food, medicine, story and learning.
Her forthcoming doctorate in Sciences of Ecology is from ECOSUR: Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Chiapas, Mexico. She also studied a MFA in experimental film and new media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an Ed.M. in International Education for Social and Political Change from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
- Arab Resource Center for Popular Art, http://al-jana.org/
- Art Forces, http://artforces.org/
- Asian Art Museum's "Medieval Japan" series:
- The Way of Tea, http://education.asianart.org/explore-resources/video/medieval-japan-way-tea-teacher-
- Symbols of Protection and Strength, webinarhttp://education.asianart.org/explore-resources/video/medieval-japan-symbols-protection-and-strength-webinar
- Art of Storytelling, http://education.asianart.org/explore-resources/video/medieval-japan-art-storytelling-teacher-webinar
- Brummana High School, http://bhs.edu.lb/
- Centro Nacional de las Artes, http://www.cenart.gob.mx/
- CIDECI-Universidad de la Tierra, (Indigenous Center for Integral Learning)
- LAPES, Latin American Philosophy of Education Society, http://lapes.org/
- Other Worlds, http://otherworldsarepossible.org/
- Pathogeographies, http://pathogeographies.net/
- Street-Level Youth Media, http://www.street-level.org/
- Women’s International Information Project, http://www.beyondmedia.org/press/view/never_the_same_interviews_salome_chasnoff
- World Learning, http://www.worldlearning.org/
- World Savvy, http://www.worldsavvy.org/
