In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent Anishinaabe legal theorist John Borrows and philosopher Paco Calvo about how we might learn about, learn with, and learn from our plant companions on this earth. Plants show signs of communication and of learning. They produce and respond to many of the same neurochemicals as humans, including anesthetics. They share resources with one another, and when under threat, emit signals of warning and of pain. While Barrows and Calvo both urge us to listen to the Earth, during this conversation we discover that these two thinkers are often listening for different things. The discussion reveals fascinating points of difference and commonality. And in terms of the latter, the point both John and Paco insist upon is that we maintain our separation from other beings at our peril and at a loss.Dr. John Borrows, BA, MA, JD, LLM, PhD, LLD, FRSC, is Canada's pre-eminent legal scholar and a global leader in the field of Indigenous legal traditions and Aboriginal rights. John holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria as well as the Law Foundation Chair in Aboriginal Justice and Governance.Paco Calvo is a renowned cognitive scientist and philosopher of biology, known for his groundbreaking research in the field of plant cognition and intelligence. He is a professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. Calvo’s interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving.https://www.uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/borrows.phphttps://www.um.es/mintlab/index.php/about/people/paco-calvo/(01:37) Exploring Plant Intelligence(07:26) The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Understanding Intelligence(50:00) The Ethical Obligations to the More Than Human World(01:17:39) The Co-Evolutionary Perspective of Lifewww.palumbo-liu.com https://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20
Latest Creative Process Interview. To listen to more from our current season, visit tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This feed contains Seasons 1 & 2 of The Creative Process that are not archived in our main channel due to the platform’s 300 episode limit.Martin Von Hildebrand has dedicated the last five decades strengthening indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time he obtained the recognition of their rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rain forest, their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many of their governments.Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).He is an ethnologist, with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder, and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards, such as The Right Livelihood Award, the Talberg Award, The Golden Arc award, the Special Irish presidential Award for Irish Abroad, and the Colombian National Environmental Award.Gaia Amazonas Foundation · gaiaamazonas.orgAlianza Noramazónica website.· alianzanoramazonica.orgRAISG website· amazoniasocioambiental.org/es/Why is the Amazonia important?/¿Porque la Amazonia es tan importante?· youtube.com/watch?v=_mO1bf8iTMINetflix: "El Sendero de la Anaconda"Flying rivers/Los rios voladores en la Amazonia. El Corredor Andes Amazonas Atlantico· bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41038097#:~:text=Son%20%22r%C3%ADos%20voladores%22.,m%C3%A1s%20agua%20que%20el%20Amazonas· www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
“We become the stories we tell ourselves…I started writing around the time I learned English because we moved to the States soon after my fourth birthday, and so I was here for kindergarten into elementary school. I grasped this new language just as I was learning how to also put things onto the page. Those two things really happened at the same time for me. I entered this world where I felt very different and very other, for all intents and purposes I was set to be raised in Kuwait. And then that of course got turned upside down after the invasion by Saddam. I think that so much of my trying to make sense of the world had to do with the displacement, exile and these experiences that my parents had experienced but then that I had as well as we were fleeing the war. It’s hard to know because I think that language was being formed in my brain at the same time that these things were happening.”Hala Alyan is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonists’ City, and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, where she works as a clinical psychologist.· halaalyan.com · www.creativeprocess.info
Hala Alyan is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonists’ City, and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, where she works as a clinical psychologist.· halaalyan.com · www.creativeprocess.info
“We have a motto that says that ‘we want to change the gaze on immigration or to open the eyes on immigration’. We’re not here to make action in society, but we want people who come here to have elements of reflection, perception about the question of immigration. To change a mind, because immigration is about the stories of people who come from another country–they are someone else, basically–by assisting them we want to show how someone else can be great for us and not a stranger, foreigner, nor an enemy, but a friend. Someone who will bring us many things about culture, about work, about a way of meaning, of thinking. We have a historical point of view. We want to show that from the French Revolution until now, so two centuries of stories.”Sébastien Gokalp is the director of France’s National Museum of Immigration. He has managed projects at Centre Pompidou and musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and curated exhibitions of Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Robert Crumb, and others. He curates at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and teaches at the Ecole du Louvre. Recognizing that immigration is one of today’s most important issues, he sees his work as an opportunity to educate and combine his background in history and art. · www.histoire-immigration.fr · www.creativeprocess.info
Sébastien Gokalp is the director of France’s National Museum of Immigration. He has managed projects at Centre Pompidou and musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and curated exhibitions of Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Robert Crumb, and others. He curates at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and teaches at the Ecole du Louvre. Recognizing that immigration is one of today’s most important issues, he sees his work as an opportunity to educate and combine his background in history and art. · www.histoire-immigration.fr · www.creativeprocess.info© Photo : C.Cantais
“‘Architecture is frozen music.’…There is something about when you’re exploring not knowing exactly where it’s going to go or how it’s going to turn out which creates an element of surprise and an element of intrigue.”Michael Daugherty is one of the ten most performed living American composers. Recordings of his pieces Metropolis, Deus ex Machina and Tales of Hemmingway have earned him a total of 6 GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 and 2017. Daugherty has written music for orchestra, band, and chamber ensemble. He is currently a Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan.· michaeldaugherty.net · www.creativeprocess.info
Michael Daugherty is one of the ten most performed living American composers. Recordings of his pieces Metropolis, Deus ex Machina and Tales of Hemmingway have earned him a total of 6 GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 and 2017. Daugherty has written music for orchestra, band, and chamber ensemble. He is currently a Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan.· michaeldaugherty.net · www.creativeprocess.info
“What interested me about this particular experience is that I didn’t have the language to attach to it in the way I had the language to attach to a later experience that I would have no trouble calling rape, but happened to me and I call Mark in the book. I didn’t know what to call that for the longest time, so I didn’t know what to feel about it, and so as a writer that interests me. When I don’t have the words for something, when I sense that inevitably I’m going to fail.”Jeannie Vanasco is the author of two memoirs. Her latest, Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a TIME magazine Must-Read Book of the Year, and the 2020 winner of the Ohioana Book Award in nonfiction. Her debut, The Glass Eye, was honored as Indie Next and Indies Introduce selections by the American Booksellers Association. She lives in Baltimore and teaches at Towson University.· www.jeannievanasco.com · www.creativeprocess.info
Jeannie Vanasco is the author of two memoirs. Her latest, Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a TIME magazine Must-Read Book of the Year, and the 2020 winner of the Ohioana Book Award in nonfiction. Her debut, The Glass Eye, was honored as Indie Next and Indies Introduce selections by the American Booksellers Association. She lives in Baltimore and teaches at Towson University.· www.jeannievanasco.com · www.creativeprocess.info
“People talk about the work life, the line between your work and your life and keeping them separate and keeping the balance. For me, it’s always been that my work defines who I am and who I am in my personal life also defines who I am at my workplace. I don’t know how you separate those identities because I take all my belief systems and who I am to my workplace.”Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, book critic, and the host of the Desi Books podcast. Her debut collection, Each of Us Killers, was out in 2020 and won a Foreword INDIES award in the short stories category and was a finalist in the multicultural category. Her debut literary translation, Ratno Dholi: The Best Stories of Dhumketu, was also out in 2020 and has been longlisted for the PFC-Valley of Words award in the English Translation category. She teaches at Writing Workshops Dallas. · jennybhattwriter.com · www.creativeprocess.info
Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, book critic, and the host of the Desi Books podcast. Her debut collection, Each of Us Killers, was out in 2020 and won a Foreword INDIES award in the short stories category and was a finalist in the multicultural category. Her debut literary translation, Ratno Dholi: The Best Stories of Dhumketu, was also out in 2020 and has been longlisted for the PFC-Valley of Words award in the English Translation category. She teaches at Writing Workshops Dallas. · jennybhattwriter.com · www.creativeprocess.info
“I try to preserve the Chinese music flavor. So, you imagine in Chinese band, the country music that people usually reserve for weddings or for big moments or for funerals. That kind of a feeling. Drums and music playing. I try to preserve it from my memory because what we have now is just a tune. You can probably recognize the tune, but the execution of translating that for a Western orchestra and make it sound like it’s a Chinese band playing Chinese instruments.”Bright Sheng is a composer, conductor, and pianist. His work has been commissioned and performed by many prestigious institutions throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and special commissions from the White House and for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Sheng has collaborated with many distinguished artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, David Henry Hwang, Christoph Eschenbach, and many others.· www.brightsheng.com · www.creativeprocess.infoPhoto: Santa Fe performance of Madame Mao
Bright Sheng is a composer, conductor, and pianist. His work has been commissioned and performed by many prestigious institutions throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and special commissions from the White House and for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Sheng has collaborated with many distinguished artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, David Henry Hwang, Christoph Eschenbach, and many others.· www.brightsheng.com · www.creativeprocess.infoPhoto by Peter Shin
“This particular exhibition definitely had to do with my close relationship to dance. I have collaborated a lot with choreographers for contemporary dance theater, and I was often advising collaborators, so we would create the tasks and the content of the choreography together. We would exchange the tasks. We would create the score and narrative together. Also, because I’m a pianist, which is a very physically demanding instrument, you have this geography of the piano. I think this exhibitions links to my own experience as a performer and composer for dance and the relationship that music has with the body.”Kiriakos Spirou is an editor, writer, content creator, pianist and composer based in Athens, Greece. After studying music in his hometown of Limassol, and then musicology in Athens, he moved to The Netherlands to complete a master's course in Music Design at the Utrecht School for the Arts. He is currently the deputy editor of Yatzer.com, and works for various publications as a freelancer. He is also the founding editor of Und. Athens, a new, alternative art guide for Athens.· kiriakosspirou.wordpress.com/about/ · yatzer.com/yatzerpedia/kiriakos-spirou · www.creativeprocess.info
Kiriakos Spirou is an editor, writer, content creator, pianist and composer based in Athens, Greece. After studying music in his hometown of Limassol, and then musicology in Athens, he moved to The Netherlands to complete a master's course in Music Design at the Utrecht School for the Arts. He is currently the deputy editor of Yatzer.com, and works for various publications as a freelancer. He is also the founding editor of Und. Athens, a new, alternative art guide for Athens.· kiriakosspirou.wordpress.com/about/ · yatzer.com/yatzerpedia/kiriakos-spirou · www.creativeprocess.info
“There’s a lot of controversy about that idea at the moment, about whether fiction is truly empathic and how much freedom the imagination should have because, as one of my friends says, the imagination is not free. It comes from all of the places that we come from. So it’s a controversial notion, but I am firmly on the side of literature is empathic. In fact, I think that all the arts are empathic because all the arts basically say, ‘Wait a minute. Look at it this way.’ And they allow us to see from some other vantage point than our extremely self-interested selves.”Janet Burroway is the author of plays, poetry, esssays, children’s books, and nine novels including The Buzzards; Raw Silk, Opening Nights, Cutting Stone (all Notable Books of The New York Times Book Review), Bridge of Sand and Simone in Transit. Plays include Parts of Speech, Sweepstakes, Boomerang, and Medea With Child, which have received readings and productions in Chicago, New York, London, San Francisco, Hollywood, and various regional theatres; Her Writing Fiction, now in its tenth edition, is the most widely used creative writing text in America, and Imaginative Writing is in its fourth edition. She is author of a collection of essays, Embalming Mom and the memoir Losing Tim. Winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the Florida Humanities Council, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Florida State University. · janetburroway.com · www.creativeprocess.info
Janet Burroway is the author of plays, poetry, esssays, children’s books, and nine novels including The Buzzards; Raw Silk, Opening Nights, Cutting Stone (all Notable Books of The New York Times Book Review), Bridge of Sand and Simone in Transit. Plays include Parts of Speech, Sweepstakes, Boomerang, and Medea With Child, which have received readings and productions in Chicago, New York, London, San Francisco, Hollywood, and various regional theatres; Her Writing Fiction, now in its tenth edition, is the most widely used creative writing text in America, and Imaginative Writing is in its fourth edition. She is author of a collection of essays, Embalming Mom and the memoir Losing Tim. Winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the Florida Humanities Council, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Florida State University. · janetburroway.com · www.creativeprocess.info
“I think the most critical thing is education for critical thinking. The ability to listen to a political argument or an argument of any sort, on COVID, for example, or climate change, and not necessarily understand the science behind that, but to understand how to evaluate the credibility of the speaker, how to evaluate the logic of the arguments and to see whether a conspiracy theory is behind this that has no grounding… And so I think what’s especially important in would be an educational in critical thinking.”Robert Axelrod, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has taught for over 4 decades. Receiving a PH.D. at Yale in Political Science, he is best known for his work and research concerning the evolution of cooperation and political behavior into the modern age, including topics like international and cyber security. He is an award-winning and extensively published scholar who has taught across the country, consulting for organizations like The UN, the World Bank, and the US Department of Defense. In 2012 he was awarded with the National Medal of Science by former US president Barack Obama concerning his extensive work in the behavioral social sciences. In this interview, Axelrod sits down with Mia to talk about his work, the current political climate, and his hopes for future political thinking and action.·fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/robert-axelrod · www.creativeprocess.info
Robert Axelrod is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has taught for over 4 decades. Receiving a PH.D. at Yale in Political Science, he is best known for his work and research concerning the evolution of cooperation and political behavior into the modern age, including topics like international and cyber security. He is an award-winning and extensively published scholar who has taught across the country, consulting for organizations like The UN, the World Bank, and the US Department of Defense. In 2012 he was awarded with the National Medal of Science by former US president Barack Obama concerning his extensive work in the behavioral social sciences. In this interview, Axelrod sits down with Mia to talk about his work, the current political climate, and his hopes for future political thinking and action.·fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/robert-axelrod · www.creativeprocess.info