Highlights
Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Cape Town. She served on the Human Rights Violations Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Her critically acclaimed book, A Human Being Died That Night: A Story of Forgiveness (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), won the Alan Paton Award in South Africa and the Christopher Award in the United States for a book “that speaks to the human spirit.” Her new book, Narrating our Healing: Perspectives on Working through Trauma (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), is co-authored with Chris van der Merwe. She has received scholarly recognition for her work internationally. In 2007 she was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Medal for her work on reconciliation and forgiveness.
Post-workshop May 12th
Prof. Nicanor Perlas
Sociologist, philosopher, author and activist against nuclear power. He graduated with highest honours in agriculture from Xavier University (Philippines). He gave up his master’s degree after being drawn into the struggle against Marcos-promoted Baataan nuclear plant and had to leave his homeland, 1978. After the fall of Marcos he was able to return, founding the Centre for Alternative Development Initiatives (CADI). He engaged in a campaign against the abuse of pesticide, founding the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Perlas has evolved a "tri-sector" approach to policy-making, which he calls "threefolding", described in his book: "Shaping Globalization: Cultural Power and Threefolding". Quotation: "We are in fact faced with very deep spiritual social problems, which require spiritual responses from us. Ordinary, secular, materialistic answer will not do. For behind every act of social resistance and creativity is a spiritual act. Spiritual revolution must have happened first within us before we can create the new world". Received alternative Nobel-prize 2003.
Post-workshop May 12th
Prof. Hans-Peter Dürr
was executive director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics and of the Werner Heisenberg Institute for Physics. As the follower of Prof. Heisenberg he specialized in nuclear and quantum physics, elementary particles, gravitation, epistemology and philosophy. Since many years he is part of the global environmental and peace movement. He received the Alternative Nobel Prize and the Peace Nobel Prize together with the Pugwash Group. His research includes combining physics, spirituality and transcendence and the basic unity of the many identities that exist as part of the playground of the Only and One Reality. Prof. Dürr authentically embodies what he talks about.
Willigis Jäger
is Zen Master and Benedictine monk. He is the founder and since 2003 the head of the transreligious meditation centre "Benediktushof" and co-founder of the Zen-Centre Sonnenhof, both in Germany. He represents authentically a transdenominational spirituality helping the seekers to answer urgent existential questions. Willigis is one of the highly developed mystics and spiritual teachers of our times. His vision of a global spirituality is practiced world-wide by a continuously growing community.
Jim Rough
is one of the most innovative and most creative mediators in "impossible conflicts" for small and for large groups. He is the founder of "Dynamic Facilitation" and of the "Wisdom Council" that both proved itself as forward-looking approaches in a participatory democracy in countries such as Canada, Australia and the US. At this conference he will include the whole audience into a Collective Wisdom process. So he will give us a taste for what it means to become "We the People".
Prof. Otto Scharmer
He is a Senior Lecturer at highly renowned MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA) and the founding chair of ELIAS (Emerging Leaders for Innovation Across Sectors), a program linking twenty leading global institutions from business, government, and civil society in order to prototype profound system innovations for a more sustainable world. He is author of numerous articles and books, including "Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society" (2005) and of "Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges" (2007). His attempt of "Presencing" includes a completely new integral development in all social areas through connecting the own heart, the collective wisdom and an intelligent technology. His “Theory U” is one of the best founded signposts for our change in direction of "Future Now".
Prof. Vamik Volkan
Psychoanalyst and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on the application of psychodynamic theory in ethnic and sectarian conflict. Since many years he leads interdisciplinary teams to various trouble spots around the world and has brought high-level "enemy" representatives together for year-long unofficial dialogues. He has received many awards such as the Sigmund-Freud Award in 2003, and he was nominated for the Peace Nobel Prize for several times. In his latest book "Killing in the Name of Identity" he points strongly to the danger of a blind identity and the ability of inner growth for everybody to move beyond it.
Post-workshop May 12th
Prof. Arno Grün
Prof. Grün was born in Berlin in 1923 and emigrated to the US as a child in 1936. After completing his graduate studies in psychology at New York University, he trained in psychoanalysis under Theodor Reik. Prof. Grün has held many teaching posts, including 17 years as professor of psychology at Rutgers University. Since 1997 he has lived and practiced in Swiss. He is the author of the books: "The Betrayal of the Self" – Fear of Autonomy in Men and Women 1988, and "The Insanity of Normality: Understanding Human Destructiveness" 2007-12-06
Prof. Amit Goswami
is professor of physics at the Institute of Theoretical Sciences at the University of Oregon and author of numerous scientific papers and several books. Among others he wrote: "The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World”. He is one of the rare scientists that appear in the film "What the bleep do we Know", and one of the few who put consciousness in the centre when explaining quantum physics.
Post-workshop May 12th together with Dr. Uma Krishnamurti
An Evening With Poems from W. H. Auden
Tell Me The Truth About Love
Recite by Joachim Krol (in German), sung by Inga Lühning (in English), composed by Andreas Schnerman (grand piano) and performed with his jazz colleagues Matthias Bergmann (piano), Paul Heller (saxophone, clarinet), Kai Brückner (guitar), Dietmar Fuhr (bass) and Sebastina Merk (drums). Joachim Król, one of Germany’s leading character actors, is especially famous for his unique rendition of tragicomic roles which have long become his hallmark. Therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise that the poems of "Tell Me The Truth About Love" by the English writer W. H.
Auden are recited by Joachim Król.
The internationally working pianist, composer and bandleader Andreas Schnermann was fascinated by Audens sensitive poems and faced the great challenge to set these complex texts to music. The result are songs that make one hold one’s breath. Inga Lühning, who was called the "mysterious and mermaid-like new lady" of the jazz-scene by the German magazine Focus, is responsible for the singing. W. H. Auden, who is named among the likes of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, has lately experienced a renaissance in Germany. His "Funeral Blues" gained new popularity through the blockbuster "Four Weddings and a Funeral".
