FREE: The Performativity Lens: What It Is, What It Isn’t, And Its Relevance To Meta-Level Studies
Become an Integral Life member to join this live session
Become a memberJoin Mark Edwards for an engaging series of monthly conversations exploring the emerging field of planetary meta-studies. Mark will welcome Bruce Alderman as his co-facilitator for some of the sessions.
Zoom troubles? When and if you click the blue “Join Session” button and are taken to a page that says “Sign in to Start,” don’t worry — you’re in the right place! Look just below it and click the small link that says “I am not the meeting host. Join Meeting as an Attendee.”
Planetary meta-studies is a holistic and integrative approach—a kind of Earth-system social science—that uses comprehensive models and metatheoretical frameworks to understand our planet’s immense beauty, complexity, and profound interconnectedness. We’ll thoughtfully examine the global metacrisis—an interconnected web of environmental, social, economic, and existential challenges—and explore practical pathways for navigating both the personal and collective dimensions of these challenges.
While the name of this series of free sessions at Integral Life is “A View From Somewhere,” each monthly session will feature a different theme:
- Horseshoe Theory and the Politics of Confusion: A meta-level upgrade of Jean-Pierre Faye’s Horseshoe Theory
- The Performativity Lens: What it is, what it isn’t, and its relevance to meta-level studies
- Global Sustainability and Planetary Meta-Studies: An analysis of Big Picture sustainability using common meta-lenses
- The Deep Meaning of Climate Change: Uncovering the underlying causes and implications of climate change
- Woking Up: Culture wars, justice warriors, and the right side of history
- Canada, Australia, Europe and the “Trump effect”: A Meta-Perspective on political responses to Trump 2.0
- Self-Correcting Mechanisms in Science and Spirituality: A discussion on the role of reflexive practices and how they are applied or silenced in scientific and religious institutions
- Conservative and Progressive forms of Regressivism: A discussion on how the Republican Party slide into corrupt authoritarianism
- Misunderstanding Pluralism: Why pluralism is not the cause of aperspectival madness
- Ethics and Algorithms: On voicing values, moral character, and the false solution of balance in the media
Join us for these thought-provoking and practical explorations as we deepen our understanding, sharpen our insights, and co-create meaningful responses to the planetary meta-crisis. Together, let’s uncover clearer paths toward a thriving future for humanity and our shared home.
All sessions are on Thursday afternoons at 4pm PT. Always check the Integral Life Calendar for updates.
Speakers
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Mark EdwardsI live close to the beach in the beautiful city of Perth in Western Australia and have two adult children and a veggie garden. Education-wise, I have a PhD with Distinction in Organization Theory and a Masters in Human Development, both from the University of Western Australia. I have been an academic since 2008 researching and teaching in the fields of sustainability, organizational transformation, ethics and meta-studies. I am published in research journals such as the Academy of Management Learning and Education, Business & Society, Business Strategy and the Environment, and the Journal of Business Ethics. I have also published books on regenerative sustainability, marketing ethics, and integrative metatheory with the academic publishers Routledge and Cambridge University Press. Before becoming an academic I worked as a registered psychologist with people with disabilities and their families and communities. In recent years, I find myself more engaged in local community activism and practice-based communities.
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Bruce AldermanBruce Alderman is the associate director of the Blue Sky Leaders program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Bruce is also a member of faculty for the Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation department at National University (NU). He also finds time to work as an integral and transpersonal consultant psychologist. He is a long-time student of David Bohm’s work, and recently led a course with Lee Nichol on the concept and practice of the rheosoma. Prior to working at CIIS and NU, Bruce worked and studied abroad in Asia for several years, teaching courses on creative writing and inquiry at the Rajghat Besant School, a Krishnamurti school in Varanasi, India, and studying and practicing at monasteries and ashrams in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Nepal. He has published essays in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice and Consciousness Journal, as well as in several anthologies on Integral philosophy and spirituality. Recently he launched a YouTube channel and podcast called The Integral Stage, dedicated to exploring integral, metamodern, and other holistic and integrative approaches to addressing the complex social, ecological, and spiritual challenges of our times.
