Transforming Self and Systems: Crossing Borders of Race, Nation, Gender, Sexuality, and Class

Exploration of crossing borders within ourselves, and between us and them, based on a belief that understanding the self leads to understanding others. How personal identity struggles have meaning beyond the individual, how self healing can lead to community healing, how the personal is political, and how artistic self expression based in self understanding can address social issues. The tensions of victimization and agency, contemplation and action, humanities and science, embracing knowledge that comes from the heart as well as the mind. Studies are founded in synergistic consciousness as movement toward meaning, balance, connectedness, and wholeness. Engaging these questions through group process, journaling, reading, drama, creative writing, and storytelling. Study is academic and self-reflective, with an emphasis on developing and presenting creative works in various media that express identity development across borders.