Future Primitive

This is a part two of our interview with Richard Doyle.

Click here to listen to part one of this interview.

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Richard Doyle earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. He was the Mellon Post Doctoral Fellow in History and Social Science of the Life Sciences at MIT in 1993. Professor of Rhetoric, Doyle holds appointments in English, Science Technology & Society and the College of Information Science and Technology at Penn State University and was Visiting Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, Department of Rhetoric in 2003.

Doyle teaches courses in the history and rhetoric of emerging technosciences – sustainability, space colonization, biotechnology, nanotechnology, psychedelic science, information technologies, biometrics – and the cultural and literary contexts from which they sprout. Professor Doyle has published two books: On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (Stanford, 1997) and Wetwares:Experiments in PostVital Living( Minnesota, 2003) – in a putative trilogy about emerging transhuman knowledges. These knowledges and practices, linked to molecular biology, artificial life, nanotechnology, psychedelic and information technologies render the experiential distinctions between living systems and machines frequently dubious and often indiscernible. This excited and confused rhetorical membrane between humans and an informational universe nonetheless broadcasts a clear message: humans, in co-evolution with the technical matrices transforming the planet, find themselves in an evolutionary ecology that is as urgent as it is experimental.

Continuing his collaborative work on the “transhuman imperative”, Doyle ( aka mobius) has now completed the trilogy with a scholarly book about archaic and contemporary psychedelic media technologies and the evolution of mind: The Ecodelic Hypothesis: Plants, Rhetoric and the Evolution of The Noösphere, currently in press with University of Washington. Other current projects include a book, Admixtures: Dialogues After Genomics with Anthropologist Mark Shriver. The Admixtures Project has grown The Penn State Center for Altered Consciousness, currently investigating the genetics and phenomenology of legally altered consciousness with the help of a flotation tank.

Doyle directed the Penn State Composition Program from 2004-2006, and serves as Expert, Wetwares and Human/Machine interaction for international organizations and a volunteer to the Penn State Center for Sustainability. More about mobius’ work and teaching can be found by browsing his web site.

Richard speaks with Joanna about language and the ecstasy of creativity, ego-death as a revelatory practice, eco-humility, Timothy Leary, freedom & Imagination…

Introductory music: “Amazon Beginnings” (At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, soundtrack) by Zbigniew Preisner

You can listen to PART TWO of this interview here.

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is the Managing Director/Campaigns Director of V-Day. V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 130 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and all of North America. V-Day, a non-profit corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. In 2001, V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine’s “100 Best Charities” and in 2006 one of Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten.

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is a New York Photographer whose internationally known work focuses primarily on women and girls whose outsider status places them within larger social struggles. She has had photos in U. S. News and World Report, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, The London Independent Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Paris Match, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Art In America and others.

Over the past 18 years, Paula Allen has been photographing international events: The Birth of Solidarity in Poland (1981), The European Nuclear Disarmament Movement (1982), The Dismantling of the Berlin Wall (1989), and the Defeat of Chilean Dictator General Pinochet (1989).

As a documentary photographer, Paula Allen’s dedication has been to record with her photos and also her words, the histories of women.

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Temistocles Blessed is an activist who works to raise awareness regarding peace, love and social and environmental justice. After attending Bioneers 2007, Tem began to set up his own renewable energy company called BleSSed Energy.

temblessed.com

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Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author. He is author and co-author of dozens of articles, op-eds and papers, as well as six books including The Ecology of Commerce (1993) and Blessed Unrest (2007). Paul heads the Natural Capital Institute, a research organization located in Sausalito, California, that has created WiserEarth, a open source networking platform that links NGO’s, funders, businesses, goverment, social entrepreneurs, students, organizers, academics, activists, scientists and citizens.

paulhawken.com

naturalcapital.org

wiserearth.org

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John Burt is the Founding Board Chair of Cambodian Living Arts (CLA). An independent theatrical producer for 25 years, Mr. Burt was most recently the Executive producer of the new CLA commission, Where Elephants Weep, the first Cambodian American opera.

Phloeum Prim is the first Director of Cambodian Living Arts, founded by Arn Chorn-Pond. He is a Cambodian entrepreneur and business leader who has worked with CLA for many years as a Board member and executive consultant on strategic planning.

whereelephantsweep.net

cambodianlivingarts.org

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Woody Tasch is Chairman and President of Slow Money, a 501(c)3 organization formed in 2008 to catalyze the flow of investment capital to small food enterprises and to promote new principles of fiduciary responsibility to support sustainable agriculture and the emergence of a restorative economy.

slowmoneyalliance.org

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Vandana Shiva, physicist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocate, is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. She serves as an ecology advisor to several organizations including the Third World Network and the Asia Pacific People’s Environment Network.  In 1993 she was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, commonly known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”.  She has also written several works include, Staying Alive, The Violence of the Green Revolution, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Monocultures of the Mind and Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.

vandanashiva.org

navdanya.org

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Peter Czarkowski is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  At 21 he dropped out of college to assist those affected by Hurricane Katrina.  Now 24, he leads a team of AmeriCorps volunteers from around the country.  Eight in all, the group call themselves “Kill Squad” because of their desire to kill apathy.  They are currently working with the Marion Institute to help host the 5th annual Bioneers by the Bay conference in New Bedford.

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Mercy and David sang on stage at the Bioneer’s by the Bay conference.

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Nipun Mehta is the founder of Charity Focus a fully volunteer driven organization started in 1999.

Charity Focus has now become an incubator of gift-economy projects ranging from web services to a film production company to a print magazine to a restaurant. With a membership of 250.000, they attract millions of viewers to their website, charityfocus.org

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Toni Frohoff is a behavioral and wildlife biologist who has been studying marine mammal behavior and communication for over 20 years. Dr. Frohoff has a doctorate in Behavioral Biology, an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, and a B.S. in Psychology. She specializes in stress and welfare in captive and free-ranging dolphins in response to human activity and has written numerous publications on this subject. Currently, Frohoff is Research Director for both Terramar Research (terramarresearch.org), and the Whale Stewardship Project (whalestewardship.org), where she studies free-ranging solitary beluga whales and solitary orcas who regularly interact with people; the first of their kind to be scientifically documented.

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Charles Eisenstein is the author of The Ascent of Humanity: The Age of Separation, the Age of Reunion, and the convergence of crises that is birthing the transition – a book about the history and future of civilization from a unique perspective: the evolution of the human sense of self.

He is also the author of The Yoga of Eating and his most recent book Transformational Weight Loss, a book which applies the deep ideas of Ascent to a very specific crying need. He also give seminars and workshops focusing on two areas: holistic health, and the transformation of human consciousness and civilization.

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Known to many as the “Matisse of Japan”, Mayumi Oda has done extensive work with female goddess imagery. From 1969 to the present Mayumi has exhibited over 40 one-woman shows throughout the world. Her artwork is also part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and many others. Mayumi is also a global activist, participating in anti-nuclear campaigns worldwide. She has lectured and held workshops on Nuclear Patriarchy to Solar Communities at the United Nations NGO Forum and the Women of Vision Conference in Washington DC. In 2000 she started Ginger Hill, a farm and retreat center on the Big Island of Hawaii. Mayumi currently lives at Ginger Hill Farm and travels worldwide, teaching workshops in creativity and self-realization.

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Recorded on 18 April at a speech given in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son was killed during his service in the Iraq War on April 4, 2004. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch — a stand which drew both passionate support and angry criticism.

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Recorded on 17 April after a speech in Santa Fe, New Mexico in answer to Joanna’s question.
Amy Goodman is a United States broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist and author. A 1984 graduate of Harvard University, Goodman is best known as the principal host of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! program, where she has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “radio’s voice of the disenfranchised left”. Coverage of the peace and human rights movements — and support of the independent media — are the hallmarks of her work. As an investigative journalist, she has received acclaim for exposés of human rights violations in East Timor and Nigeria. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award.

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Caroline W. Casey is a Visionary Activist Astrologer, devoted to the principle that Imagination lays the tracks for the Reality Train to follow. She has a degree in Symbol Systems (semiotics) from Brown University, and has studied magic, mythology and social activism all over the world. Based in Washington DC, Caroline broadcasts her live weekly radio show, “The Visionary Activist Show”, replayed on L.A.s KPFK. She is the author of the audio book, Visionary Activist Astrology and also authored of Making the Gods Work For You – the astrological language of the psyche. She offers Visionary Activist Revivals at a wide variety of conferences all over America as well as in South Africa, Sweden, England and New Zealand.

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Godfrey Reggio is an inventor of a film style which creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound which chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment.

Reggio has been a community activitist since the sixties and co-founded a number of organizations dedicated to assisting communities in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico. In 1974 and 1975, with funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multi- media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. His first film, Koyaanisqatsi, was released in 1983.

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Lynne Twist is a global activist, fundraiser, speaker, consultant, and author and has dedicated her life to global initiatives that serve the best instincts in all of us. Lynne founded the Soul of Money Institute to express her commitment to supporting and empowering people in finding peace and sufficiency in their relationship with money and the money culture. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Pachamama Alliance, an organization established to preserve the Earth’s tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.

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Chellis Glendinning is writer and a psychologist specializing in recovery from post-traumatic stress. She is the author of Waking Up in the Nuclear Age (1987); When Technology Wounds (1990); My Name Is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization (1994); Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and the Global Economy (1999, 2002); and Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade (2005). Off the Map won the National Federation of Press Women 2000 Book Award.

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Jodie Evans has worked on behalf of community, social-justice, environmental, and political causes for more than thirty years. As Director of Administration in former California Governor Jerry Brown’s cabinet and staff, Jodie championed environmental causes, resulting in breakthroughs in wind and solar technology and worked to bring historic diversity into the staff and appointments. As Manager of Governor Brown’s 1992 Presidential Campaign, Jodie instituted a cap on financial contributions of $100, resulting in a stronger push for campaign finance standards. Jodie has traveled extensively on behalf of global peace. Since the start of the Iraq war, Jodie has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan on several occasions. She is the co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement which has an international membership of 150,000.

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Evon Peter is the National Director of Native Movement Alaska and former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska. He has served as the Co-Chair of the Gwich’in Council International and on the Executive Board of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council. Evon is an advocate of Indigenous Peoples rights, youth, and a balanced world. His experience includes work within the United Nations and Arctic Council forum representing Indigenous and environmental interests. He is featured in the 2005 full-length feature film “Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action,” that follows four Indigenous people working on issues of Environmental Justice in North America.

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Cynthia Jurs is an authorized Buddhist teacher (dharmacharya) who has practiced in the Tibetan Vajrayana and Zen Buddhist traditions for almost 30 years. In 1994 she received formal transmission from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh to teach engaged Buddhism and now directs the Open Way Sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico, teaching an approach to living in awareness through practice, ceremony, retreat, and pilgrimage. Cynthia also teaches meditation to environmental activists at the Center for Whole Communities in Vermont. In 1990 she met Charok Rinpoche, a 106-year-old lama living in a cave in Nepal, and received a Tibetan practice to bring healing and protection to the Earth. The practice involves filling earth treasure vases and burying them in places of need around the world. As a filmmaker, she recently directed and produced the film, Turning Prayer Into Action: Indigenous Grandmothers Meet the Bioneers. Her next film will document the pilgrimages of the earth treasure vases in order to share the story and practice more widely.

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Michael Brownstein is a poet, teacher and the author of three novels: Country Cousins, Self-Reliance, and The Touch. As a result of his involvement in the anti-globalization movement he wrote World on Fire, from which he has read widely at conferences and universities, including at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in South Africa and the World Social Forum in Brazil. His web site, Healing Dick, is dedicated to healing the heart of Dick Cheney, because “Dick is America, America is Dick.”

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Sandra Ingerman is an author and lecturer who teaches workshops internationally on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times.

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Mary Lou Cook lives New Mexico and has contributed immensely as a major creative force and model of citizen activism. She has received numerous international, national and community honors and awards as a distinguished leader. One such honor was being named “Santa Fe Living Treasure”. She is a teacher, counselor, lecturer and minister who performs non-traditional weddings.

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American-born photographer and author, Margaret Randall, returning to the United States in 1984 after living in Central America, was ordered deported under the Walter McCarran Act. Because of opinions expressed in some of her books, she was accused of “being against the good order and happiness of the United States.” She won her case in 1989.

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Anne Waldman is a poet and teacher, and with Allen Ginsberg co-founded of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in 1974. She was featured along with Ginsberg in Bob Dylan’s experimental film ‘Renaldo and Clara.’

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Joanna Harcourt-Smith interviews Chellis Glendinning – Writer and psychologist specializing in the inter-relationship between the personal and the political.

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Joanna Harcourt-Smith interview featuring Dr. Roger Payne, founder and President of the Ocean Alliance, and his wife, Lisa Harrow, actress and environmentalist…and Mike Hagan interview featuring Star Newland, founder of the Sirius Institute, and Dr. Michael Hyson, co-founder and research director.

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