Archive for the ‘Academics’ Category

TLAN Member Jan Stanley is leading an effort to cull together the best poems for the support of a positive psychology.  Jan recently completed her Masters of Applied Positive Psychology degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now inviting TLA folk to send her their poems of "Well Being."  For more information, see below and/or the project blog guidelines for submission. 

Positive psychology is the study of what goes right in life, or the study of how and why people flourish.  Since positive psychology was founded by Martin Seligman in 2000, it continues to expand as more people in various disciplines seek to apply flourishing concepts and theories.  One such arena is an emerging discipline of positive humanities. 

One of the initial projects in positive humanities is the creation of a poetry anthology, The Poetry of Well Being.  Poetry of well being depicts what’s best about the human experience and evokes the best within us as receivers of the poems, allowing us, as readers, to grow and transform.  In this project, we are looking for poetry that can transform the reader, not for the ways in which writing poetry can be transformational.

Poetry of well being highlights positive emotions, positive relationships, meaning and a sense of accomplishment which all contribute to crafting a life of well being.  We see this anthology being available to a mass market audience.

We would like your help in identifying poems of well being.  We are not looking for original work, we are looking for the poem or poems that you feel best evoke human flourishing in a transformational way.  Of course, should your poem(s) be selected, you will be credited for having submitted it and offered an opportunity to write a brief note on why you selected that particular poem for inclusion in the book.

In an exciting piece of news from the poetry therapy front, TLA Network Council Member Sherry Reiter shares that she has been invited to the 2010 "Conference on Humanities Therapy," sponsored by Kangwon National University in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do province, South Korea. 

The conference organizers there are affiliated with The Humanities Therapy Research Institute, which "aims to study wide-ranging theories, methods, and practices to prevent and cure manetal and emotional problems, seeking to improve the quality of life by integrating the curative contents of humanities and its related fields. The goals of Humanities Therapy are to keep one's life happy, recover peace of mind by preventing and curing mental and emotional problems, and help with quality of life."

Congratulations to Sherry and past Power of Words presenter John Fox, who will also be part of this fascinating gathering. We hope to hear more when you return!

I recently came across this fascinating article by Colleen Vojak about how the language social workers use has clear impact on "helper and recepient" relationships, particularly on how marginalized folks develop their own sense of self.  From the article's abstract is this key line: 

Social service providers who care about social justice, but do not understand the relationship between language and the larger social vision they want to help create, may unwittingly undermine their own project by reinforcing the language of hegemony.

Right on.  This is already evident to many TLA practitioners, and may be of use for those of us interested in other disciplines and academic connections.  Take a look if you're interested.