The Camphill Research Symposium is dedicated to encouraging dialogue between academics and the Camphill movement, so we have taken steps this year to integrate this dialogue not only between our sessions but within our sessions. Many of our sessions include both academics and community members in dialogue, whether in a “response” format, as a panel, or by extending research questions into the future.
The Festival:
Selections from the Carlo Pietzner Collection
We are thrilled that this year’s Symposium will feature a reception to open The Festival: An Exhibition of artwork from the Carlo Pietzner Collection. Featuring artwork from Carlo Pietzner, George Kalmar, and M.C. Richards, this collection is a testament to the artistic legacy of the Camphill movement. To learn more about the collection and view work from the artists, visit the Camphill Research Network.
The opening reception took place on November 10 at 7:15pm.
Hybrid Format
After two years online, we are enthusiastic to bring the Camphill Research Symposium back into one of our communities. At the same time, we learned how fruitful online conversations can be to cultivate international ties and bring in more diverse perspectives. Because of this, we developed our hybrid format to capture the best of both worlds (and hopefully avoid the pitfalls of each). Online sessions will be fully online via Zoom, but our in-person sessions will be recorded (but not streamed live). We will share these recordings online via the Camphill Research Network website. This format encourages everyone’s participation “in the moment” but still enables everyone to access the sessions on-demand.
To further enable access to all who wish to participate, the Camphill Research Symposium is a free event thanks to the generous support of the Camphill Foundation.
Ongoing Dialogue
After the Symposium we will gather international community feedback and use this to identify the questions that community members want to take further. We will use this feedback to develop community “toolkits” around these topics. These toolkits will help stimulate inclusive conversation and activity within communities. They may take the form of discussion guides, project proposals, and more. We will then coordinate opportunities to gather online to share the fruits of our activity with presenters and participants internationally. While we always want to cultivate an ongoing interest in Camphill research, we especially want to offer communities hands-on ways to participate in research on the issues they care about. More information and opportunities to help design these collaborative community “toolkits” will come after the Symposium, so make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.
2022 In-Person Sessions
November 10
9:00-10:30am ET
In-person at Camphill Soltane
In this session, Dan McKanan will share his argument of the two developmental pathways open to the Camphill movement: evolving beyond community and creative symbiosis. Members of the Southeastern Pennsylvania communities will discuss whether these two paths accurately capture their own experiences and whether they see other possibilities for their communities’ futures.
Presenter: Daniel McKanan (Harvard Divinity School)
Respondents: Sabine Otto (Camphill Soltane); Andreas Schuschke (The Camphill School, Beaver Run); more TBC
To create the best experience for all participants, our in-person sessions will be recorded and made available at a later date with opportunities to interact directly with the presenters. These sessions will not be streamed live during the event.
November 10
11:00am-12:30pm ET
In-person at Camphill Soltane
Panelists from the Camphill Association of North America, the Camphill Foundation Board Fellows Program, and The Camphill School Transition program at Beaver Farm will reflect on how they have attempted to bridge divides between different community constituencies to enable community co-creation that is inclusive of community members with disabilities, long term coworkers, short term volunteers, board members, and family members. By consciously making space for voices of different abilities and with different roles, we actively work to create the Beloved Community, fulfilling the third essential of Camphill life: to nurture and care for the communities in which we live and work.
Presenters: Representatives from the Camphill Association of North America, The Camphill Foundation Board Fellows Program, and The Camphill School Transition Program at Beaver Farm.
To create the best experience for all participants, our in-person sessions will be recorded and made available at a later date with opportunities to interact directly with the presenters. These sessions will not be streamed live during the event.
November 10
2:30-4:00pm ET
In-person at Camphill Soltane
In this session, Dan McKanan will present his conclusions from the study of young coworkers in Camphill internationally developed at the 2021 Camphill Research Symposium. Individuals engaged in these questions throughout the movement will be invited to respond to his conclusions and expand upon the implications for their work and for the movement as a whole.
Presenter: Daniel McKanan (Harvard Divinity School)
Respondents: Ala Jacob (Camphill Communities California), Sonja Adams (Camphill Academy and The Camphill School)
To create the best experience for all participants, our in-person sessions will be recorded and made available at a later date with opportunities to interact directly with the presenters. These sessions will not be streamed live during the event.
November 11
9:00-10:30am ET
In-person at Camphill Soltane
In their book Institutional Violence & Disability: Punishing Conditions (Routledge Advances in Disability Studies), Kate Rossiter & Jen Rinaldi position Camphill, L’Arche, and Geel as the “organizational inverse” of institutions. In this session, we will take the central question of their book–What makes an institution–and explore its inverse–What makes a community? These questions sit not only at the heart of community identity, but also at the foundation of the regulatory frameworks of disability services today.
Presenters: Kate Rossiter (Wilfred Laurier University) ; Jen Rinaldi (Ontario Tech University)
To create the best experience for all participants, our in-person sessions will be recorded and made available at a later date with opportunities to interact directly with the presenters. These sessions will not be streamed live during the event.
November 11
11:00-12:30pm ET
In-person at Camphill Soltane
In this closing plenum three members of the Camphill movement in North America will reflect on the tasks they were given by Helen Zipperlen, a founding member of both Camphill internationally and driving force for Camphill in North America. With Helen’s passing this summer, we recognize that the tasks she gave us are as yet incomplete. We will place the conversations that have unfolded throughout the 2022 Research Symposium in this biographical context, fired by Karl Konig’s injunction to Helen in the early days of Botton: we may not know what we need to do, or how to do it, but whatever we do, we do it together.
Panelists: Beth Barol (Widener University & Camphill Soltane) ; Diedra Heitzman (Camphill Village Kimberton Hills) ; David Andrew Schwartz (Camphill Hudson)
To create the best experience for all participants, our in-person sessions will be recorded and made available at a later date with opportunities to interact directly with the presenters. These sessions will not be streamed live during the event.
November 10
7:30pm ET
Whitsun Hall, Camphill Soltane
Works by Carlo Pietzner, George Kalmar, and MC Richards exploring the festival year will be exhibited in Whitsun Hall to celebrate the new regional partnership stewarding the Carlo Pietzner Collection. Light refreshments will be served.
2022 Online Sessions
November 10
11:00am-12:30pm ET
Online
The arts have always held a central place in Camphill’s approach to community building, whether through craft-based vocations, the beautification of the home, festival celebration, the aesthetic elements of agriculture, architecture, and more. Today, Camphill artists are pushing the boundaries of artistic-cultural creation into their local and even national communities. In this session two Camphill art collectives will share about their work and reflect on how such artistic endeavors contribute to “placemaking” in the broader culture.
Presenters: KCAT Arts Center (Callan Co, Ireland) ; The Camphill Hudson Players (Hudson, NY, USA) ; Michael Lennon (University College Dublin)
November 10
2:30-4:00pm ET
Online
This panel will explore the possibilities and tensions around if and how the Camphill movement fits into the current landscape of critical disability scholarship and advocacy work. Each panelist will share about how their work intersects with the movement, and how they encounter the struggles, successes, and transformative imaginations of Camphill’s engagement with the complex field of Disability Studies and disability advocacy.
Panelists: Matthew Herbst (University of California San Diego); Crystal Farmer (Oneida Freedom School & The Foundation for Intentional Community); Elizabeth Mohler (Doctoral candidate, Western University)
Facilitator: Odile Carroll (University of Illinois Chicago & Camphill Academy)
November 11
11:00am-12:30pm ET
Online
Grounded on a research project lead by the School of Spiritual Science in cooperation with three social-therapeutical life- and work-sharing communities in Germany, we will bring into dialogue present aspects and future perspectives on how life and work among people with and without assistance can be shaped.
Presenter: Ioana Viscrianu (Youth Section, Goetheanum)
November 11
2:30-4:00pm ET
Online
Description coming soon.
Presenter: Stasya Erickson (L’Arche USA)
