Newsletter Nr. 28 (December 2016, subsequent to our 28th Annual Conference, our 2016 NY Workshop)
Compiled by Evelin Lindner, in New York City, USA (December, 2016)
Contents
• Pictures
• Thanks!
• Announcements
• What Is the Aim of Our Work?
• Messages from You
• Welcome Again!
Pictures
(Important note to our conference participants: During our conference, we asked for your permission to include your pictures here. In case you have changed your mind since our workshop took place, please let us know! We want to make sure we have your permission. Thank you! Since we wish to walk the talk of dignity, it is very important for us to do our utmost in respecting everybody's privacy. We could gather written permissions from you during our conferences, yet, since we value the building of mutual trust in relationships, we would like to refrain from contributing to an ever more bureaucratic and legalistic society. We encourage everybody who does not wish to have their pictures or videos on our website to take pro-active responsibility and inform the photographer to refrain from taking pictures of her, and stay out of any video-tape. This will make the post-workshop editing work feasible, as also this is a voluntary work of love that is already overstretched.)
|
 |
Linda Hartling and Evelin Lindner are the conveners of the annual workshops at Columbia University since 2003, together with honorary convener Morton Deutsch (click on the picture above, from 2014, to see it larger). |
  |
Pictures of all of us on Day One and Two of the workshop |
  |
Pre-Planned Dignilogue 1 on
Day One of our workshop Honorary Convenor: Morton Deutsch Moderators: David Yamada and Annette Engler Seating Manager: Rick Slaven See here a Summary of Our Dignilogue Format for you to download Contributors: • Michael L. Perlin • Claudia Cohen • Daniel Rothbart • Janet Gerson Still photos: • Please click here to see all of Brandon Scott's 821 photos of Day One • Please click here to see all of the 75 photos of Day One taken with Evelin Lindner's camera Videos: • 01 Linda Hartling Welcomes Everybody • 02 Danielle Coon Welcomes Everybody • 03 Linda Hartling Introduces Our Appreciative Frame • 04 Christine de Michele Brings Everybody Together • 05 A Global Dignilogue with Evelin Lindner and Linda Hartling • 05.1 Ljoba Jenče Shared Her Art in Dubrovnik on September 23, 2016 • 06 David Yamada Explains the Dignilogue Format • 07 Pre-Planned Dignilogue 1 "How Are Human Dignity and Humiliation Relevant to Destructive Conflict?" • 08 Christine de Michele Shared "Island" |
Renée Monrose has created the wonderful Face-to-Face exhibition at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with Columbia University in Manhattan. Thank you so much, dear Adair, for introducing us to Renée! What an amazing gift it was that our workshop participants were able to visit your exhibition, dear Renée! • Please click on the photos in the top row above or here to see more pictures of Renée in November 2016. • Please click on the photos from December 8 and 9, in the rows below or here to see them larger. |
  |
Phil Brown led the Turning Ideas into Action session on
Day One of our workshop, in our new Co-Created Dignilogues # 1 Still photos: • Please click here to see all of Brandon Scott's 821 photos of Day One • Please click here to see all of the 75 photos of Day One taken with Evelin Lindner's camera Videos: • 09 Phil Brown, Gabriela Saab, and Linda Hartling Shape the Co-Created Dignilogues • 10 Co-Created Dignilogues in the Making • 11 Co-Created Dignilogue 1 "Being an Effective Ally" • 12 Co-Created Dignilogue 2 "Mindful Communications" • 13 Co-Created Dignilogue 3 "Systemic Humiliation" • 14 Co-Created Dignilogue 4 "The Path of Forgiveness" • 15 Co-Created Dignilogue 5 "Creating a Dignity Classroom" |
      |
Public Event on Day One of our workshop, titled, "The Globalization of Dignity," Thursday, December 8, 2016 Still photos of this event: • Please click here to see all of the 49 photos of the Public Event taken with Evelin Lindner's camera Videos: • 16 Public Event: Fred Ellis and His Students Sing • 17 Public Event: Michael Perlin: "Dignity and the Nobel Prize: Why Bob Dylan Was the Perfect Choice" • 18 Public Event: Betty Reardon, the Mother of Peace Education, Honors Us with Her Presence • 19 Public Event: Edna Adan Ismail: "Dignity Through Courage!" (Powerpoint) • 20 Public Event: Sylvain Leroux, Magali Regis, and the Fula Flute |
  |
Michael Britton gave the Don Klein Memorial Lecture on Day Two of our workshop. Michael uses Don's metaphor of a scrim, a transparent stage curtain, where one believes that what one sees is reality only as long as the light shines on it in a certain way: see Don's explanation. Still photos: • Please click here to see all of the 348 photos of Day Two taken with Evelin Lindner's camera • Please click here to see all of Noriko Ishihara's 11 photos of Day Two Video: • 21 Bonnie Selterman Shares Her Poem "No Shoes" (Pdf) • 22 Welcome and Practical Details • 23 Michael Britton's Don Klein Memorial Lecture |
 |
Dignilogue 2 on Day Two of our workshop Honorary Convenor: Morton Deutsch |
 |
Recognitions, Remembrances, and Awards on Friday, December 9, 2016, Day Two of the 2015 Workshop of Humiliation and Violent Conflict! |
  |
Turning Ideas into Action session on
Day Two of our workshop, in our new Co-Created Dignilogues # 2 |
  |
End of Day Two |
 |
Closing our workshop on Day Two |
What a gift to be with Joe Levine on December 12, 2016, for a lovely interview, together with Gabriela Saab and Hua-Chu Yen! Thank you all for such an intense time together! • Please click on the pictures above to see them larger. |
|
December 7, 2016, what a wonderful End Of Year Gathering at the MD-ICCCR Center! Linda and Michael were able to express our profound gratitude and thanks to Peter Coleman for hosing us as every year since 2003! So nice to catch dear Beth and Connie Sun on a photo! • Please click on the pictures above to see them larger. |
 |
December 7, 2016, board meeting with our dear Linda was leading the meeting as lovingly as always, with dear Rick Slaven, our Director of Dignifunding, and our dear Uli Spalthoff participating from Ludwigsburg in Germany via Skype! Please see: • Good News December 2016 • Ulrich Spalthoff: The Dignity Press flyer of 2015 • Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos. |
 |
December 7, 2016 Evelin's book talk: Honor, Humiliation, and Terror Please click on the flyer to see it larger. • Please click on the picture above to see it larger. • Please see also the video created by Talia Shafir. Thank you, dear Talia, for such a marvelous job! |
Dear Friends!
We had a wonderful workshop in New York City! It was titled:
2016 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict "The Globalization of Dignity"
(representing the 28th Annual HumanDHS Conference)!
All our events are part of an ongoing effort to build a global dignity community.
Thanks!
Linda and I would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to all of you who co-created our 2016 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict representing the 28th Annual HumanDHS Conference! You ALL contributed so that our workshop became a unique and exiting experience!
What a gift it is that Teachers College and the MD-ICCCR give to the world each year with hosting our global dignity workshop! We would like to thank Morton Deutsch, Peter T. Coleman, and Danielle Coon, Founder, Director, and Associate Director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at Teachers College, Columbia University, and their wonderful team, including, among them Drew Pham, Becca Bass, Charlott Macek, and Ljubica Chatman. Morton Deutsch founded this workshop series in 2003 and is our Honorary Convener since then. MD-ICCCR is a co-founder of the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) (since 2009).
We have no words to thank the President of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, together with Portia Williams and Samantha Lu, Joe Levine and Jim Gardner, Sandra Afflick, Kofi Asare, Hua-Chu Yen, Jasmine Ortiz, Kevin Waldron, James Kearney, Sandra Afflick, Jennifer Govan, all at Teachers College, for so kindly making our workshop possible! Allow us to thank in particular the media people, the facilities people, and the security people of Teachers College, who always are there for us!
We also wish to give special thanks to Beth Fisher-Yoshida, PhD, CCS Director and Faculty in the Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program (NECR) at the School of Professional Studies (former School of Continuing Education) at Columbia University, Executive Co-Chair of the Advanced Consortium for Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4) at Columbia University, and Director of the Youth, Peace & Security Program.
We are overwhelmed by the generous support that you all extended, and we would like to express our deep gratitude!
While Morton Deutsch founded this workshop series in 2003, Andrea Bartoli helped design it. He was then the Director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and Chairman of the Columbia University Conflict Resolution Network (CU-CRN). Andrea Bartoli is a Member of the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board since its inception. Also his successor, Aldo Civico, kindly supported this workshop, as did his successor Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who became the President of the International Crisis Group in 2014. In 2009, the CU-CRN was superseded by the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). From 2015, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies (SIWPS) at the School of International and Public Affairs offers courses in specialization in conflict resolution (ICR Concentration).
As always, our very special thanks go to Linda M. Hartling for first setting the frame of appreciative inquiry in Donald Klein's spirit and then, throughout the entire workshop, keeping up the spirit of dignity, and weaving a web of connections, holding us all together!
Rick Slaven courageously stepped into Tonya Hammer's shoes also in this worskhop, since Tonya could not be with us. He was joined by Bonnie Selterman, who most lovingly took over whenever needed! Rick Slaven also always creates a unique atmosphere of humor, modeling our motto of "taking ourselves lightly, even when we take our work seriously." A profound thank-you goes to you, dear friends!
Our gratitude goes to Tonya Hammer for helping to organize our workshop from Oklahoma, even though she could not be with us in New York City! Tonya Hammer kindly accepted our invitation in 2010 to lead the organizing team of this workshop.
This was the second worskhop with Dignigardeners! David Yamada, Michael Britton, Claudia Cohen, Mara Alagic, Karen Hirsch, and Annette Engler kindly offered to hold, guard, and protect the most important goal of our work, namely, to place relationships first and nurture them so that diversity of opinions and conflict can enrich, rather than tear the fabric of the relationships apart. Please see an Introduction into the Dignilogue Sessions Format, created by Linda Hartling on August 12, 2012, for our 2012 Norway Conference, and read more about the Dignilogue format and what it entails. See also Linda's Dignilogue Tips and Dynamic Dignilogue List, created on October 10, 2015, for last year's workshop, and Gabriela Saab's Dignigardener Tips created on December 6, 2016. See, furthermore, our reflections on Appreciative Nurturing.
Our dear Gabriela Saab from São Paulo brought her wonderful friend Mariana Aferraz, who gifted her expertise in the field of video-recording to us. And thank you, dear Noriko Ishihara, for so kindly helping out during our Public Event! On Thursday and Friday, our dear Hua-Chu Yen from Teachers College came by to take lovely photos and snapshot videos.
On Thursday our star-photographer Brandon Scott gave us the privilege of his keen eye! On Thursday and Friday, dear Hua-Chu Yen from Teachers College came by to take lovely photos. Lots of thanks go also to Gabriela Saab and Noriko Ishihara, for taking such beautiful photos as well!
Kathy Goodman and many others stepped forward to be part of our Careholders! And we can always rely on dear Anne Wyatt-Brown for keeping an eye on the timing of our workshop!
We are immensely grateful to all of you for so generously gifting your time and energy to our dignity work!
And what book table we had also this year! Thanks to Uli Spalthoff, our not-for-profit Dignity Press has plublished almost 30 books in the past 3 years!
Our warmest thanks go furthermore to our "moderators of moderators," Phil Brown and David Yamada! David Yamada and Annette Engler moderated the first Dignilogue, and for the second Dignilogue, Michael Perlin and Gabriela Saab stepped wonderfully up to the task!
May we end by thanking the contributors to our Public Event on the afternoon of Thursday, December 9, for their wonderful inspiration! First came Fred Ellis with his students, then we had the privilege of having Michael Perlin and Edna Adan Ismail with us, who shared deep experiences with us, and Sylvain Leroux and Magali Regis rounded up the evening with their amazing Fula Flute! THANK YOU ALL for your great gifts!
Finally, Michael Britton moved us all again deeply on Friday morning with his Don Klein Memorial Lecture that he gives in the place of Don's originally planned lecture titled The Humiliation Dynamic: Looking Back... Looking Forward. Don showed us how to live in awe and wonderment. We will always need your wisdom, dear Don!
And, please join us in celebrating our dear Philip M. Brown, whom we had the privilege of honoring with the 2016 HumanDHS (Half!) Lifetime Achievement Award!
Please join Evelin in expressing deep gratitude to Linda Hartling. Without her wisdom, love, care, and huge investment of time since 1999, when we first met via email, and then, in full intensity, since our first conference in 2003, when we met in person, our network and our conferences would not be there. Please celebrate Linda’s leadership! In November 2008, Linda relinquished her administrative responsibilities at Wellesley College to devote more time in service of HumanDHS as our HumanDHS Director! Rick and Linda moved across the North American Continent and found a physical home for the Pacific Rim Branch of HumanDHS and the first HumanDHS Dialogue Home in Portland, Oregon. Everyone is invited to visit! And please send Linda all of your relevant books to be included in the HumanDHS library! A big BIG thank-you to you, dearest Linda and Rick!
Now, we would like to extend a special thanks to those of you who completed the Appreciative Enquiry note cards at the conclusion of the workshop. As Linda explained, this information is important for us as we begin to reflect on what we could do differently next year and in future years. Your willingness to participate in this process is very important for us, as we very much want this workshop to continue to be a collaborative effort. We extend our warm thanks to each of you for being part of this co-creation.
There is no monetary remuneration involved in our dignity work, including our events. Participants join the workshop because they wish to share their work, their experiences, and their insights. The main point of our work is the nurturing of a global dignity community. Our events are a labor of love, just as is everything else connected with our work. None of us is being paid, including the organizers, there is no traditional fundraising and no profit involved. We share the minimal overhead in a dignity economy approach by everybody contributing according to ability.
Our workshops are upon invitation. You are warmly welcome to contact us if you wish to join us next year in this workshop (December 7 - 8, 2017). Please know that we always invite you to spend the entire two days of our workshop together so that real dignity-family-building can emerge!
Please let us know as early as you can if you wish to join next year, particularly if you feel that you would like to share your experience and work in one of our Pre-Planned Dignilogues. They are often filled up by July. You can always participate in one of the Co-Created Dignilogues, or as a supporter or observer of the Pre-Planned Dignilogues, where you can also actively participate, for example, by using the empty chair in each round table. We usually recommend newcomers to be with us as supporters and observers first, so that they can familiarize themselves with the format, and envision to participate more deeply in future workshops.
For the past decade, we have continuously worked to dignify the traditional institution "conference." Therefore, our events differ from mainstream conferences where speakers are invited and funded by organizers and audiences pay a registration or entrance fee to listen to the speakers. Usually, organizers gather speakers who "market" their knowledge to an audience. We wish to transcend the separation between speakers and audiences and nurture our gatherings in the spirit of what we call Dignilogue (dignity + dialogue).
Let us explain a bit more. In our out-of-NY conferences we use our adaptation of the Open Space approach, and this is what we have dubbed Dignilogue. This format is very open, it means that a conference is self-organizing. In our NY workshop, we tried this in the beginning (like ten years ago), but it turned out that for our NY participants more structure was needed. In 2012, it was the first year that we dared again to leave the workshop to self-organize at least partly. We invited participants to be with us without the ambition to "present" something, so that we all could get a feel for the dignity-family-building work that we wish to nurture first and foremost. So, from 2012 onward, the workshop has been more open and requires our participants to bring themselves as they are, be prepared for everything, and use the flow to contribute in the most nurturing way they can. As background reading you might enjoy "Are College Lectures Unfair?" by Anne Murphy Paul, The New York Times, September 12, 2015.
Since 2012, our afternoons were therefore also more action-oriented than in earlier workshops. Instead of three Pre-Planned Dignilogues, we have only two, and choose to dedicate the afternoons of both days to Co-Created Dignilogues. These Dignilogues focus on topics of interest proposed by the participants. Rather than planning a “presentation,” we encourage everybody to come "unprepared" and enjoy the mutual learning experience of engaging in — or facilitating — authentic, creative conversations that can lead to new ideas and new opportunities for action. Everybody is always invited to send an abstract or a paper they wish to share, either before or after the workshop so we can publish it on this website — or to develop a new paper as it might emerge from the inspiration that the workshop experience brought.
The grand finale of each afternoon is to invite representatives from each Dignilogue to create a Dignivideo, where they document the highlights of their conversation and insights, and more than that, formulate a "message to the world" as it has cristallized in the dignilogue. These videos are treasured contributions to our World Dignity University Library of Ideas that will be shared with the world and will inspire future generations of our community. The aim of this video is "to speak to the world" and offer a message (rather than "report" on what had happened during the Dignilogue).
As mentioned above, we have created a new role in our workshop, namely the role of Dignigardener (dignity and gardener) for each Co-Created Dignilogue. Our Dignigardeners have the responsibility to remind everybody of the "rules" for Dignicommunication (dignity + communication).
We always encourage all participants of our events to nurture mutually dignifying connections with the other participants also after this workshop and to experiment with new forms of "conferencing" wherever you live in the world. The world is in need of new dignified and dignifying solutions and such conferences can be a way to nurture them in ways that protect them from being "hijacked" by old paradigms (such as paradigms of protest that simply end in new dominators taking over).
Dear participant in our workshop! You contributed to bringing dignity and love into our workshop in unprecedented ways! Due to your presence, it was an unforgettable experience! Your contributions spoke to the need to begin with ourselves if we are serious about bringing more dignity into the world. The motto of unity in diversity provides a path toward dignity, and the diversity of expressions that you brought to the workshop, the diversity of ways in which we touched and moved each other, was astounding and deeply touching!
We thank YOU more than words can express!
Evelin & Linda, on behalf of our entire network.
PS: Dearest All! As you know, we would need your permission to place pictures and videos on our website. Please let us know if you would not wish to be included, thanks a lot!
PS II:
Lots of thanks to dear Mariana Ferraz and Gaby Saab for making such wonderful mini-documentaries!
Mini-Documentary of the Annual Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict "The Globalization of Dignity," December 8 - 9, 2016
The 13th Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict took place at Columbia University in New York City, December 8 - 9, 2016. The entire HumanDHS network very much thanks Mariana Ferraz for making this wonderful mini-documentary! Thank you, dear Mariana, and also you, dear Gaby Saab, for inviting so many of us into this documentary, from Janet Gerson to David Yamada, Michael Perlin, Philip Brown, Kebadu Mekonnen Gebremariam, David Yau-Fai Ho! Thank you for the song "A Wonderful World" in the background, the very song that David Yamada brought to us! Linda Hartling is the Director of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) network. Evelin Lindner is the founding president of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network.Interview with Evelin Lindner - Challenges of our Time; Learning to Connect, December 8, 2016
The 13th Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict took place at Columbia University in New York City, December 8 - 9, 2016. We very much thank Mariana Ferraz for making this interview! Thank you, dear Mariana, and also you, dear Gaby Saab, for inviting so many of us into wonderful interviews!
Announcements
Announcement of our Latest News!
What Is the Aim of Our Work?
Please read more in newsletter12.
Messages from YOU
Blog by David Yamada:
• "Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies 2016 Annual Workshop: Building a Community of Caring" (December, 2016)
• In These Anxious Times, Let’s Nurture Our Core Communities and Connections (January 27, 2016)
Welcome Again!
We would like to end this newsletter by thanking you again for all the wonderful mutual support. You contributed so generously, therefore let us give our warmest thanks to ALL OF US! We very much look forward to our upcoming two conferences in 2017!
Please let us know as early as you can if you would like to join us, particularly if you wish to be part of a Pre-Planned Dignilogue in our next Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict in New York City, December 7 - 8, 2017! Thank you!
In the meantime, please be warmly invited to our next HumanDHS conference in Indore, India, in August 2017!
Linda & Evelin, December 2016
2003 – present, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies