PostNormal Times

About PostNormal Times

PostNormal Times is a podcast for our complex reality and unpredictable world—a world where the stakes are high and innovation is crucial. Andrew Vosko, PhD, associate provost and director of transdisciplinary studies at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), and his guests explore ideas that transcend traditional academic boundaries and address our most pressing needs. Get ready to challenge your assumptions.

Publisher

Claremont Graduate University

Category

arts · education · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Aug 2023

Latest episode

1 Nov 2024

Latest episodes

16 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   1 Nov 2024

   Peter Drucker: Transdisciplinary Pioneer

   Host Andrew Vosko sits down with Bernie Jaworski, the Peter F. Drucker Chair in Management and the Liberal Arts at Claremont Graduate University, and Trevor Anthony, a cultural studies PhD fellow at CGU, to discuss Peter Drucker, one of the 20th century’s great unrecognized transdisciplinarians.

2. 

   6 Sept 2024

   Speaking in Codes

   Andrew Vosko and Shamini Dias discuss the intersections of language, discipline, and metacognition in transdisciplinary studies. They explore the complexities of code-switching and the power of metaphorical thinking in shaping institutional perceptions and systems change, emphasizing the importance of fostering empathy and understanding through transdisciplinary literacies and transforming education into a collaborative community of practice. They encourage embracing ambiguity and uncertainty to tackle complex problems and show the need for a more empowering perspective on institutions and their potential for positive change.

3. 

   9 Aug 2024

   Making History Public

   Host Andrew Vosko and guest Romeo Guzmán, assistant professor of history at Claremont Graduate University, discuss the ins and outs of his work in public history, including his work with the South El Monte Arts Posse (SEMAP) and leadership of the Casa Zamora community center.

4. 

   15 Jul 2024

   Tougher Than It Looks?

   0:04: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Patricia Easton, professor of humanities. 1:45: Patricia talks about her tenure overseeing the transdisciplinary studies program at Claremont Graduate University and her background as a philosopher. 4:50: Patricia talks about the evolution of the sciences from natural philosophy into various branches and sub-branches connected by bridge laws. 8:51: Patricia talks about the breakdown of bridge laws in the attempt to connect the sciences to the humanities, such as history, as they were forced to acknowledge the complexity of the material world. 9:57: Andrew and Patricia discuss the role the Second World War played in advancing the need and practice of applied—transdisciplinary—knowledge. 12:28: Andrew considers the roots of transdisciplinarity in Jean Piaget. 14:45: Andrew and Patricia discuss synthesis as a key aspect of transdisciplinary work. 20:16: Patricia discusses her students’ processes for coming to grips with so-called “wicked” problems. 25:00: Patricia discusses a case study featuring the integration of the arts and public health initiatives. 26:48: Andrew and Patricia discuss the arts as knowledge generation. 36:12: Andrew brings up the moral and ethical dimension of transdisciplinary work. 38:08: Patricia talks about the challenges and complexity in achieving work for the public good. 41:55: Andrew talks about the transdisciplinary mindset that results from the recognition of the complexities involved in “wicked” problems, ethical research, etc. 47:47: Andrew and Patricia talk about who put the trans in transdisciplinarity, and why.

5. 

   10 Jun 2024

   Everything is Connected

   0:04: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Jeff Macias, professor of practice at Arizona State University who specializes in supply chains and logistics, and who’s also a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University. 2:11: Jeff describes the concept of interconnectivity and the art and science of supply chains. 4:55: Jeff talks about the bigger picture of supply chains from a strategic perspective and the lessons learned from COVID-19. 6:32: Jeff talks about how he got hooked on supply chains as an undergraduate. 10:15: Andrew and Jeff discuss the pivot toward pro-social concerns and the ethical side of supply chain management. 13:04: Andrew and Jeff discuss the value of transdisciplinarity in supply chain management. 18:31: Andrew and Jeff unpack the term future-proofing. 33:39:  Andrew and Jeff consider the opportunities and challenges posed by AI. 43:45: Andrew and Jeff discuss the role of supply chain management in advancing sustainability.

6. 

   16 May 2024

   When Old Ways Just Won't Do

   0:04: Host Andrew Vosko, associate provost and director of transdisciplinary studies at Claremont Graduate University, welcomes guest Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Singelyn Family Dean of the College of Business Administration and Singelyn Graduate School of Business at Cal Poly Pomona. 1:50: Sandeep describes growing up in India, studying chemical engineering, and how he ultimately changed course into the study of business administration. 4:15: Sandeep discusses beginning his teaching career at the University of Washington Bothell. 5:40: Andrew shares his thoughts on the pressure to conform to trodden paths in graduate school. 7:30: Andrew and Sandeep talk about how they began working in transdisciplinary ways. 10:30: Andrew and Sandeep share transdisciplinary lessons learned from COVID-19, especially about how “correct” knowledge is produced and communicated. 19:00: Sandeep shares his thoughts on how the university may adjust to the breadth of information available in the digital era. 22:15: Andrew and Sandeep discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in a university setting. 35:50: Andrew and Sandeep discuss knowledge formation tangential to the university, including blogs and podcasts. 40:20: Andrew and Sandeep share their thoughts on the importance of the practical application of knowledge in today’s world and the challenges faced by the traditional worlds of academia and academic publishing.

7. 

   14 Dec 2023

   Future-Proofing Your Future

   0:00: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Michelle Bligh, interim executive vice president and provost of CGU and professor of organizational behavior in the Division of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences. 1:30: A Claremontian, Michelle traces her trajectory from an undergraduate at Pomona College to how an anthropology course changed her direction. 4:15: Andrew elaborates on the debt that transdisciplinary thought owes anthropology. 5:30: Michelle describes how a study abroad program led her to a refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, and then into a Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies and then a management PhD. 11:30: Michelle describes how serendipity—the 9/11 attacks—led her back to Claremont. 15:30: Andrew talks about the challenges and opportunities that occur in moments of crisis, when worlds collapse, and how we tend to react. 17:50: Andrew talks about the value of a transdisciplinary education in future-proofing your future. 19:40: Michelle talks about her decision to join CGU. 22:45: Michelle talks about what she learned from her first experience teaching. 24:50: Michelle describes mentoring as a collaboration. 30:45: Michelle describes two noteworthy classes that she has been teaching for over 20 years, including one in leadership/followership, and an MBA course in management she taught at the NEOMA Business School in France with 24 students from 24 different countries. 38:00: Michelle talks about navigating another world collapse after returning to the United States during a heavily charged political moment and having to advocate leadership. 42:30: Andrew talks about the need to embrace complexity when advancing true solutions. 46:00: Michelle talks about making the jump from dean to provost. 49:10: Andrew and Michelle talk about the beauty of imperfect systems. 52:30: Andrew asks if the current crisis of higher education is actually another world collapse. 57:00: Michelle discusses the opportunities presented by world collapse and the possibilities to be extracted through transdisciplinary work for reconfiguring education.

8. 

   4 Dec 2023

   The Great Integration

   0:04: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes his guest, Javier Rodríguez from Claremont Graduate University, who's an associate professor in the Department of Public Policy. 1:00: Javier discusses his academic journey, beginning in Colombia with the study of engineering and bringing him to the study of public policy—with novel and poetry writing on the side. 4:50: Javier talks about coming to UCLA and working across various disciplines, including psychology, computer science, mathematics, and philosophy. 13:00: Javier talks about being driven by an artistic sense of curiosity and even obsession. 18:48: Andrew and Javier discuss the nature of identity in an existential and cognitive sense. 22:42: Andrew and Javier talk about how we simultaneously navigate multiple and often conflicting realities. 27:55: Javier responds to the question of how he developed the mindset and skills for negotiating multiple perspectives or realities. 37:18: Andrew talks about political and practical challenges and the role of transdisciplinary thought in integrating multiple perspectives. 41:00: Andrew and Javier discuss the notion of scientists as politicians. 44:53: Using Javier’s career as an example, Andrew asks how we may foster more boundary-crossing. 51:59: Andrew and Javier attempt to define inequality versus equity.

9. 

   21 Nov 2023

   The Many Lives of a New Librarian

   0:04: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Jennifer Beamer, head of scholarly communications and open publishing services at the Claremont Colleges Library. 2:00: Jennifer discusses the development of her scholarly identity, beginning with the study of textile science, including teaching and studying in Japan and then completing a PhD at the University of Hawaii. 4:40: Jennifer describes getting interested in publishing inside and outside academia. 9:00: Jennifer describes the discipline of library science and the philosophy behind it as servant leadership. 10:45: Jennifer talks about the shock many students encounter when, after leaving their university, they’re no longer able to access their library’s database. She mentions Google Scholar as, if not the best, then the only way to get access to both library works and open publishing works. 11:30: Andrew and Jennifer discuss the open-access publishing movement and how it evolved out of science scholarship. 14:15: They discuss the monopoly that publishers have on scholarly publishing that requires universities to pay millions of dollars in annual subscription fees. 15:53: Jennifer mentions upcoming mandates requiring immediate open publishing for those receiving federal grant money. 17:00: Jennifer looks forward to a national open-access publishing initiative. 18:30: Jennifer describes the very healthy state of academic publishers, who earn billions of dollars under the current structure. 21:00: Jennifer mentions the confusion (and changes) resulting from a recent memo from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and programs from OA2020 and cOAlition S that will make it possible to have open access publishing fees waived for authors. 22:41: Jennifer describes another alternative: open-access repositories. 23:30: Andrew asks if and how these open publishing initiatives change the people who access knowledge, and offers a transdisciplinary systems view on the notion of power in publishing, access, and so on. 28:00: Jennifer mentions issues of access outside of the United States, Canada, and Europe. 29:30: Jennifer mentions the textbook eBook initiative Open Educational Resources, as well as underground open-access platforms. 33:00: In addition to the proliferation of research through social media platforms (such as ResearchGate and LinkedIn), Andrew mentions the expanding opportunities for “academic entrepreneurs” to create knowledge and market themselves through social media. 36:35: Jennifer and Andrew talk about the importance of curating a scholarly identity online. 50:00: Andrew situates this conversation amid the evolving university at large.

10. 

    8 Nov 2023

    On Witches and Wicked Problems

    0:00: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Lori Anne Ferrell, dean of the School of Arts & Humanities. 4:22: Lori Anne describes coming to transdisciplinarity from her background in history, religious studies, and English. 7:10: Andrew connects the value of historians and historians to the importance of temporal thinking. 8:50: Lori Anne and Andrew talk about the humility required of the historian and transdisciplinarian and the danger of assuming that they are wiser and smarter than people of past eras. Lori Anne describes eras of the past as foreign cultures. 11:18: Lori Anne talks about the value of historians in collaborative and business contexts. 13:17: Andrew talks about design thinking and the skill set of the historian. 16:30: Lori Anne elaborates on the value of humanists in entrepreneurial settings and on collaborations with the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. 20:00: Andrew and Lori Anne discuss the integration of the arts and sciences through design thinking. 26:10: Andrew and Lori Anne discuss the challenges of managing new technologies, such as ChatGPT, and the conceptual advantage of humanists. 33:10: Lori Anne and Andrew elaborate on temporal, linear, and cyclical modes of thought, plus the necessity of historical thinking in successful transdisciplinary work. 40:30: Andrew talks about design thinking as a way of managing complexity. 41:18: Andrew talks about the term wicked problems and its centrality to transdisciplinary work. 45:45: Andrew and Lori Anne discuss the need for multiple types of humility: epistemological, axiological, etc., and the kind of humility required for collaborating with those with whom we may disagree. 47:42: Andrew discusses the challenge of collaboration across different points of view as the metaphysics of dilemma. 54:13: Andrew responds to Lori Anne’s question on transdisciplinary thought’s engagement with religion.

11. 

    25 Oct 2023

    Teaching to Transform

    0:00: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes guest Gloria González-Morales, associate professor of psychology in the Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University. 1:41: Gloria describes how she became interested in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies. 5:46: Gloria responds to Andrew’s question as to how she negotiated the culture of the discipline of psychology with her desire to be transdisciplinary. Gloria uses the example of Pablo Picasso as someone who first had to master a certain domain and area of expertise before innovating. 9:09: Andrew talks about the “trans-” prefix in three ways: transcending, transforming, and transgressing. Andrew relates disciplinary knowledge to the way he learned other languages. 12:40: Gloria discusses the importance of travel in her graduate education and work. 14:54: Andrew asks Gloria to compare collaboration in the United States with her international experiences. 17:00: Andrew and Gloria discuss some of the challenges of doing collaborative work in a disciplinary structure. 19:26: Andrew and Gloria consider the million-dollar question: how to transform the university. 21:13: Gloria considers innovation in universities from the perspective of behavioral organization. 25:54: Andrew and Gloria discuss problems with the perceived separation between academia and the “real world.” 31:51:  Andrew talks about how the trend toward specialization has created the need to reassess foundations, foundational learning, and foundational principles. Gloria elaborates on the problems that specialization creates for inclusivity. 34:47: In response to Gloria, Andrew describes a gap in the thinking on inclusivity. 37:10: Gloria describes a student’s dissertation on the distinction between inclusion and belonging. 39:58: Andrew and Gloria exchange ideas on how to approach and cultivate allyship. 42:00: Andrew raises the conflict between the relational and transactional approaches. 44:17: Gloria discusses another student’s dissertation on high-quality connections as opposed to the concept of social exchange. 51:00: Andrew talks about different versions of transdisciplinarity as challenges to the traditional scholarly life.

12. 

    11 Oct 2023

    Superpowers and Allies

    0:00: Host Andrew Vosko welcomes Dionne Bensonsmith, adjunct assistant professor of applied gender studies at Claremont Graduate University and visiting professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. 1:20: Dionne describes her work with the Reproductive Justice Community Institutional Review Board and Mothers on the Frontline, a nonprofit organization focused on children’s mental health. 4:00: Dionne discusses the challenge of reconciling disciplinary rules and requirements in a PhD program with her own needs. 5:48: Andrew talks about identity and professional roles and the need for agility to prepare oneself for multiple jobs and types of jobs in the future. 7:00: Dionne talks about working with new graduate students on identifying their “superpower.” 9:42: Dionne talks about her academic journey as, at first, a student-athlete. 11:58: Dionne talks about her pivot from political science into philosophy and navigating various disciplinary boundaries. 15:00: Dionne talks about her pivot to more personally motivated research. 16:11: Dionne talks about how finding a spot in gender studies (an inherently interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field) allowed her to do research and teaching that was sustainable for her and her family. 18:00: Andrew describes the typical arc—inception to ossification—of a discipline. 19:30: Andrew talks about balancing the institutionalization of a field and dynamic growth. 21:00: Andrew talks about navigating one’s identity in one’s work and the opportunities in opening up new disciplinary spaces. 23:00: Dionne talks about deploying philosophy and philosophical frameworks in the contexts of her work with nonprofits focused on children’s mental health. 25:00: Andrew talks about transdisciplinary work in contrast to the “standing on the shoulders of giants” mode of thought. 27:00: Dionne talks about her entry into transdisciplinary thought via the notion of intersectionality. 30:00: Andrew describes what he calls “disciplinary awareness,” that is, the ability to assess a discipline from a sociological perspective. 32:00: Dionne elaborates on Andrew’s comments on the importance of reflexivity and bridge-building. 36:00: Andrew and Dionne discuss the value of applied knowledge. 37:53: Dionne describes her experience teaching in the Applied Gender Studies program. She talks about the classroom as a transitional place to develop theories toward practical ends. 44:05: Andrew talks about an important skill set for the future—that of the translator. 47:52: Dionne describes an applied gender studies class. 50:00: Dionne talks about humanities students encountering the issues of positionality and ethics in their research. 52:00: Andrew segues to the concept of allyship.

13. 

    5 Oct 2023

    The Llama on the Cow Farm

    Host Andrew Vosko welcomes this episode’s guest, David Maggs, Fellow on Arts and Society at the Metcalf Institute, a Toronto-based institution focused on the performing arts, climate, and poverty reduction. Maggs describes his background at foundations in Canada and Europe, including the Institute for Advanced Studies and Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany, and the trail back to the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Vosko directs the conversation toward the notion of transformative change. Maggs describes growing up in Newfoundland and experiencing the cod moratorium in the 1990s, the collapse of the cod fishing industry, the primary industry for the region. He observes how the historical moment of living through the collapse of a culture has informed him in a variety of different ways. From this example of a “world collapse,” Vosko extracts transdisciplinary notions including “situated knowledge” and “lived experience,” as well as the challenge to metaphysics. Maggs discusses how “world collapse” became more directly biographical in his experience as a professional classical pianist, when, in 2008, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (Canada’s equivalent of the BBC) suddenly ended its subsidy of classical music. Maggs responds to Vosko’s observations about how such crises lead to various choices, including whether to join a new world, create a new world, or adapt oneself to fit into the changing world. Vosko and Maggs discuss the emergent nature and capacity for adapting to different crises via personal transformation and reinvention. Maggs discusses how he went from the art space to the world of sustainability. Vosko relates the notion of world collapse to his own experience growing up in Detroit in the shadow of the American automobile industry crisis and how it related to a “systems understanding” of the world. Maggs details the integration of his arts experience into the study and practice of sustainability. Vosko connects Maggs’ move to the need many have to study things that reflect their values, as well as the potential clash – especially in highly polarized times – with the values of an institution, organization, political movement, or even the discipline itself. Maggs details the integration of art and sustainability science. Noting that he works in two worlds – arts and academia – Maggs expresses concern over the decline in the appetite and capacity for disagreement, and how students are currently under great pressure to conform ideologically and expressively. Vosko and Maggs discuss the capacity to frame questions in generative ways to circumvent dogmatism. Vosko discusses how we are dealing with the residue of modernist philosophy that assumes there are “correct” answers to complex problems, versus emergent ways of thinking. Maggs likens the challenges of the early years working in the arts and sustainability to being a “llama on a cow farm.” Since that time, he observes, there has been an explosion of interest in the role of the arts in addressing complex problems. Maggs identifies the significant factors in moving the needle on sustainability. What exactly is transformative change and how does it happen? Maggs talks about what has been missing from the sustainability equation: the notion of being. Maggs relates the transformative change in Canada to the emergence over the last two decades of indigenous identity among the constituency that had experienced the cod moratorium.

14. 

    26 Sept 2023

    Journeys in Truth-Seeking

    Host Andrew Vosko, associate provost and director of transdisciplinary studies at Claremont Graduate University, welcomes Gwen Garrison, a faculty member in the School of Educational Studies. Garrison describes the characteristics that define her academic path and life journey, including the search for truth and the passion for storytelling – from English literature to data visualization. She also describes her doctorate work at Claremont which included quantitative and qualitative methods, now called mixed methods – in other words, a transdisciplinary approach. Vosko describes his own first steps in understanding different modes of meaning-making as an undergraduate Asian language and literature major. Understanding as a woman the need for advanced degrees to contribute at an executive level, Garrison describes her journey from CGU to Washington DC, how she became part of several large educational associations, and how she now works as a consultant to large national and international organizations. She describes the need to understand administrative data; becoming conversant in economics, political science, sociology, and other disciplines; and opening herself to other ways of seeing. She shares how an encounter with a grandfather clock as a teen gave her a love of challenges as well as an appreciation for the value of humility. Vosko shares his own experience with “epistemic humility” through inter-professionalism and the training of medical students. He asks Garrison about her theological training and the notion of developing and integrating different types of knowledge. Responding to the question of how the data field has evolved over the last decades, Garrison describes working with different types of data. They discuss the challenge of managing change and the "arc of innovation". Vosko and Garrison discuss the need for multiple modes of reception and educational work as co-creation.

15. 

    13 Sept 2023

    Growth Through Challenge

    Host Andrew Vosko welcomes this episode’s guest, Jeremy Hunter, associate professor at CGU’s Drucker School of Management, and executive director and founder of the Executive Mind Leadership Institute. Jeremy summarizes his work at the Institute—and experience in over 20 years of teaching—as helping leaders evolve in a world that is continually changing. Andrew raises the notion of growth through challenge. Jeremy shares his personal challenge in dealing with a diagnosis of a terminal illness at 20. He describes how he refocused his life and channeled his attention in directions that were life-giving, which led him into a range of experiences and interests, from East Asian studies to public policy and urban planning to human development and working with the University of Chicago, and then eventually to Claremont in 1999. Jeremy discusses his recent work, helping people negotiate transitions. He finds human evolution to be the heart of the matter. Andrew connects this to aspects of his home field, neuroscience and the topic of neuroplasticity. Andrew talks about transdisciplinary scholars who have stressed teaching people how to identify their ontological, axiological, and epistemological spaces in order to work collaboratively. Jeremy relates the question of common cause to having a core stance of generosity, finding that we have become far too good at reactivity, such that defensiveness has become the basic posture of conversation in the United States. Andrew and Jeremy discuss different modes of knowledge, including emotional knowledge, that have been ignored by the traditional models of disciplinary scholarship. Jeremy shares his thoughts on work as the ideal training ground for learning, using the everyday challenges of life as opportunities for growth, and the importance of curiosity. They discuss the fundamental weakness of a critical orientation towards the world, as having produced a destructive mindset, which has degraded the value of some scholarship. They discuss transdisciplinarity as an attitude toward the world, and the rigorous integration of multiple modes of knowledge.

16. 

    30 Aug 2023

    Happy Accidents and Boundary Crossing

    What does it mean to become a transdisciplinarian?  It's a journey about building bridges, crossing boundaries, and those important moments in our lives when we can either choose to compartmentalize or connect. Shamini Dias talks with Andrew Vosko about growing up in a Catholic-Buddhist-Muslim culture in Malaysia and being educated at the National University of Singapore, which combined the arts and social sciences in one faculty. Her academic background includes education in anthropological linguistics, semiotics, and early modern literature, while her artistic endeavors included mime, theater, and improvisation as well as writing, painting, and collage. An expert in pedagogy from K-12 to university and graduate school, Shamini talks about the sharp drop-off of artistic identities in grade school: By the sixth grade, once enthusiastic youngsters are embarrassed to say they are artists and have grown fearful of play and risk-taking. Her work in arts integration then involves bringing art, all kinds of arts—theater, drama, painting, collage—into, for example, the science classroom. Andrew and Shamini consider the question of “play as privilege" and discuss multiple approaches to transdisciplinarity, including that being explored at CGU, focused on questions of equity and justice. Integration is finding common ground, or what Basarab Nicolescu called the “included middle.” Andrew notes that the “trans” in transdisciplinary stands for three things: transcending a discipline, transforming oneself, and transgressing orthodoxy. Andrew and Shamini consider the future of the academy and the potential of transdisciplinary thought to transform higher education – to become, perhaps, the new liberal arts for the 21st century.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

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