I completed a doctorate in History of Religion at Columbia University in 1972. I have taught at New York University, Hunter College, SUNY Purchase College, and Western Connecticut State University, and am now retired. I periodically give talks, lecture series and classes in local libraries, museums, churches, yoga centers, and other venues on topics related to spiritual practices and their artistic, philosophical, and ethical expressions.
At Purchase College, I led a student summer study abroad program on Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy, Art, and Culture at Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India.
Here are descriptions of some of the courses I developed and taught recently at WCSU:
Art and Death
We explore emotions, views, and questions about death and dying through visual arts, film, and literature. We consider how artistic representation can help us articulate our own emotions, views and questions about death, and how art can help examine our relationship to mortality.
Indigenous Spirituality & Environmental Action
We are in an historic time in the fight for the health of our environment, water and food supply. The cultures of indigenous peoples are embedded in distinctive ecosystems where they have long lived sustainably, in the case of Australian aborigines for 50,000 years. Their cultural survival threatened by colonization and globalization, many have become forceful activists in challenging environmentally invasive practices, as in the Standing Rock protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. As we consider environmental threats to our own survival and way of life, can we learn anything from indigenous cultures’ relationship to and spiritual valuing of their habitats? This course explores several indigenous cultures, the environmental challenges they face, their environmental actions, and the views and actions opposing them.
Approaches to Well-Being in Indo-Tibetan Philosophy
India’s Vedic, Samkhya-Yoga, Buddhist and Tantric philosophies offer insightful analyses of the mind and body and the art of living. Their approaches include introspective practices for developing clearer awareness of one’s own mind and health in a way that increases one’s awareness of other minds and lives. Elements of these philosophies and practices are being incorporated into western medicine, psychology and healing arts. This course focuses on the classical texts and their contemporary applications.
Buddhist Philosophy
This course examines the historical layers of Buddhist philosophy, beginning in India with Buddha’s teachings as they were recorded in the Pali canon, followed by the Mahayana Madhyamaka and Yogacara philosophies, and by the development of these philosophies outside of India, in Zen and Tibetan Vajrayana and contemporary engaged Buddhism. The focus is on the practical, ethical, psychological and logical grounding of Buddhist philosophy, and includes contemporary applications in ecology and neuroscience.
contact: suzannepotterironbiter@gmail.com