Coming to our senses: Complexity, Spirituality, and Thrivability in the Anthropocene

A Wally B. Redekop Lecture Series on Peace and Development

DATE: June 1, 2023
TIME: 7 pm EST
IN PERSON: Saint Paul University Amphitheatre (Room 1124)
ONLINE: On Zoom

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With guest Dr. Naresh Singh, Professor and Vice Dean, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, India and Director, Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality, and Public Policy. JGU.

Naresh Singh will build on Wally Redekop’s outstanding contributions in international development cooperation while working for CIDA (1971 to 2006) in China and elsewhere. Wally’s work, while focused on food and agriculture, exemplified ways of helping others thrive under challenging circumstances by moving from fragmented projects to a more systemic approach. The social ecological challenges now facing the world and indeed civilization as we know it have both improved and become worse at the same time since Wally’s work. This lecture will advance some relatively new ideas in the peace and development context, which might have the potential for much needed fundamental transformations. These ideas draw from the newer sciences of complexity, quantum physics, psychiatry, and neuroscience as well as the mystical dimensions of the world’s major wisdom traditions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism into a systems framework incorporating applied spirituality to address the problems of the Anthropocene.

Wally Redekop was engaged in international agricultural development work for 43 years, beginning in Tanzania for 7 years and ending in China for 15 years. Wally had a global impact on the evolution of agricultural policies and practices, often identifying creative improvements that would make systemic changes. In 1998, he received the International Recognition Award from the Agriculture Institute of Canada and in 2003 he received the Friendship Award from the Premier of China.