GREENBERG Presentations

ARCHIVED BLOG:  http://art-and-organism.blogspot.com/ 

NEIL GREENBERG

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS



2022 – Creativity  Sunday Sanctuary Sermon. Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​.  The sanctuary is the bastion of creativity.  November 13. 


2021 –  Art & Organism: Canonical Content Meets Personal Meaning. in: Proceedings of the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology, Jerusalem, Israel (virtual conference)


2020 –  Personal and Shared Meaning in the Phenomenologically-informed Classroom. 12th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy, Virginia Tech., Blacksburg VA   [LINK]


2018 – A Natural History of Embodied Cognition : Problems of Consciousness.  June 22.  Gene Hise Philosophical Society / ORICL  and 8th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech.    [LINK]

​​This presentation outlines the biological foundations of human behavior as manifest in the emerging field of “embodied cognition.”  Framed by “existential phenomenology,” we will look at two human experiences that stand out: “transformative learning” and its immediate context, “the teachable moment.” .
 

2017 – The Art and Science of Teaching – The DEEP Dialectic.  February 16.  9th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech.

​​In recent years, looking beneath the surfaces of art and science as cultural constructs as well as adaptive human behavioral patterns has established that the best expressions of intention and motivation in any human activity, not least teaching, involves their necessary interactivity. The emerging appreciation of phenomenology in the classroom as well as the growing interdisciplinary disposition of researchers and scholars has enabled powerful new teaching tools that had been formerly hidden in plain sight. In our practice session, we will explore how the power of these aspects of consciousness are represented in the intentionality and expression of individual committed teachers.
 

2016 – The Teachable Moment – session on classroom practice.  February 10.  8th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech.

​​Session on Practice.  The “Teachable Moment” represents the convergence of developmental, ecological, evolutionary, and physiological phenomena with the lived experience of the student.  Specific phenomenological teaching methods can be a powerful way for instructors to influence this process. (view paper)

 


2015 – Levels of Organization and Consciousness.  October 05,   University of Tennessee, Graduate Class in Art.  Art and Architecture Building.

​Different “levels” of consciousness are deployed for different adaptive needs.  For example, the relative contributions of specific cognitive functions to a state of consciousness such as creative “flow” is unique in its recruitment of “intuitive” functions.


2015 – Biomorphic Art and Architecture – Design with Nature.

April 14, 2015    Ijams Nature Center.  ​Science Café (a project of WGBH Science Unit in association with Sigma Xi.)

“Scientific, cultural, and spiritual connections between McHarg’s landmark work in architecture will be linked with the work of other visionaries: The talk will be richly illustrated from (1) Ernst Haeckel’s “Art Forms of Nature” (1899-1904) and its encouragement of an aesthetic, holistic vision of art and science based on his seminal research on oceanic microorganisms, and (2) the architecture of Antoni Gaudí, whose world-heritage architecture was deeply informed by and continually expresses his love and study of nature (spiritually manifest in his huge Sagrada Familia (basilica) in Barcelona (1883-contiunuing today).”

PPT Presentation


2015 – Teaching Conservatives, Liberals, and Libertarians – conversation session.   7th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech  February 05.

​This presentation is a component of the “Ethology in the Classroom” project.
Details


2015 – Patterns in Transformative Pedagogy: Ethological Perspective.  February 04,  7th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech

​TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING describes the student experience of a paradigm shift from merely knowing course content to realizing its relevance in their personal and professional lives.  Instructors can facilitate this process with phenomenolkogical methods that enable students to find connections between personal lived experience and course content.  This study will provide clues about how phenomenologically-informed pedagogy works to enhance student experience.   Poster PDF


2014 – Berochot.  December 07

Berochot Word Document


2014 – Mystics, Mysteries, and the Limits of Scientific Understanding. Presentation for East Tennessee chapter of The American Chemical Society.  Slideshow  November 25, University of Tennessee, 472 Buehler Hall​


2014 – Educational Neuroscience: Progress report on the application of neuroscience theory to the practice of educators. 

June 11, ​College of Education, Bailey


2013 – Science and Spirituality.  

March 23  Everett Senior Center,  Maryville, Tennessee​

​For the Foothills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship​


2014 – A Transformational Twist on Learner -Centered Teaching: Experience and Existential Phenomenology.  

February 05,  6th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech

​Component of “Listening to Experiences” project.


2013 – Nirvana in the Brain; Pathology and Spirituality  

December 08, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church


2013 – Day of the Dead and a Celebration of Life.  

November 03, ​Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN

​A Worship Service presentation by Small Group Ministry #13​


2013 – Fingerprints of God: The Search for a Science of Spirituality.  October 15,  Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church​, Knoxville, TN  ​As part of a series of 8 discussions/lectures


2013 – Educational Neuroscience: Progress report on the application of neuroscience theory to the practice of educators.  College of Education, Bailey Education Complex, Knoxville, TN    ​Seminar for LS 671: Advanced Learning Theory


2012 – What are Dreams?  November 27, Ijams Nature Center Visitor Center   Discussion based on NOVA documentary “What are Dreams?” Presented by STKF Science Cafe. Science Cafe is a project of WGBH Science Unit in association with Sigma Xi.


2012 – Neuroscience and Spirituality: God in the Brain.  

October 15, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​

 This presentation is a component of 8 lecture/discussion sessions​.

2012 – Neuroscience and Religion: the Emerging Dialogue.

September 02, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​

​The presentation also serves as an introduction to a prospective Adult RE Course.


2012 – Bearden HS Science Club, March 28


2011 – The Deep Biology of Intuition in Cognitive Education, 

July 13, Biannual meeting of International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology​, Boston, MA


2011 – Is God in the Brain? – Part 2: Implications for Mind-Spirit Dualism. 

May 01. Second Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, TN​  ​

Part of series “Faith, Science, and the Future”


2011 – To be “One with Everything”

March 11, Roane State Community College

ORICL Philosophical Society meeting. Part of two lecture series​. The poet, Wendell Berry, observed that “All creatures…dance…to music so humble and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.” Can such fragments be “reassembled?” Why should we want to?


2011 -Reality Testing: from “Neural Cascade to Consciousness”

March 09,  Austin Peay Department of Psychology​

​Behavioral Brown Bag Seminar


2011 – Is God in the Brain? – Part 2  

February 13, 2011     Second Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, TN​

​Part of series “Faith, Science, and the Future”


2010 – Is God in the Brain? – Part 1

Date: October 19,  ​Second Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, TN

​Guest classroom presentation for “Psychology of Religion”


2010 – Songlines,  

April 11, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​

​The poet, Wendell Berry, observed that “All creatures…dance…to music so humble and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.”


2010 – A New Age of Revelation: The Spiritual Depths of Science,

March 16, Seniors for Creative Learning (SCL), Knoxville, TN

Science is the greatest engine of spiritual development we know. St Thomas would agree.​


​​2010 – Modes of Reality-Testing in the Brain and Cognitive Education,

Feb 5, International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology, North American Regional Conference, San Diego, California​


2009 – God in the Brain

September 22, 2009

Guess classroom presentation for “Psychology of Religion”


 2009 – The Natural History of Truth: The Neurobiology of Belief,

July 20, MetaNexus Institute annual conference, Phoenix, AZ​

As part of “Cosmos, Nature, Culture: A Transdisciplinary Conference”​


2009 – A New Age of Revelation 

May 10,  ​St.Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, Farragut, TN​


2009 – The Natural History of Intuition 

Date: May 03, 2009 St.Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, Farragut, TN​


2009 – The War Between Truth and Reality.  

March 12, Seniors for Creative Learning, Knoxville, TN

​Where does one find the “truth?” In the course of the talk I will outline the biological significance of the truth and the needs that it serves. We will consider instinct and intuition and contrast three “species” of knowing: agnosia, gnosia, and hypergnosia.​


2009 – The War Between Reality and Truth,

March 1, The Rationalists of East Tennessee​, meeting at Pellissippi State Technical Community College​

 This presentation explores the idea of “truth” as something that humans need but can never possess. Our perception of truth involves the outcome of two vital biological processes which impart more-or-less confidence in our belief about some reality. In the course of the talk I will outline the scaffolding and successive approximations that pass for truth — the neurobiological events that underlie these efforts, the forces that effect their integrated functions, and what happens when they become dysfunctional.


2009 – Mystics, Mysteries, and the Limits of Scientific Understanding.

February 04, 2009  ​Roane State Community College

​A lecture series of 10 presentations for ORICL. Last 8 sessions to be presented collaboratively by members of the University Studies Interdisciplinary Colloquy on Spirituality and Critical Inquiry.​


2008 – Natural History of Narrative

November 24, 2008.  Black Cultural Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville​

As part of the interdisciplinary symposium “Academic Evolution and Hybridization: The Sciences and the Arts,” presented by the Interdisciplinary Colloquy on History and Philosophy of Science and Technology​.  PRESENTATION DRAFTS and NOTES


2008 –The Neuropsychology of Belief

Date: October 15, 2008    Austin Peay Department of Psychology​, Behavioral Brown Bag Seminar​


2008 Can Spirituality be Defined?

October 08,  UT University Center​

University Studies Interdisciplinary Colloquy on Spirituality and Critical Inquiry​


2008 –Neuropsychology of Social Stress: From Social Agnosia to Subclinical Stress

June 10, UT Medical Center, Knoxville, TN​ ​Graduate School of Medicine, Grand Rounds.

the neurobehavioral bases for “diagnostic intuition” compared to “evidence-based medicine”


2008 – Freedom

Date: April 27, 2008

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2008 – The War That Wasn’t: Science and Religion in 19th Century America

Date: April 06, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2008 – Science and Spirituality: An Essential Tension

Date: April 02, 2008     Time: 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM  Roane State Community College​

A series of four lectures


2008 – Science and Spirituality.  

February 17, 2008.  Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​

 

2008 – The Beasts in Our Brain.

January 14,  College of Education​


2007 – The Natural History of Intuition

Date: October 25, 2007   Knoxville Public Library, Murphy Branch​  Time: 4:00 PM

Evolutionary and cultural background to our relationship with ancestors or contemporary species that resemble ancestors.  The status of “The Triune Brain” concept of Paul D. Maclean.

 

2008 – The Beasts in Our Brain: Making a Virtue of Necessity

October 07, Art Gallery of Knoxville​, presentation to accompany opening of show of the work of Beauvais Lyons

A psychodynamic approach to why we consider hybrids of humans and animal ancestors that have traits, scraps of which are recognized in ourselves.  Evolutionary and cultural background “The Triune Brain” concept of Paul D. Maclean.

2007 – From Unintentional Modeling to Intentional Mediation: An Ethological View of Teaching

July 02,  International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology, XI Biennial International Conference, Knoxville, TN​


2007 – Truth and the Brain: Confidence in Beliefs

May 21,  Knoxville Area Psychological Association​, Cherokee Facility


2007 – The Evolutionary Biology of Religion

May 01,   ​for the Sertoma Club of Knoxville, Greenhills Grill


2007 – The Evolutionary Biology of Religion

Date: April 20, 2007     Time: 12:00 PM   Greenhills Grill​   Sertoma Club​


2007 – The Evolutionary Biology of Belief   

Date: April 20, 2007    Oak Ridge Philosophical Society​ Time: 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM   Roane State Community College​


2007 – The Natural History of Creativity

Date: March 09, 2007     Time: 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM   Roane State Community College​   ​Oak Ridge Philosophical Society


2007 – Proteus: Ernst Haeckel’s Holistic vision: Reconciling Irreconcilables in Science and Art.   

March 02, Presentation for the “Documentaries in the UT Library Program,”  Lindsay Young Auditorium, University of Tennessee​


2007 – Free Spirits and Spiritual Slaves

Date: January 07, 2007     Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2006 – Revelation and the Revealed

Date: September 24, 2006     Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2006 – The Infinite Mind: The Science of Winning

September 13, 2006,  Radio conversation with Howard Bloom, ​WUOT/PBS Radio Series


2006 – Mystery Demystified: The Existential Tension Between Science and Spirituality

Date: May 07, 2006     Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM  Tennessee valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2006 – The Natural History of Intuition,  ​IONS – One Heart Vision Medical Education Symposium,Institute of Noetic Sciences and Bastyr University, Kenmore, WA​

March 21, major presentation for continuing medical education series at Bastyr University  SLIDES

 

2006 – The Centaur and the Self

Date: March 13, 2006     Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM  College of Architecture and Design, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN​


2006 – The Biological Background to Intuition

Date: January 19, 2006     Time: 3:30 PM   University of Tennessee College of Nursing​


2006 – The Grand Illusions: Perception, Rationality, and Free Will

Date: January 15, 2006     Time: 10:00 AM  Forum fot Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2005 – The Natural History of Miracles and Myths

Date: November 13, 2005     Time: 12:00 PM  Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2005 – Truth and the Brain: How the Brain Serves Our “Needs to Know”

Date: October 07, 2005     Time: 11:00 AM  Roane State Community College​   Oak Ridge Philosophical Society​​


2005 – Living in Fragments and the God of the Gaps

Date: August 28, 2005     Time: 9:45 AM   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church​


2005 – Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?! The Natural History of the Self

Date: May 26, 2005     Time: 12:20 PM   Silver Spoon Restaurant, Farragut, TN​   ​Optimist Club of West Knoxville (OCWK)


2005 – The Intuitive Self

Date: April 10, 2005     Time: 9:45 AM   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2004 – Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?! The Natural History of the Self

Date: March 24, presentation to ​Oak Ridge Forum on Religion and Science, Grace Covenant Church, Oak Ridge, TN​

 

2005 – Qi, Art, Science, and the Brain

Date: February 27, 2005     Time: 9:30 AM  Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2005 – Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?! The Biology of the Self

Date: February 20, 2005     Time: 9:30 – 10:30 AM   St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Maryville, TN​


2005 – The Birth and Troubled First Years of Sociobiology

Date: February 02, 2005, presentation to the E.O. Wilson Study Group, University of Tennessee Library​

 

2005 – The UT Environmental Semester

Date: January 20, 2005, University Studies Centripetal: History and comprehensive overview of the development of the University-wide University Studies project    Time: 12:00 PM   University Center Executive Dining Room​


2005 – Deep Ecology: The Real Agenda

Date: January 19, ​College Scholars Seminar     Time: 4:40 PM   Humanities and Social Sciences Building, Knoxville, TN​

 

2004 – The Brain and the Artistic Impulse: The Evolution of Extracorporeality Part 2

Date: November 14, 2004     Time: 9:30 AM   Tennessee Valley unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2004 – Truth in the Brain: the Neurobiology of Belief 

November 01,   Major presentation for “Consciousness Reframed,” The 2004: Sixth International Research Conference, Beijing, China​ “Truth in the Brain: the Neurobiology of Belief”Consciousness Reframed 2004: Sixth International Research ConferenceBeijing, November 2004  [The Planetary Collegium]October 4, 2004.


2004 – The Biology of Beauty

Date: October 04, 2004   Gardener’s Forum​


2004 – Science and Religion: Sibling Rivalry and Reconciliation

Date: September 16, 2004

​This presentation was given to the Knoxville Ministerial Association.


2004 – The Brain and the Artistic Impulse: The Evolution of Extracorporeality Part 1 

Date: August 29, forum presented to Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN.​


2004 – Checking In

Date: March 28, 2004, Sanctuary Service at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​   Sermon given by Small Group Ministry #13


2004 – Truth and the Brain: The Natural History of Belief

Date: March 28, 2004     Time: 9:30 AM, Forum presentation to Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2003 – Truth, Reality, and the Brain, part 2

Date: December 14, 2003, Forum (part 2) presented for ​Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​​


2003 – Truth, Reality, and the Brain, part 1

Date: November 09, 2003, Forum (part 1) presented for ​Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​​


2003 – Science and Religion: Sibling Rivalry and Reconciliation

September 29, Annual Lecture in “Community Conversations” series at Maryville College, Maryville, TN​


2003 – Truth, Reality, and the Brain

Date: September 14, 2003


Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2003 – Alternate Paths to Epiphany

Date: September 14, 2003     Time: 9:30 AM   ​Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN


2003 – The Natural History of Mystical Experience: Ecstasy, Epiphany, and Addiction

Date: January 26, 2003     Time: 9:30 AM     Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church​, Knoxville, TN


2002 – Deep Ethics: Neuroethics and the Natural History of Compassion

Date: November 07, 2002   Animals and Human Welfare​


2002 – Creativity and Play

Date: November 05, 2002   Presentation for Honors Seminar​


2002 – Ethological Analysis of Teaching

Date: October 17, 2002   Educational Psychology Graduate Seminar​


2002 – God in the Brain

Date: April 07, 2002   ​Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​​


2002 – Brain Evolution and Behavior

Date: April 02, 2002   Evolutionary Psychology Seminar​


God in the Brain

Date: March 03, 2002   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​​​


2001 – The Natural History of Self and Selflessness

Date: November 04, 2001   Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​​​


2001 – The New Neurobiology and Concepts of the Self

Date: November 02, 2001   University Studies Colloquy on Evolution and Culture​


2001 – Ethics of Human Animal Interactions

Date: September 04, 2001     Time: 11:10 AM   UT College of Nursing, Knoxville, TN​


2001 – Science and Religion: Sibling Rivalry and Reconciliation

Date: August 09, 2001


2001 – Science and Religion: Sibling Rivalry and Reconciliation

July 22,


2001 – Truth and Beauty

July 01, Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


2001 – Animals and Human Welfare 

June 01, 2001


2000 – Causes and Consequences of the Stress Response

January 03, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting​​, Chicago, Illinois​


2000 – Found Guilty: Narrative, Morality, and Self-Consciousness

August 23,  Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, University of Wales College, Newport​

Portion of a panel presentation by the University Studies Interdisciplinary Collloquy on Narrative at the international conference “Consciousness Reframed 2000”


2000 – The Natural History of Creativity

Date: July 11, 2000  ​ORICL


2000 – Poetry: The Language of the Soul?

Date: June 25, 2000   Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, Tennessee​


1999 – The Beast at Play and the Neuroethology of Creativity

Date: September 17, 1999  Knoxville, TN​

Conference on Imaginative Play and the Brain, University Studies program in collaboration with the International Play Association​


1999 – Mind and body: Cognitive Neurobiology of Creativity

Date: June 21, 1999   Calgary, Canada​   Seventh International Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Education​


1999 – The Wounded Healer

Date: June 11, 1999   Conference on “Creative Genus and Madness,” Radford University, Virginia​

​Continuing Professional Education meeting for behavioral health professionals​  [LINK]


1999 – Consilience

Date: April 25, 1999   Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, Tennessee​


1999 – Narrative Correspondences and the Organ of Coherence.
February 04, National conference on “Narrative and Consciousness: Literature, Psychology and the Brain,” Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX​   ​Portion of a panel presentation by the University Studies Interdisciplinary Colloquy on Narrative [LINK]

1999 – Against the Grain: The Natural History of an Interdisciplinary Faculty Development Program.

January 21, Seventh American Association for Higher Education Conference on Faculty Roles and Rewards, San Diego, CA​​


1998 – The Physiological Ethology of Creativity.

July 08, 10th Annual Conference, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, University of California, Davis​


1999 – Mindless Power and the Powerless Mind.

April 16, University of  Tennessee, Knoxville​, Annual meeting of the Society for Values in Higher Education: Stewardship and Opportunism: The Moral Roots of Accountability​


1998 – Mind of Centaur.

University Studies Interdisciplinary Centripetal, Annual Update on Centaur Scholarship. University Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN April 1


1998 – Dreams R Us.

January 11, 1998, Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​


Teaching, Learning.

April 20, West High School, Knoxville TN

Annual Retreat in Townsend, TN​


1993 – HOAXES as Catalyst for Critical Inquiry

University of Tennessee, Knoxville​


1992 – Learning, Thinking, Creating.

March 24, Ellington Plant Sciences Building, University of Tennessee, Knoxville​


1988 – By Words the Mind is Winged.

January 24, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, TN​

 

1984 – Science and Technology as Human Endeavors 

October 27, Panel Presentation with John Abel, Joint Conference of the Association of General and Liberal Studies and the Association for Integrative Studies, San Francisco​