Reclaiming Wildness: Introductory Lecture

Part of the Visiting Scholar Series

Fall 2025 Visiting Scholar Jeanine Canty

Within this introductory talk with Fall 2025 Visiting Scholar Jeanine M. Canty, her first event at The New School as Visiting Scholar, we look at dualities within the western human’s psyche to reclaim our ecological and transpersonal identities and to access pathways for healing.

Jeanine M. Canty, PhD, is a visionary scholar whose groundbreaking work illuminates the profound connections between consciousness, thought, and our relationship with the natural world. Her teaching weaves together social justice, ecological wisdom, and transformation. As a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and guest professor at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Naropa University, Jeanine has developed and shared her deep understanding of how mind and spirit intersect with ecological healing. Her acclaimed Nautilus Book Award-winning work Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet, demonstrates how spiritual alienation from the earth creates the narcissistic patterns plaguing our society and social landscape. Her integration of contemplative practice with rigorous scholarship—drawing from Buddhist philosophy and transformative learning—offers tools for expanding our worldviews to heal our inner landscapes and our planet. Artwork: Raina Gentry

Listen (audio only)

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Jeanine M. Canty, PhD

Jeanine is a professor of transformative studies at CIIS, telecommuting from Boulder, Colorado. Formerly the chair of environmental studies at Naropa University, she continues to guest teach at Naropa and at Pacifica Graduate Institute. A lover of nature, justice, and contemplative practice, her teaching intersects issues of social and ecological justice, ecopsychology, and the process of worldview expansion and change. She is author of Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet and her most recent edited book is an expanded, second edition of Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices (2025).