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Welcome to The New School at Commonweal.
The New School presents conversations, readings, and performances with thought and action leaders of our time. We are a community of inquiry in culture, the arts and sciences, health and the environment, and inner life. Most of our events are free, and so are our podcasts—almost 150 on iTunes and our Library.
For directions to New School events, click here.
To post or find a ride to a New School event, use our Facebook page. Please carpool if possible.
To contact The New School, TheNewSchool@Commonweal.org or 415.868.0970.
Upcoming New School Events
Saturday, June 15
2-4pm
Symbols, Rituals, and Archetypes: Speaking the Language of the Deep Unconscious Mind
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Held at Commonweal. Please register for this event using our online registration system.
The "affective domain" is the learning domain concerned with values, calling, and meaning, and is the basis of authentic community and sustained action and commitment. Affective domain learning is known to be difficult to accomplish within the conventional education model and requires educational strategies and approaches that reach beyond the cognitive and technical boundaries of conventional curricula. Although the affective domain is widely recognized as the foundation of direction, purpose, and deep satisfaction in work and in life—as well as the basis of spiritual hardiness in meeting with obstacles, difficulties, and stress—traditional models of education are not designed to accomplish such learning.
Join Rachel in a conversation with Michael Lerner about education and community building from the perspective of the affective domain.
Rachel Remen, MD, is clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal. She is one of the pioneers of integrative medicine and relationship-centered care. As a clinician, she was a therapist to end-of-life people and their families for more than 30 years. Dr. Remen is the founder and director of The Healer's Art curriculum for medical students, which is now taught in more than half of American Medical schools and medical schools in 7 countries abroad.
Through her CME/BRN programs, Dr. Remen has enabled thousands of physicians to recover a sense of passion, calling, and meaning in their work. She is co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Retreat Program, one of the first integrative care support groups for cancer patients in America, featured in the groundbreaking 1993 Bill Moyer's PBS series Healing and the Mind. Dr. Remen's bestselling books, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal and My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging, have more than a million copies in print and have been published in 21 languages. Dr. Remen has a 60-year personal history of Crohn's disease, and brings the unique perspective of both physician and patient to her work.
Event is free, and donations accepted with gratitude.
Sunday, June 30
2-4pm
The Faraway Nearby
Conversation with Rebecca Solnit and Michael Lerner
Co-presented by The New School at Commonweal and Point Reyes Books
Held at Commonweal. Please register for this event using our online registration system.
Rebecca Solnit is the author of twelve books, including A Paradise Built in Hell, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, River of Shadows, which won the national book Critics Circle award and the Mark Lynton History prize, and Wanderlust. The recipient of a Lannan literary award, she lives in San Francisco.
In her new book, The Faraway Nearby, a fitting companion to her much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, by imagination. In the course of unpacking some of her own stories—of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness—Solnit revisits fairytales and entertains other stories: about arctic explorers, Che Guevara among the leper colonies, and Mary Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein, about warmth and coldness, pain and kindness, decay and transformation, making art and making self. Woven together, these stories create a map which charts the boundaries and territories of storytelling, reframing who each of us is and how we might tell our story.
Event is free, and donations accepted with gratitude.
Sunday, July 7
10am-4pm
Nothing Special: The Mystery of Everyday Life
Day-Long Exploration with Angeles Arrien and Michael Lerner
Held at Commonweal. Registration required for this event using our online registration system. Seats will likely fill quickly.
As a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Angeles Arrien's research and teaching have focused on values and beliefs shared by humanity cross-culturally, and on the integration and application of multi-cultural wisdoms in contemporary settings. In classes, groups, and workshops, she teaches universal components of leadership skills, communication, health care, and education. Her work reveals how indigenous wisdoms are relevant in our families, professional lives, and our relationship with the Earth.
Join us for a day with Angeles and Michael Lerner—where they'll explore her varied and illustrious career, her Basque roots, her life journey and inspirations, what she's doing now, and what is still to come.
Angeles Arrien, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, award-winning author, educator, and consultant to many organizations and businesses. She lectures and conducts workshops worldwide, bridging cultural anthropology, psychology, and comparative religions. Her work is currently used in medical, academic, and corporate environments. She is the president of the Foundation for Cross-Cultural Education and Research. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages and she has received three honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of her work.
Angeles' books include The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary; Signs of Life: The Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them, (Winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award); and The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom, (Winner of the 2007 Nautilus Award for Best Book on Aging). Her recent book, Living in Gratitude: A Journey That Will Change Your Life is a Gold Medal Co-Winner of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY Award) in the category of Inspiration and Spirituality.
Event is free, and donations accepted with gratitude.
Friday, July 12
2-4pm
Ilene Serlin, PhD
In Conversation with Michael Lerner
Part of the End-of-Life Conversations Series
Held at Commonweal. Registration using our online registration system.
Ilene A. Serlin, Ph.D, BC-DMT is a psychologist and registered dance/movement therapist in San Francisco and Marin. Past-president San Francisco Psychological Association, FellowAPA, past-president Division of Humanistic Psychology, she taught at Saybrook University, Lesley University, UCLA, the NY Gestalt Institute and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. Editor of Whole Person Healthcare (2007, 3 vol., Praeger) over 100 chapters and articles on body, art, and psychotherapy, she is on the editorial boards of PsycCritiques, American Dance Therapy Journal, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Arts & Health: An International Journal of Research, Policy and Practice, Journal of Applied Arts and Health, and The Humanistic Psychologist.
Fragrance-free events: Please refrain from wearing perfumes and colognes when attending events so that those who are sensitive to chemicals may also attend.
Handicap accessibility: Commonweal Gallery is on the second floor and is not wheelchair accessible.
Getting to Commonweal
The New School events are held in the main Commonweal building at 451 Mesa Road, Bolinas, CA 94924, unless otherwise noted. A sign on the front door will lead you to either the Library or the Gallery, depending on the size of the event.
Download a map (PDF) with driving directions to Commonweal.
Click here for driving directions from Google.
We request that you carpool, if possible, to help with parking congestion (and pollution). Click here to get to our ride share page (password: thenewschool).