Fall 2004 Core Participant Workshop
On October 22nd and 23rd, New Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion core participants gathered together in Santa Barbara to discuss their research and to launch their collaborative scholarly endeavor. The event was a successful combination of intellectual and personal exchange, allowing scholars to get to know one other and to better understand each other’s work. For video and text copies of core participant interviews conducted during the workshop, click here.
On the first day of the workshop, participants gathered at Santa Barbara’s Upham Hotel in order to start building “connective tissue” for the project. The specific objective for this day was to become acquainted with each other's research, and the participants shared their personal history and professional experience to accomplish this goal. A brief round of introductions revealed that the New Visions core participants come from a wide field of academic disciplines, including physics, history, medicine, biology, genetics, ethics, geography, religious studies, theology, anthropology, environmental science, ecology, and chemical engineering. 
After these introductions, each participant discussed the work of a colleague, inviting other participants to speak to how it might function in relation to one or more of the five visions of nature—evolutionary nature, emergent nature, nature as malleable, nature as sacred, and nature as culture—that this project considers. These discussions focused on background readings each core participant supplied. Activities were punctuated by breaks, during which each core participant completed a video interview concerning her or his thoughts on nature, science, and religion, the five metaphors for nature considered in the program, and interdisciplinary collaboration. These video interviews will soon be made available, in video and text format, on this website.
Core participants commented on the variety of interests that were represented in the room and the ambitious nature of the project, and considered processes and outcomes by which an interdisciplinary project of this nature might prove most fruitful. 
On Saturday, the group reconvened to begin work on establishing a shared vision for their collaborative research and writing. The day began with an overview presentation by Dr. Jim Proctor on the five visions of nature included in the program, and opportunities and obstacles related to bridging these visions. This stimulated lively discussion on the merits and limitations of each metaphor for nature, and more generally the sort of framework in which they ought collectively to be assessed.
As an exercise in exchanging interests, core participants moved from the Upham Hotel conference room to the garden to focus on small group discussion for the remainder of Saturday morning. Each participant was involved in two different groups of five or six members. Small group discussion emphasized several core issues, including strategies to compare the five visions and/or bring them together, concepts of emergence and their relationship with the other visions of nature, contemporary policy and ethical issues related to visions of nature, the significance of geographical/historical context and scale on interpreting visions of nature, and the importance of humility in seeking "new" visions of nature. These breakout group themes were further discussed after lunch. 
In the final section of the workshop, each participant was asked to briefly describe how his or her contribution to the volume could be supplemented or enhanced by working with another participant. Participants were encouraged to identify new connections which they may not have explored or realized before the workshop. These connections were graphically visualized as a complex network linking core participants as nodes. The workshop closed with creative brainstorming on the projected outcomes of the New Visions core participant program, including a public conference spring 2006, a published volume of collected essays, and perhaps other outcomes including public forums and art events.
It was a long two days, but a good beginning. New Visions core participants will occasionally publish drafts of their work for public consumption and feedback on this website as their collaboration continues; the next scheduled workshop is for fall 2005.