Poetics of Imagination
A Week End Course, In Collaboration with Proposition Studios
23-24 August 2025
Proposition Studios, London
Tickets: £30
Is it true that myths are stories that ‘never were but always are’? Is poetry the natural speech of the imagination? How and why does it weave connections and relationships with the more-than-human? Why is wisdom like water? What is the cosmic meaning of human action in an entangled universe?
This short course explores the poetic imagination as a unique pathway into learning what makes us, as humans, deeply and creatively interwoven with the more-than-human universe. Delving into timeless resources of myth, poetry, story and wisdom traditions, we will draw from their unique goodness and enduring relevance and unleash the extraordinary energy and astonishing insights they still have to offer to our contemporary situations.
Offered in the convivial spirit of Schumacher College education and in collaboration with the vibrant artistic community of Proposition Bethnal Green, this course presents a unique opportunity to explore, learn with and creatively respond to the resources of the poetic imagination with curiosity, openness and care.
No previous experience is necessary: we welcome artists, deep thinkers, writers, storytellers, songwriters, activists, practitioners, dreamers and all others, from all backgrounds and all paths in life.
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24 September 2025, 8-9.30pm / Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 6EL
Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar is the Founder of Schumacher College in the United Kingdom. He was Editor of Resurgence magazine for 40 years. This magazine was described by the Guardian newspaper as “the artistic and spiritual flagship of the Green Movement”.
A former Jain monk, Satish Kumar went on an international pilgrimage for peace. He, with a friend, walked 8000 miles from New Delhi to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington. Along the way he met Bertrand Russell and Martin Luther King. Satish is the author of ten books including his autobiography, No Destination. Other books include Elegant Simplicity, Soil, Soul, Society and Radical Love. Satish is a lifelong activist in the cause of environmental sustainability, social justice and world peace. He is the recipient of Goi Peace Prize 2022.
Dr Iain McGilchrist
Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press.
