Arrival in Munich

Munich Airport

After an overnight flight, I arrived in Munich at about 1:00 pm local time on Tuesday.  The time zone here is 7 hours ahead of Central Time in the U.S.  I'm typing this at 3:20 am, feeling both exhausted and wide awake...

Philipp

On the train to Ottobrunn (where the conference is being held), I met a charming young Bavarian gentleman named Philipp, and his girlfriend Stefania, who is from New Zealand.  Philipp is working on his Master's in Theoretical Physics, with an an emphasis on mathematical approaches, and Stefania is studying to be a multilingual interpreter.  Philipp is looking forward to visiting the United States, and perhaps to work on his Ph.D. there.

We talked about the Syrian refugees.  Philipp is frustrated that other European nations aren't helping more with the massive influx of migrants.  He is especially upset with Hungary, which has closed its border with Serbia, where the Syrians have been entering.  Philipp described the Hungarian government as "brownish," a pejorative German expression indicating "extreme right wing," and drawing from the cultural memory of Hitler's brownshirts - the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party.

At Munich Airport, I asked at an information desk what I could do to help with the refugee situation in the city.  The attendant told me that there is a great need for volunteers at the Munich Train Station, where people are being asked to go and "roll up their sleeves."  I hope to find a block of time when I can go and do that, and perhaps bring other conference-goers with me.

According to the conference organizers, cosmopolitan communication has something to do with using communication at multiple levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, systemic)  to "promote real health, create ecologically sustainable organizations, and to build sustainable, peaceful societies."

What forms would cosmopolitan communication need to take in order to prepare a human being, an organization, or a network of organizations, to respond effectively and compassionately to an international crisis, like the current refugee situation here in Munich?

           A policeman shows a refugee group the way to the registration office at the central train
           station in Munich on Aug. 31, 2015. Photographer: Matthias Balk/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
           Images.

What is this conference all about?

Hello!

Tomorrow I will be on my way to Munich, and the 2015 FUGIC Forum at  Bundeswehr University! ("FUGIC" stands for "The Flying University of Global Integral Competence").  The theme of the gathering  is

    Discovering Cosmopolitan Communication

I will be joining 50 educators, scholars, and practitioners from around the world to share my work, to learn from theirs, and to pursue the larger questions of how we might make better use of communication to foster personal and social evolution, and to promote worldwide health, wealth, and peace.

I invite you to join me in this adventure!

I plan to post here at least once daily, sharing my impressions of Munich, the university, my colleagues, and our work together.  

Feel free to post your comments and your questions on this post, and on future posts.  For the moment, I will anticipate some obvious questions, and will begin to answer them here.

Who is going to be at this conference?  Just below is a photo of one of the conference attendees, CMM Fellow Jami Blythe, who is a Ph.D. student, and a serving police officer in the UK, with 16 years on the force.  Her project involves the use of digital storytelling with police officers, as a vehicle to help them reflect upon and critique their own performances of masculinity in the line of duty.  I'm really looking forward to meeting her, and the other CMM Fellows!  More about Jami's work, and that of the other Fellows, in future posts.

What is the CMM Institute?  The CMM Institute is a diverse group of educators, scholars, and practitioners who share a common interest in better understanding human communication, and how we can use communication to create better social worlds.  The focus is on "personal and social evolution."  CMM stands for "the coordinated management of meaning," a communication theory introduced by Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen in the 1970's, and richly developed by a growing community of scholars and practitioners since that time.  I studied with Barnett and Vernon, and have benefited from their friendship and mentorship, since 1979, when I took a course with Barnett titled Communication and the Human Condition.  The course opened new vistas for me...  and they continue to open in my work with CMM.

What is a "CMM Fellow"?  A CMM Fellow is a person whose research and practice incorporates CMM theory, and who has been chosen by the Institute to pursue a project over a one-year period, at the same time joining in a larger conversation with other scholars on a chosen topic.  The topic for 2015-2016 is "conflict transformation."  I am joining five other Fellows at the Munich conference to share my work, learn about theirs, and to develop new insights on cosmopolitan communication and conflict transformation.  My project, titled Shakespeare's Mirror, focuses on The Shakespeare Prison Project, a project which I developed and direct at Racine Correctional Institution, a maximum-medium security prison in Wisconsin.  I am interested in how the prisoners' study and performance of Shakespeare's plays, and how their development of personal narratives and performances inspired by the plays, can help them to gain greater insight, and competence in making more constructive choices in their communication.  How do particular choices of intention, interpretation, and action function to create happiness - or suffering?  How can we learn to make better choices - now, and in the future?

A prisoner greets his family following his performance as Reagan in King Lear

 

What is "The Flying University of Integral Global Competence (FUGIC)"?  It is an international group of scholars who have created a collaborative, integrated learning platform dedicated to understanding and promoting "cosmopolitan communication" - communication for the purpose of developing greater health, wealth, and peace for everyone on the planet.  Cosmopolitan communication transcends the more limited forms of ethnocentrism (my way/my tribe) and modernism (a naive dedication to "truth"as defined by positivists).  What cosmopolitan communication looks like in particular contexts, and how it can be better understood and cultivated, are open questions.

50 teachers, scholars, and practitioners from around the world will participate in this year's FUGIC Forum in Munich.

Where is the conference?  The conference is being held at the Bundeswehr University Munich.  Bundeswehr is one of two federal universities in Germany, established in the early 1970's to provide civilian academic education for military officers.  The university is strongly oriented toward business and technology, and is well-known its work in aeronautical engineering.  Since the 1990's, the university has been welcoming increasing numbers of civilian and international students.  In 2007, Bundeswehr restructured its curriculum to make it compatible with the European Higher Education Area - allowing for the international recognition of degrees and qualifications, and making it possible for European students and graduates to move freely between countries.  Bundeswehr has numerous international partnerships, including several with the United States - among these, the United States Military Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School, and Norwich University.

Officers in training at Bundeswehr University Munich

 

Postscript

 

I am keenly aware of the huge number of Syrian refugees who are fleeing to Germany.  Most of them have entered through Munich.  I plan to keep my eyes, my mind, and my heart open, and I hope to learn from the situation. So far, there are many reports that the German people are warmly welcoming the refugees, and extending themselves to address their urgent needs.  Sounds like "cosmopolitan communication" to me.