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Valerie Malhotra Bentz, Ph.D., is Professor, School of Human and Organizations Development, with over thirty years experience in higher education, administration and research. She came to Fielding in 1991 serving as Associate Dean for Research until 1998 when she became a full time member of the doctoral faculty. She was elected Chair of the doctoral faculty in 2003 serving until 2008. Prior to coming to Fielding she was a tenured professor at Texas Woman’s University, teaching sociological theory and qualitative research in the Ph.D. program.
As a practitioner Valerie has directed community action and research programs and conducted community based research. She also was in private practice in psychotherapy for twenty years. She has offered workshops and training internationally on “deep learning” connecting intellectual, emotional, bodily and spiritual dimensions.
Valerie is currently engaged with studies of consciousness, transformative phenomenology, hermeneutics, and Vedantic and Buddhist thinking. She also focuses on sociological theories, especially symbolic interactionism, critical theory and dramatism. As a certified body therapist and yoga teacher, Valerie integrates hatha, kundalini, prana and raja yogas with Western and Chinese modalities. She explores the edge between social science writing and poetics in her articles and books. Valerie is a musician, seeking to understand the meaning of music for human consciousness and the musical aspects of social life. Among her favorite thinkers are George Herbert Mead, Martin Heidegger, Jane Addams, Jurgen Habermas, the Dalai Lama, Swami Vivekananda, Hannah Arendt and Jeremy Shapiro.
Books: Valerie’s most recent book is Transformative Phenomenology: Changing Ourselves, Lifeworlds and Professional Practice, co-edited with David Rehorick. (Lexington, 2008). Her work, Mindful Inquiry in Social Research, (Sage, 1995) co-authored with Jeremy J. Shapiro, is a broad guide to alternative ways of knowing. Valerie has co-edited Visual Images of Women in the Arts and Mass Media (with Philip Mayes). She authored Becoming Mature: Childhood Ghosts and Spirits in Adult Life (1988, Aldine de Gruyter—Transaction), emphasizing women’s becoming in relationship in contrast to a developmental stages approach.
Program Initiatives: Valerie Co-founded the Creative Longevity and Wisdom initiative at Fielding in and directed the effort from 2002-2006. She co-edited Collected Papers on this topic (available through the Institute for Social Innovation). She also founded and co-directed the Mizoram Action Research Center in Mizoram, India. (1999-2002)
Workshops and Intensives: Valerie offers workshops and intensives in the following areas: phenomenological and hermeneutic research and practice, consciousness and wisdom development, creative aging, scholarly and expressive writing, theories of society and self, music and consciousness, contemplative practice, somatics, deep learning.
Professional Affiliations: Valerie is a past president and board member of the Sociological Practice Association (now the association for applied and clinical sociology). She was past chair and board member of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences. She is a long time Sierra Club member and seeks to create a sustainable and human environment for all beings.
Valerie dwells in Cambria, California.
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