This course is the fifth in a series of six that are part of our 2025 certificate program in process thought and practice. A limited number of seats are available for individuals not participating in the program.
Exploring Process Philosophy and Theology Through the Arts
This six-session course explores the dynamic intersection of Whitehead’s process philosophy and the arts. Each session focuses on a particular art form and its resonances with key Whiteheadian themes—creativity, relationality, feeling, and becoming.
Attend the live class sessions
or work at your own pace.
Course Summary
Process philosophers speak of life as unfolding through “occasions of experience”—distinct moments of becoming that carry feeling, memory, and creativity. In the creative and performing arts, we encounter these occasions in vivid and transformative ways that touch both mind and heart. The objects of art—music, poetry, dance, film, painting—are process philosophy in action. They draw us into lived moments that evoke, provoke, inspire, disturb, and awaken, offering insight into ourselves and the world around us.
In Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead highlighted the importance of the Romantic poets, arguing that science needs poetry to grasp the deeper truths of matter and human life—truths alive with vitality, spirit, beauty, and adventure. Art, for Whitehead, is not a luxury but a window into the depths of reality.
This six-session course explores the dynamic intersection of Whitehead’s process philosophy and the arts. Each session focuses on a particular art form and its resonances with key Whiteheadian themes—creativity, relationality, feeling, and becoming. Through guided reflection, discussion, and creative engagement, participants will explore how the arts can serve as both expression and embodiment of process thought.
Co-taught by Jay McDaniel, a process philosopher, and Kathleen Wakefield, a poet and artist, the course offers an interdisciplinary journey into the ways that imagination, beauty, and connection shape both artistic practice and philosophical insight.
“The universe itself is an artist, creating appearances out of reality, one concrescence at a time. In creating art, we collaborate with the universe.
“Art gives us beauty but also truth. It evokes inspires, confuses and awakens — all lures for feeling.
“Art is a combination of process and possibility, aimed to surprise us in the here-and-now.
“We learn as much about process philosophy through the fluidity of music, and perhaps more, than through axioms that rest on a page.”
–Jay McDaniel
Course Outline
The course will examine the following topics:
- Whitehead, Romantic Poetry, and Art
- Beauty
- Process Themes in Contemporary Poetry
- Whitehead and Music – Improvisational Jazz
- Whitehead and the Visual Arts
- Social Therapeutics, Performance Activism, and a Process Arts Collective
About the Instructors
Jay McDaniel, PhD is Willis Holmes Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Hendrix College in Arkansas, and founder of the website Open Horizons, which focuses on exploring a process outlook on life and way of living in the world. Active in the development of process thought in China, he is a consultant to the China Project of the Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California, and a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Postmodern Development of China. His books include With Roots and Wings: Christianity in an Age of Ecology and Dialogue, Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism; and Gandhi’s Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to Peace.
Kathleen A. Wakefield is the author of two books of poetry, Notations on the Visible World (Anhinga Press, 2000), winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and Grip, Give and Sway (Silver Birch Press, 2016). She holds degrees from Mount Holyoke College (Chemistry) and the University of Michigan (History of Art). She taught creative writing at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester, worked as a poet-in-the-schools, and shares poetry through public libraries. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including the Alaska Quarterly Review, Christian Century, Georgia Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review, and Visions International, with recent poems in Amethyst Review and Half-Mystic. She also serves on the leadership committee of the Cobb Institute Certificate Program.
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Price
- Lifetime access to session recordings
- Receive early notification of future courses
- Watch live or follow your own schedule
- Interact with class members via discussion forums
- *If you cannot pay this amount, please contribute whatever you feel the course is worth or whatever you can afford to help support this and other programs like it.
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