CURRENT + ONGOING RESEARCH
DEEP AESTHETICS
Deep aesthetics is essentially transdisciplinary in nature. It is rooted in the primary ground of the aesthetic as sensuous engagement, woven from strands from philosophy - especially phenomenology - depth psychology, philosophical anthropology, and diverse cultural knowledges. Deep aesthetics foregrounds the backgrounded relational and interconnected aspects of life and living beings, re-situating humankind within a complex world of enmeshed and interdependent Being and mutual becoming. It focuses on depth of engagement and a radical intersubjectivity. Most importantly, deep aesthetic engagement offers revelatory, and potentially transformative, experience. My interest in developing a deep aesthetics is rooted in the question of how to transform human-world and interspecies relations, with a focus on abandoning the dangerous reductive and dualistic ontology of modernity, changing human consciousness and ultimately our behaviours and technologies. Can it be that this is more a matter of re-membering what has been dis-membered, or split apart than of anything new? In the words of psychologist James Hillman speaking of the aesthetic and the Anima Mundi, or soul of the world, "I {often] wonder less how to shift the paradigm than I wonder how we ever got so far off base.”
To read or download conference talks, papers, and publications developing and working with these ideas, please visit: Academia
RESEARCH INTO
PRAXIS
INTO FLOURISHING
MENTORING | ADVISING
program design + oversight
I bring 25 years of experience as researcher, scholar, and practitioner in the transdisciplinary area of arts, culture and sustainable futures to this aspect of my practice. This focuses on ​assisting others with the development and oversight of innovative programs, courses, workshops, and organisations that bring together disciplines, sectors, cultures, and generations, to meaningfully and sensitively engage with complex and dynamic living systems.
I act as mentor to researchers, graduate students, artists, and professionals in developing, interpreting and presenting their work and research for others in compelling and engaging ways.
SELECTED COMMENTS
Her ability to share a global perspective while focusing on the vitality of the local provided students with a vision of how they are situated and where it is they can affect change through their art. Beth laid out a sequence of learning that was effortlessly digestible while creating excitement and wonder in the class. A number of projects ... continue throughout the Okanagan, certainly a legacy of Beth's influence on her students. ...
As a teacher and guide her commitment to her students is exemplary and she sets an example as an educator who is willing to go beyond the confines of the system to support and encourage those of us who are out there on the edge.
MFA student, University of British Columbia
I contacted the author of this paper [2006 report on Arts and Sustainability for CCUNESCO] anonymously, requesting help in my own attempts at making some headway in this field, and was pleased to discover she was only too glad to offer her time, energy and knowledge of the field in order to help me find my own way.
Most often what we encounter are environmental scholars interested in using artistic practices as a “non-traditional” research tool, or artistic voices eager to enter the environmental fray without having considered deeply the nature of the problem they seek to address. In each case, the engagement remains shallow. It is Ms Carruthers’ sensitivity to both the environmental and aesthetic dimensions of this field that makes her voice such an important one.
PhD student, Institute for Resources, Environment + Sustainability, University of British Columbia
I just wanted to thank you for encouraging this reflective kind of learning. ... I sometimes feel like academia somewhat discourages self-reflection and, instead, expects a sort of copy-and-paste culture where personal comprehension and interpretation should not be included. I really enjoy that we are being encouraged to make these ideas our own by relating them to our own lives and finding our personal interpretation of the concepts we talk about.
Senior international exchange student Environmental Literature/Ecological Humanities, Laurentian University
Beth continues to act as a mentor to her former students ... I have found this support valuable and almost necessary as an artist working with environmental issues ... she has been the most influential teacher in my life. Her ongoing mentorship demonstrates her commitment to her students.
MA and PhD student, Oxford-Brookes University
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During both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I studied Environmental Studies and Visual Arts. They were part of different faculties or schools within the institutions, and there were no professors well-versed in both – across disciplines. Given Ms. Carruthers’ background in both, when she came to Laurentian University in 2019 to teach I was able to study – for the first time – with someone with extensive transdisciplinary knowledge of these academic areas. ... Ms. Carruthers’ course content was not only inspiring to me but to so many fellow students. By the end of her courses, I heard classmates say that they wished Ms. Carruthers’ curriculum to be part of each year of their university studies. ... In the words of Professor Sir Robert Watson, chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, “We are eroding the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” We require great cultural change. Ms. Carruthers provides young people with both the hope and tools for the momentum and shifts necessary for these critical changes.
Senior/Professional Student (auditing), Environmental Studies, Laurentian University
Beth worked with me with a high level of commitment through a variety of levels such as the development of papers and presentations for international conferences, the finalisation of my thesis, and how to network so that my work would have a life beyond the Masters program.
I received amazing support from Beth, always positive and generous with information and her time. ...
Beth gave me a strong foundation and confidence in myself as well as in the value of my work. I can only say she is an amazing and true educator.
MA student, Simon Fraser University
It was a wonderful experience working with you on Bird and Line, and you made me deeply reflect on my own work, which in turn was very valuable to my thesis writing.
PhD Student, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and Transdisciplinary University of Health Sciences and Technology