Resilience: Exploring Biological and Cultural Factors

Resilience is an expression of human culture and individual minds/brains and a force that has shaped the development of the human species. Neuroscientists, anthropologists, biologists, philosophers, and others explore the nature of responses to stress and trauma and factors that result in either long-term trauma responses or protection in the form of resilience. This symposium offered a forum for scientists, social scientists, and humanists to explore how the cultural and biological environments influence and inspire group and individual responses to life events.
Cynthia Gill, assistant professor of neurophysiology and 2011 associate director of the CBD Program
Laura Sizer, associate professor philosophy and 2011 director of the CBD Program 

Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Symposium Speakers

Rachel Conrad, associate professor of childhood studies, Hampshire College.
Resilience and Gwendolyn Brooks's Poetry in Children Coming Home.

Polina Barskova, assistant professor of Russian literature, Hampshire College
Through the Ashes: (Re) Reading as a Resilience Strategy during the Siege of Leningrad (1941-44)

Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy, adjunct professor of writing and special assistant to the board, Hampshire College
Writing and Resilience--How Expressive Writing Promotes Healing

Jennifer Martin McDermott, assistant professor of psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
The Impact of Institutionalization and Foster Care on the Expression of Children's Response Monitoring

Melissa Burch, assistant professor of cognitive development, Hampshire College
Parent-child Narratives of Emotional Events: Co-construction of Meaning through Reminiscing

Jenny Olivia Johnson, assistant professor, Wellesley College Department of Music
Sounds Beyond Violence, Voices Beyond Trauma: Extreme Experiences and the Poetics of Musical Memory

Amber N. Douglas, assistant professor, department of psychology, Mount Holyoke College
Cognitive Schemas and Cultural Orientation: Factors that Shape Psychological Adjustment, Interpersonal Functioning, and Recovery

Crystal L. Park, professor of psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and affiliate of the University of Connecticut Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention
Can Previous Trauma Exposure Promote Resilience in the Face of Later Trauma?