Niki is an expert on the ascetic John Cassian and the French philosopher Michel Foucault. In this episode Niki and I discuss her newest book, Sites of the Ascetic Self. Niki is most interested in daily practices of discipline that can help and enable individuals to open to certain forms of self-transformation including transformation of our bodies, our emotions and our relation to other people. She discusses how her history places her into relationship with her current areas of study. We are shaped as subjects in this world, therefore one of Niki’s core questions is: how can we become self-shaping and self-forming? Looking at the kinds of daily practices we each live and how those practices influence and inform our reality. We explore the value of recognizing the various interpretations and agencies that are present in every moment. We define the terms such as ethics, ascetic, and others. We discuss        the modern understanding of mental health and the progressive pathologizing  of one’s relationship with the voices, urges, and powers formed within one’s “head” or self. She is interested in the construction of one’s character as a way of life. 
Niki Clements works at the disciplinary intersection between the history of Christian practice, philosophy of religion, and religious ethics. She specializes in Christian asceticism and mysticism in late antiquity, highlighting its resources for thinking through contemporary ethical formation and conceptions of the self. She is currently completing the first comprehensive treatment of the ethical thought of John Cassian (c.360-c.435), a late antique Catholic architect of Latin monasticism doctrinally marginalized for his optimistic views on human agency. Engaging Michel Foucault's late work on ethics-which sees Cassian as a crucial inaugurator of modern disciplinary subjectivity-she critiques the conceptual limitations that Foucault's philosophical categories impose on his reading of Cassian, late antique Christianity, and the study of religion. She also pursues a transdisciplinary approach with cognitive neuroscience to argue that ethical formation integrates consciousness, embodiment, and affectivity. She is the volume editor for Mental Religion: The Brain, Cognition, and Culture, as part of the forthcoming Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks.

http://rice.academia.edu/NikiClements

Specialization: 
History of Catholic thought and practice, Christianity in late antiquity, asceticism and mysticism, religious ethics, philosophy of religion, theories and methods in the study of religion, religion, and science

Academic History: 
Ph.D., Brown University, Religion and Critical Thought, 2014
M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School, 2007
B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, 2003

Music provided by:
www.modernnationsmusic.com
 
Learn more about this project at:
www.thesacredspeaks.com

Episode 3: Self-formation and daily practices. A conversation with Niki Clements

Join depth psychotherapist and Jungian scholar, John Price, in an exploration of extraordinary stories and phenomena that lurk beneath the surface of normal and everyday life. Listen in as John interviews experts, dilettantes, sinners, and saints to explore their professional and personal perspective on the underlying purpose of the mysteries which lurk within the seemingly mundane nature of day-to-day life. 

John received his Master’s degree in clinical psychology and his Doctorate degree in Jungian psychology. He is in private practice and is also on the faculty of The Jung Center and The University of St. Thomas, both located in Houston, Texas. He lectures and teaches classes in subjects ranging from Parenting and Consciousness to Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. 

This podcast seeks to accept a challenge laid out by Carl Jung:  to explore the universal human feelings of emotional incompleteness, spiritual curiosity and one’s related search for wholeness and meaning. Interviews commence with the belief that, by engaging in this exploration, we can learn more about the psyche, consciousness, spirituality, philosophy and the profound, though often hidden, meaning of the day-to-day lives we lead (or which will lead us, if we aren’t watchful).

Come along as John follows people into bars, universities, places of worship, financial districts and the home. He finds each context equally able to provide a setting for this worthy search and also that, through this process, we have an opportunity to come to know each other and ourselves much more deeply.

Episode 3: Self-formation and daily practices. A conversation with Niki Clements

The Sacred Speaks: Hosted by John Price