Public Lecture: Dr. Jenny Phillips
East Meets West in Deep South: Stories of Prisoners in Search of Peace and Redemption
Time: 2:30pm to 5:30pm
Location: Cal Poly Pomona, Bronco Student Center, Ursa Major
Jeff Smith Public Lecture
Event will feature Dhamma Brothers, a documentary about human potential and transformation as it closely follows the stories of prison inmates at Donaldson Correction Facility, the first maximum security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana meditation retreat lasting ten days.
The documentary will be followed by Q & A with the film producer, Jenny Phillips, who will also deliver the 2010 Ahimsa Public Lecture named after Jeff Smith.
Event Flyer
Jenny Phillips
Jenny Phillips is a cultural anthropologist, writer, and psychiatric nurse. For over fifteen years, Phillips has provided services in the mental health department of a large medical center in Concord, MA. Her specialties include crisis intervention, family therapy, behavioral medicine, and hypnotherapy.
Over the past ten years, she has worked with men in both state and county prisons, teaching courses on emotional literacy skills. Based upon her experiences working with prisoners and recording their lives behind bars, Phillips wrote an article, Culture of Manhood in Prison, which was published in 2002 by the American Psychological Association journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinity.
In 2008, Phillips released The Dhamma Brothers into movie theatres. While working on the film, she received more than 200 letters from the Alabama prisoners documenting their lives in prison and their quest for inner peace. These collected letters were published in 2008 by Pariyatti Press as Letters From the Dhamma Brothers.
In 2002, Phillips and her husband, Frank, The Boston Globe's State House bureau chief, initiated a project in Cuba to restore the Cuban home and extensive documents of Ernest Hemingway. This historic project served as a unique shared endeavor sanctioned by both the U.S. and Cuban governments during a time of heightened political conflict. Jenny is the granddaughter of legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, who was both editor and close friend to Ernest Hemingway.