Episode description In this episode of the Epistemic Alchemy Podcast, Dr. Mohammed Raei speaks with Professor Gabriele Bammer, a leading figure in transdisciplinary research and the founder of Integration and Implementation Sciences, or i2S. Bammer reflects on her early intellectual journey, the real-world policy challenges that shaped her work, and why fragmentation remains one of the greatest barriers to addressing complex societal and environmental problems. Together, they explore the evolution of i2S, the importance of integrating disciplinary and stakeholder knowledge, the role of unknowns and imperfection in research, and the political realities of power, implementation, and institutional change. The conversation also turns to higher education reform, AI’s emerging role in transdisciplinary work, and what it would take to build more effective approaches to complexity in universities and beyond.

Resources:

* Integration and implementation insights

https://i2insights.org/

* Substack post on redesigning higher education

https://substack.com/@mohammedraei/p-189037847

What is meta — and why might it matter more than ever?

In this wide-ranging conversation, I speak with Dr. Mark Edwards, meta-theorist and former Associate Professor at Jönköping International Business School, about the science of meta studies, the misunderstandings surrounding metatheory, and the role of big-picture thinking in a world facing systemic crisis.

We explore:

• What meta studies actually are — beyond the buzzword

• The difference between metatheory, meta-methodology, metadata, and meta-meaning

• Why large-scale ideas are performative — and how they shape the world we inhabit

• The historical roots of meta thinking, from the Abbasid translation movement to modern systems science

• Whether we need more metatheories — or better use of the ones we already have

• The concept of the “meta crisis” and why fragmented thinking cannot solve interconnected global problems

Mark argues that science becomes more important — not less — in an age where it is difficult to know what to believe. We discuss planetary boundaries, economic metatheories of growth, trauma and consumption in the 20th century, and why linking social, economic, environmental, and governance systems is no longer optional.

This episode is for listeners interested in metatheory, systems thinking, integral and critical realism debates, and the future of scholarly inquiry in a destabilizing world.

This episode of Epistemic Alchemy features Dr. Celeste Snowber—dancer, poet, scholar, and pioneer in embodied and arts-based inquiry. In conversation with host Dr. Mohammed Raei, Celeste traces the origins of her work to an early, visceral realization that we are bodies, not merely thinkers who happen to have bodies. She reflects on how pregnancy, silence, and enforced stillness led her to write the way she dances—through sensation, intuition, and movement. Together, they explore how embodied inquiry challenges disembodied academic norms by foregrounding somatic wisdom, creativity, and presence. Celeste discusses how dance reveals forms of knowing inaccessible to language alone, including intergenerational memory, trauma, and hidden insight. She emphasizes the power of listening with the whole body, the role of improvisation in cultivating risk, play, and originality, and the necessity of integrating spirit, intuition, and vulnerability into scholarship. The episode addresses methodological rigor, the resistance and expansion of arts-based research within neoliberal universities, and the subversive courage required to sustain such work. Celeste offers guidance to the next generation: pursue your deepest gladness relentlessly, honor your embodied calling, and trust that creative, somatic scholarship ripples far beyond the academy.

Dr. Snowbar's Website:

https://www.celestesnowber.com/