About Me
Hello. My name is Jeffrey Cupchik. Please feel free to call me Jeff.
It's great to meet you during this challenging Covid19 time, even though it is through this online interface.
I tend to be more comfortable writing other people's biographical portraits than my own. Nevertheless, I will write a little about my background here.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions besides those I answered below.
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My Background
I am a Commonwealth Scholar and Trudeau Fellow, and a grateful recipient of grants and fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (S.S.H.R.C.), the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, and The Canada Council for the Arts.
For over 10 years, I have been engaged in innovative curriculum design and teaching as a University & College professor at leading (R1) research universities and private liberal arts colleges in the United States, as well as public research universities in Toronto, Canada.
Since 2017, I have also been serving as a Visiting Professor at Himalayan Universities in North India where I have mentored BA, MA, and PhD students and taught research methodology. As well, I have been a faculty professor of Anthropology and Buddhist Studies at the long-running Buddhist Studies in India, Carleton-Antioch Global Engagement Abroad Program.
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A bit more about my own educational and research background here...
In terms of formal education, I earned a PhD and MA in Ethnomusicology (methodologically similar to Cultural Anthropology). I also hold a Bachelor of Music Degree (Honours) from the University of Toronto focusing on music theory and composition.
My forthcoming first book will be released with SUNY Press, Series for Studies in Religion in early 2022. It is titled, The Sound of Vultures' Wings: The Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Ritual of the Female Buddha Machik Labdrön.
In recent years, academic articles I've written have been published in peer-reviewed journals that focus on music and religion in cultural contexts, including the Yale Journal of Music & Religion, Asian Music, Popular Music History, among others.
I have held artistic directorships and curated international exhibits, at the University of Toronto at Scarborough in Buddhist Studies, and at national public cultural institutions, including the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Based on this experience--creating interdisciplinary collaborations between academia and the arts--I mentor and teach how to craft a written proposal with relevant social and cultural purpose.
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Specializations
Apprenticing to Tibetan Buddhist elder practitioners for over 30 years has transformed not only my personal life and mental health, but also my academic work.
I have been fortunate to specialize in Buddhist liturgical ritual music primarily in Tibetan traditions of sutra and tantra. According to tradition, Buddhist ritual music involves psychophysical transformation through mental visualization and inner heart-mind practice whilst engaged in outer performance with one's voice and sacred musical instruments/implements.
My preoccupation with the transcultural translation of Buddhist ritual music concepts, practices, and performances led me to coin the new term "sonic iconography," which reveals the weave of intersecting practice elements in a dramaturgical narrative through an analytical process of "ritual mapping."
I have been an invited speaker to universities and conferences to give talks and lead workshops on this and related topics internationally.
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Music, Health and Wellbeing
In health education, during Covid19, I have been focusing on the secular area of wellbeing curriculum design. My (online) course "Music for Health and Wellness" at York University attracts hundreds of upper-level undergraduates from across the university and internationally in various disciplines (e.g., neuroscience, health sciences, psychology, kinesiology, business) to learn effective preventive strategies for maintaining well-being of body and mind.
My students learn how to create sound/music micro-interventions for compassionate self-care and caregiving, and offer these interventions to friends, family, and colleagues as part of a community outreach initiative.
Music is a psychosocial determinant of health and wellbeing.
Moreover, music is currently undersourced and a too-little-tapped resource, despite ubiquitous access with our smart phones and human bodies.
See my self-compassion page here which connects listening as an act of self-compassion.
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Please see my personal website www.jeffreycupchik.com and my LinkedIn page.
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Connecting live (online)
To learn more about the services I offer through Mentoring2Success, feel free to contact me, and we can talk about what you need in terms of professional mentoring -- whether you would like strategies for going through a career shift, or you would like professional editing of your career-related documents.
Feel free to schedule a free 20-minute consultation here.
To book, click on the blue button below, then schedule your preferred time of your chosen type of mentoring session.
What do you think so far? Let me know!
Zoom and related technology (MS Teams, Google Meet) is a unique privilege that gives us both privacy and respectful building of community when meeting and mentoring. So, I'm available and willing to meet on zoom if and when that works for you.
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Whenever you're ready, I'm ready to listen and guide you with the tools I have developed, and collaborate on finding your positive directions forward.
Learn more. Book a Free Consulaion or an Online Session today.
Stay Safe and Be Well!
Jeff
