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Publications

I have written for various publications and journals as part of my professional and scholarly endeavours. Most, if not all, are open access and free to read.

Taking my lead from Pierre Hadot’s, Philosophy as a Way of Life, I revitalize the importance of self-cultivation for educators and the need to embody a philosophical way of life. Our moral responsibility as educators to pay our attention inwardly at the condition of our inner life has been largely ignored, but the necessity of self-cultivation and inner work lies at the heart of authentic teaching. I investigate how the nature of teaching is to be a mode of existing-in-the-world, rather than sole competency with theory, pedagogy, and practice. Drawing on my experiences in higher education, I consider how this is generated through contemplative inquiry and practice; not as a solipsistic endeavour, but one situated within a collective attempt towards humanity’s harmony and interdependent existence.

This co-authored paper illuminates pedagogical opportunities to support graduate students to envision and prepare for the complex experience of completing an advanced degree such as a doctoral or master’s program. We explore how paradoxical feelings of grief and joy often co-arise upon the crossing of a threshold such as defending a thesis, and how graduands are often ill-equipped to handle these due to a dominant ontology of linear time and phases of progress that culminate in abstract ideals of arrival and completion. We propose integrating contemplative practices and futures literacy early into graduate programs in order to prepare graduands for the confusing array of feelings often accompanying graduate degree completion. Adopting an ethic of ambivalence allows for conflicting feelings to co-arise and be held simultaneously.

  • Rumjahn, A. (2025). Stoic wisdom for the contemplative teacher: Prosochê and praemeditatio malorum as alternative approaches to mindfulness. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 3(3), 1. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/jche/vol3/iss3/1

In this paper, I extend Christopher McCaw’s research on the direct and dynamic relationship between contemplative practices and who teachers are and are becoming. By examining the current debates around defining reflective and contemplative practitioners, I call for alternative definitions of mindfulness when considering teacher professional becoming and submit for consideration the perspectives of Greco-Roman philosophy. Using prosochê (attention) and the Stoic exercise of praemeditatio malorum to expand the conceptual framing of becoming a contemplative practitioner, I articulate the gifts of Hellenistic thinking and what it can offer K-12 teachers.

This piece is situated within a project organized by PES’ Committee on Gender, Sexuality and the Status of Women (CGSSW) drawing on oral history to acknowledge women’s voices in the field of philosophy of education. I interview Kathy Hytten who is a Professor in Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Our dialogue reveals the importance of stewardship and exploring what it means to nurture the next generation in the discipline of philosophy of education.

  • Smith, D. G., Falkenberg, T., Low, R. Chang, D., Jarskog, A., Brown. J., Persad, R., Rumjahn, A., Bai, H., & Scott, C. (2025). Wisdom responses to troubled times: Healing through contemplative and somatic approaches. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 3(1), 5. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/jche/vol3/iss1/5

As part of the organizing team of a contemplative and holistic studies symposium at Simon Fraser University, this event explored the intertwining of contemplative and somatic approaches to healing the wounds of individual isolation, social marginalization, and ecological estrangement. With close to 110 attendees, in person and on Zoom combined, this hybrid conference generated a lot of insightful discussion around the current tribulations we face of a social, political, and ecological kind and of the thoughtful, mindful, tactful, bodyful responses we can make.

  • Behrisch, T. J., Rumjahn, A., & Yakimov, C. (2025). Healing in relation: Honoring post-graduate grief as an opportunity for relational scholarship. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 3(1), 2. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/jche/vol3/iss1/3

This paper is a three-way conversation about grief that follows a graduate program. We explore our experiences with post-graduate grief in community, attending to each other’s sense of loss following separation from supervisors, theses, and graduate programs. In committing to slow scholarship, processes— such as navigating feelings and living—have been valued over producing a manuscript quickly. Slowness, including long gaps between meetings, enabled us to follow the diverse contours of quiet alchemical processes such as grieving, opening up to emptiness, self-acceptance, being enough, and letting go.

This is an editorial introduction to one of our issues published as a new team who formed in 2024. Here, we explore the concept of de/colonization in academia and discuss the current challenges within the publishing arena. We then present our visions towards healing and justice in academic publishing, which will guide us in incorporating decolonization in our editorial processes, article selection, and overall publication practices. Following the thematic discussions, we provide a snapshot of the articles and works included in the issue.

I review Low’s book on the importance of Eastern and Western definitions of mindfulness to encourage education professionals in improving their understanding of how different social contexts have framed and given different meanings to this concept. It contributes to the discussion of what the future of education holds if we continue to neglect a more holistic view of teacher wellbeing.

  • Rumjahn, A. (2022). Early-career teaching: an opportunity for reflection and self-development, Scan, 41(1).

I reflect on my experiences as an early career teacher and how my interests in philosophy have allowed me to cultivate a coherent sense of self in relation to my professional identity. Having only ever taught in the years of a pandemic, exploring and implementing philosophical ideas have been pivotal to my inner happiness and success.

Read the article here on pages 21-26.