Techniques of Futuring: A Mixed Classroom with Policymakers (2023/2024: Periode 2)

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Cursusdoel

Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.
  • Discuss and analyze the engagement of policymakers, scientists, citizen collectives, designers, artists, and other practitioners and stakeholders with uncertain futures, particularly concerning just transitions in the face of climate change;
  • Design, apply and examine the conceptual and methodological perspectives for analyzing and developing dramaturgies of change offered in the course;
  • Develop a dramaturgical intervention that contributes to the transformative capacity of societies and present this intervention in a persuasive manner.

Vakinhoudelijk

The course can be completed for 5EC or 7,5EC. Please indicate your preference when submitting your letter of motivation to the course coordinator.

Starting November 2023 the Urban Futures Studio offers a mixed classroom course, a price winning form of academic education for ambitious master students in which you learn from and with societal actors such as policymakers, activists and artists.

In this course you will study how our collective capacity to imagine and act towards sustainable futures is deeply shaped by dramaturgy. The setting and form in which sustainability transitions are framed strongly influences if and how people change their perspectives on how the world is, should, and could be as well as the degree to which they experience engagement and agency. How do decision-making processes change if there is an empty chair in the room representing future generations? What happens if the plenary opening of a sustainability conference is staged in an imagined future and offers not just spoken but also musical keynotes (e.g. Pathways to Sustainability Conference 2023)? Using approaches drawing from theater, storytelling, design, and diverse conversation techniques, this course allows you to analyze social change through a dramaturgical lens and explore the power of different dramaturgical interventions to foster collective knowledge, imagination, and action. The mixed classroom is both an elective Master course (5 ECTS/7.5 ECTS) for students and an interactive lecture series for policymakers and other practitioners.

Every year, this course focuses on a particular thematic context in which the ‘dramaturgical lens’ is developed. This year, that theme is Just Transitions. For a few years now, NGOs, politicians, academics and government agencies inside and outside the Netherlands have been emphasizing the importance of justice in sustainability transitions. As an example of a promising step forward: in December 2022 the EU agreed to the Dutch 'Just Transition Plan' and made €623 million available for a ‘just energy transition’. This plan focuses mainly on employment, such as retraining the 49,000 employees in the fossil fuel industry. Although this plan is appealing at first glance, the discourse and policy it promotes has a rather ‘negative’ tone; the focus lies more on injustice as something to prevent – e.g. energy poverty, increase in unemployment – than on justice as something to strive for. The real objective of a just transition – so is the point of departure in this course – is not just the prevention of injustice, but the more ambitious strive for a society in which it is increasingly possible for a diversity of human and nonhuman actors to flourish together. In this course, we explore different dimensions of how sustainability transitions can be(come) just transitions and what role dramaturgy has to play to fulfill this potential. Herein, we especially devote attention to the way in which dramaturgy can be – and historically has been – a cornerstone for justice movements. As the course progresses, we will increasingly engage with an emerging justice movement in the Netherlands: The Just Energy Movement (see, for instance, The Just Energy Essays). At the end of the course, we will collaboratively put our emerging dramaturgical ingenuity to work by trying to stage an empowering meet-up of The Just Energy Movement.

The course will offer a mix of (guest) lectures, workshops, discussions, and collaborative assignments. Using the mixed classroom format, you will learn to apply the acquired theoretical knowledge in real-life contexts in relation to just sustainability transition. Participation in this course offers you the possibility to gain hands-on experience in connecting ideas to action in collaboration with policymakers and other societal actors on topics that are both scientifically innovative and societally urgent. In addition, you will learn to use innovative forms for doing research and presenting research. To get a sense of what to expect in this unique educational format, have a look at the bustour The Coach for Conversation organized by students of the second Mixed Classroom, the Museum of the Linear Economy, this story of Canon of Change, and read this interview (Dutch) with the course's instructors Dr. Jesse Hoffman and Dr. Peter Pelzer.

The course will be evaluated through an assignment in which you contribute to and present in an event that stages a dramaturgical intervention in the Just Energy Movement (50%) and an essay which offers a critical reflection on your assignment and how it connects to other approaches to dramaturgy of change (50%). If you take the course for 7.5 ECTS, a third assignment will entail conducting a practitioner profile of one of the participating practitioners.

Please note: for this course deviant enrolment rules apply
Students must be registered in a Master's programme at Utrecht University, students in one of the Master's programs within the Faculty of Geosciences have priority. 20 students will follow the course together with Dutch practitioners in urban and spatial policy making (e.g. from the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment). Students are required to submit a motivation letter in which they explain why they want to follow this course. The motivation letter can be submitted from September 1st onwards.

You have to enroll for this course in Osiris too. The registration period will be open from Monday 18 September 8:00 AM up to and including Sunday 24 September. You will be notified before the end of the regular registration period whether you can join this course. If not, you can register for another course up to and including Friday 29 September 23:59.

Werkvormen

Lectures
Voorbereiding

Reading the texts in the reader offered at the beginning of the course and doing the assignments announced in class.

Mixed classrooms & interactive sessions
Toelichting

On Wednesdays students will participate in a mixed classroom and on Fridays work on group assignments in their own studio on dramaturgies of change for just transition

Bijdrage

Students will work in small groups on an assignment presented in class and present their work at a meet-up of the Just Energy Movement at the end of the course.

Toetsing

Eindresultaat 5EC

Verplicht | Weging 100% | ECTS 5

The grade for this course is based upon: • A co-production of a Museum of the Future in groups of 4-5, including a presentation and the writing of a narrative (50 %). • One theoretical paper (50 %).

Aanvullende opdracht 2,5EC

Niet verplicht | Weging 100% | ECTS 2,5

An additional 2.5 ECTS can be obtained through a reflective, form free assignment at the end of the course.

Ingangseisen en voorkennis

Ingangseisen

Je moet een geldige toelatingsbeschikking hebben

Voorkennis

• The number of participants is limited to 20 • No specific required previous knowledge but an affinity with policy intervention, change, urban issues, engagement with futures, and sustainable development. • For following this course you need approval of the course coordinator. You can contact Dr. Koen Wessels (k.r.wessels@uu.nl).

Voertalen

  • Engels

Cursusmomenten

Gerelateerde studies

Tentamens

Er is geen tentamenrooster beschikbaar voor deze cursus

Verplicht materiaal

  • DIVERSE
    Peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and popular scientific articles, which will be distributed at the start of the course.

Aanbevolen materiaal

Er is geen informatie over de aanbevolen literatuur bekend

Opmerkingen

PLEASE NOTE: course enrolment for this course is open up to and including Sunday 24 September 23:59h.

Coördinator

L.M.G. van Beek MSc l.m.g.vanbeek@uu.nl

Docenten

L.M.G. van Beek MSc l.m.g.vanbeek@uu.nl
J. van Dijk j.vandijk4@uu.nl
Gastdocent(en) / Guest lecturer(s) -
prof. dr. M.A. Hajer M.A.Hajer@uu.nl
drs. J.G. Hoffman J.G.Hoffman@uu.nl

Inschrijving

Deze cursus is open voor bijvakkers. Controleer wel of er aanvullende ingangseisen gelden.

Inschrijving
Van maandag 18 september 2023 tot en met vrijdag 29 september 2023

Inschrijving niet geopend
Permanente link naar de cursuspagina
Laat in de Cursus-Catalogus zien