Deze informatie is alleen in het Engels beschikbaar.
Topics: Dialogue; dialogue facilitation; societal participation
Disciplines: Communication; interdisciplinary
Admission requirements:
This course is an (extracurricular) Honours Class: an elective course within the Honours College programme. Third year students who don’t participate in the Honours College, have the opportunity to apply for a Bachelor Honours Class. Students will be selected based on i.a. their motivation and average grade.
Description:
We live in a crazy and polarized world, where we increasingly seem to take up entrenched positions around issues such as migration, climate change, ethical religious issues, distrust of the government, conspiracy thinking, etc. We prefer to stay in our camp (‘us’ vs ‘them’) and do not listen anymore to dissent voices. Polarization is a dangerous development possibly harming democracies and economies, and pulling apart families, friends, neighbours, and colleagues.
A constructive way to prevent polarization is enhancing dialogue. The dialogue method inspired by philosopher and physicist David Bohm (1996) is a structured and attentive conversation that has set rules, such as careful listening, suspending judgment and asking in-depth questions, allowing different perspectives to be presented and acknowledged. In Bohm's dialogue space is created for connection and new insights, with the aim of making every participant feel seen and heard. By recognizing each other's perspectives, the dialogue is the opposite of discussion or debate, which revolve around convincing others and cause poor listening. Bohm’s dialogue is holistic and touches on a deeper layer of connection.
In this course, you will not only get a deep understanding and practical experience of Bohm’s dialogue method through various dialogue sessions and exercises, but also be trained as a dialogue facilitator. The capstone will be the facilitation of a dialogue session outside the university walls, e.g., in your neighborhood, at the workplace or within your student association. Dialogue will be extensively practiced in each session. Two optional zen meditation classes are offered to deepen your dialogue experience, since it increases your attention, calm and focus and creates an open mind.
In this course, students will do the following things:
Practice Bohm’s dialogue method;
develop relevant communication skills, such as attentive listening, suspending judgments, choosing your words carefully, and asking deepening questions to identify assumptions;
improve their attention, awareness, and concentration to develop an open mind and welcoming attitude; - stimulate reflection and creative thinking; and being able to tolerate dissenting opinions;
learn how to facilitate a dialogue and deal with issues such as safety and group tensions;
facilitate small-group dialogue sessions inside and outside class.
Course objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to have and to facilitate meaningful group conversations by applying the dialogue method developed by David Bohm (1996) through the training in four main skills (output) that lead to an open mind:
1) Suspend judgment;
2) Listen carefully;
3) Identify assumptions;
4) Reflect and investigate (inquiry).
On the level of outcomes, the students will gain a sense of connection and community.
Ultimately, this has the impact of making students more open and flexible, enabling them to enter into conversations with dissenters in other contexts and facilitate such dialogue, which may help to prevent polarization in society.
1) Communication (interpersonal)
After the course, students can: formulate thoughts and feelings carefully and clearly; let another speak; listen carefully; suspend their opinion; use and respond adequately to non-verbal signals; adequately deal with (intercultural) differences; and they feel free to share their point of view; can adequately facilitate dialogue sessions.
2) Investigations and open mind (meta-cognitive)
After the course, students can ask relevant in-depth questions; they have developed a curious attitude towards others; they are open to other perspectives and can integrate new knowledge and insights into their own perspective.
3) Reflect (intrapersonal)
After the course, students are aware of their own views and opinions and can reflect on their own learning development.
Programme and timetable:
The sessions of this class will take place on Fridays from 14:15 to 16:45.
The two optional meditation classes are on Fridays from 12:30 to 13:30 in LAK, K.031, Lipsius
Part I: Bohm’s dialogue in theory & practice
Session 1: 6 February, 2026
Workshop 1: Bohm’s dialogue in a nutshell
Session 2: 13 February, 2026
Workshop 2: Attentive listening and the role of projection
Optional: 20 February, 2026 (12.30 - 13.30) in LAK, Lipsius K.031
Meditation class
Session 3: 20 February, 2026
Workshop 3: Non-duality, suspending judgement & asking questions
Session 4: 27 February, 2026
Workshop 4: Open mind, stirring creativity and participatory thinking
Part II: Becoming an effective dialogue facilitator
Optional: 6 March, 2026 (12.30 - 13.30) in LAK, Lipsius K.031
Meditation class
Session 5: 6 March, 2026
Workshop 5: Preparing and Facilitating Dialogue
Session 6: 13 March, 2026
Workshop 6: Creating the right conditions for an inclusive dialogue
Part III: Student-led dialogues
Session 7: 20 March, 2026
Student-led dialogue – 1
Session 8: 27 March, 2026
Student-led dialogue – 2
Session 9: 10 April, 2026
Student-led dialogue – 3
Session 10 17 April, 2026
Student-led dialogue – 4
Location:
TBA
Reading list:
Bohm, David (1996) On Dialogue. Routledge.
Ritskes, Rients & Remko de Beer (f.c.) 21 Secrets to a Strategic Dialogue. Uitgeverij Aanpak.
Other possible literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.
Course load and teaching method:
This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours:
Seminars: 10 x 2.5 hours = 25 hours (participation is mandatory)
Literature reading: 30 hours
Practical work: 55 hours
Final assignment: 30 hours
Assessment methods:
The assessment methods will look as follows:
40% Participation assessed continually through participation in seminars, including the facilitation of at least one in-class dialogue and participation in peer group review of the in-class dialogue sessions. Participation should have been graded at least 5.5.
60% Facilitation of an external 1-hour dialogue session and a final reflection report of 2500-3000 words, Deadline: 18 May, 2026 (09:00 hrs). The facilitation and final report should have been graded at least 5.5.
4 individual reflection reports (assessed with PASS/FAIL) of 500-750 words on the homework assignments that are given after each class and the effect on conversations you have in daily life. All reports must have been assessed with a PASS.
**Deadlines are 23 February, 2026 (09:00 hrs), 9 March, 2026 (09:00 hrs), 23 March, 2026 (09:00 hrs), and 13 April (09:00 hrs).
All reflection reports have to be submitted on Brightspace.
Students can only pass this course after successful completion of all partial exams.
Brightspace and uSis:
Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Application process:
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday 27 October up to and including Sunday 16 November 2025 23:59 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.
Note: students don’t have to register for the Bachelor Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.
Contact:
Dr. Karin Nijenhuis
African Studies Centre Leiden,
Herta Mohr Building, room 0.56
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden
c.t.nijenhuis@asc.leidenuniv.nl