Topics: Individual & community; interest-loaded environments; personal empowerment; resilience building; strategies of resistance.
Disciplines: Sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, martial arts, music, theatre, dance.
Skills: Analysing, Generating Solutions, Collaborating, Oral communication, Written communication, Presenting, Societal awareness, Reflecting, Resilience
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:
How to remain your own person, hold your own position and principles? Professional and social environments not only require certain basic communication and negotiating skills, or expertise of content, but also something more - something underlying, at times elusive, but nonetheless essential to conclude successful and personally satisfying encounters with others, especially in situations where several (personal) interests are in play – which we call “interest-loaded”. How to overcome obstacles related to conflicting interests, outside pressures and personal characters? How to be resilient? In this workshop we will analyze different strategies of resilience, theoretically as well as through physical engagements, inciting you into building your own strategies of resilience in a variety of situations. Did you ever get frustrated while engaging with others, because you got diverted from what you planned to do? Would you have wanted to be better able to protect and articulate your own interests? Then this course might be just for you.
Course objectives:
At the end of this workshop you will have:
developed your skills in staying centered in your own personal identity and position in interest-loaded interactions with others;
developed your skills in achieving personally satisfying results during in interest-loaded interactions with others;
become familiar with different strategies of resilience and how to put them to your own use.
Programme and timetable:
The sessions of this class will take place on the following Tuesdays from 18.00 - 20.00:
Session 1: February 27
Introduction and autonomy: Charles Taylor on authenticity - mindfulness-workshop on finding and staying with one’s own core. (M. van den Brandhof)
Session2: March 5
Social interactions and relations: J-P Sartre and R. Schechner on the Other and (In)attention – improvisation workshop on relations (J. Kooij)
Session3: March 12
The body in relation: J. Beauquel on identity and the multiple - Workshop on dance improvisation and performance (instructor t.b.a.)
Session 4: March 19
Nature’s resilience: B. Latour & L. Pennisi on adaption and regeneration– workshop on Tai Chi movements (T. Sluijter)
Session 5: March 26
Cultural resilience: J. Lowell Lewis & the story of afro-Brazilian cultural resilience– workshop on capoeira (C.R.G. van der Schoot)
Session 6: April 16
Artistic resilience: M. Foucault & Leroi-Gourhan on Parrhesia and speech-act – music and performance workshop (C.R.G. van der Schoot)
Session 7: April 23
Moral resilience: E. Ostrom, J. Rancière, J. Butler & J-L. Nancy on the politic, agency and norms – workshop on politics and negotiation. (instructor t.b.a.)
Session 8: May 14 (18.00 - 21.00)
Closure: presentation of personal projects / assessment
Location:
Pieter de la Court building, room 1B01
Reading list:
(To be completed)
Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actor-Network Theory
Pennisi, E. (2018) Nature’s strategies: resilience by regeneration
Assunção, M. R. (2002) Capoeira: the history of an Afro-Brazilian martial art.
Schechner, R. (2003) Performance Theory
Nancy, J-L (1986) The inoperative community
Rancière, J. (2011) The thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics
Foucault, M. (2001) Fearless Speech, Semiotext(e)
Course load and teaching method:
Course load will be 5 EC, which means 140 hours, 16 of which are done in class.
Teaching methods will be group discussions based upon own personal experience of course members; (group – and individual) activities consisting of workshops, given by several specialists in their respective fields; and short theoretical explanations.
Assessment methods:
TBA
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 30 October 2023 up to and including Sunday 19 November 2023 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:
course lecturer Dolf van der Schoot: dolfvanderschoot@gmail.com