Content

If we accept the assumption that students are creators of meaning rather than receivers of knowledge, then the option of producing an interesting, aesthetically inspired assemblage out of the stuff, ideas, concepts, experiences, bodies and critical events that demand scholarly attention in our particular timeframe suddenly becomes a possibility for students in social sciences. In this course we will work on the cross road between theory and creative practice to explore how the agency of matter and the material nature of artistic practice affect not only what we understand as new materialist and post human theory, but also how these theories might steer our sociological gaze, spark our sociological imagination and stimulate us to act upon the social world rather than simply describing and critiquing our social reality.   

Starting from a reading assignment related to new materialist and posthuman theories developed by feminist scholars Karen Barad, Jane Bennett, Rosi Braidotti and/or Judith Butler, students will learn to conceptualize theoretical content, creatively translate content into a 2/3D design or creative audiovisual or writing product for public outreach. Second, they will learn the skill to plug grand narratives presented by these authors into an existing social phenomenon or social challenge and explain it through the use of visual metaphors. In this course, students will literally MAKE sense of complex scholarly content through creative engagement, art and/ or design exercises. 

Course material

- Articles (distributed via Toledo)
- One of the following books:

• Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2007.
• Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press.
• Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Butler, J. (2015). Notes towards a performative theory of assembly: Harvard University Press.

- Course slides and eventual other materials are also made available on Toledo.

Format: more information

The course consists of seminars in which students will engage with a creative, artistically inspired or design related assignment to increase their level of understanding of complex theoretical frameworks situated in post human and new materialist thinking. Through creative writing, arts-informed or design related inquiry, students will be encouraged to reflect and literally MAKE sense of the theoretical concepts represented in new materialist and post human scholarly literature. Students will be encouraged to actively use the performative power of creative productions to pitch their interpretation of a theory to a broader public. Students will be invited to plug these theories into an ongoing societal challenge through the use of visual metaphors and metonyms presented in a short visual essay. 
Attendance of the seminars is mandatory. 

This course module is taught in block teaching. More specifically, cthe seminars are concentrated in six weeks with multiple seminars a week. The course concludes with an full-day examination session in the week after the last seminar.