Feeling emotional? Us too. This two-day workshop wants to harness the power of emotions to rethink the University to work for us, and put people over profit. But, what does that look like? Let’s envision together!
Some research disciplines are beginning to accept emotions as a legitimate source of data in and of itself. But, there’s still a long way to go; emotions aren’t readily accepted as legitimate forms of data or lenses that influence how we understand and navigate the world. This applies to our University working culture too, emotions are directive in the building, organizing and practices of the University.
What would the University look like if we did forefront emotions? Would it be different? We think so; through this workshop we want to creatively investigate what our University working culture would look like if things like ‘casualisation’ wasn’t the norm, if happiness and balance were the non-negotiables. To help fire up the feels, we will be uploading a ‘radical’ (see: limited amounts of ancient white men) reference list.
Emotions, like compassion, anxiety, anger and desire, will be used as a lens to rethink and reimagine University life to challenge institutional norms that are premised on marginalizing emotion and devaluing both the labor, experiences and knowledge(s) of people who diverge from the Default University Figure.
Over the 10th and 11th September (3 hours per session) we will be collectively engaging our imaginations to rethink the University. Through this workshop we will collaboratively create outputs, such storyboards, zines, poems, maps, which will be published and distributed to SGSSS University Libraries and participants. We hope this is another step in the continued hard work of people working to prioritise the wellbeing of researchers over profit for the few.
All you need is a willingness to contribute, materials you find help your creativity (e.g. pens/paper/online tools) and a way to capture this digitally (e.g. photographs) and access to e-mail to forward creative outputs. We (Beth and Molly) will then collate the different outputs into one large document.
Workshop led by University of Glasgow students Molly Gilmour (she/her) and Beth Cloughton (she/her).