Radical hope and digital futures
FutureTech seminar with Professor Sian Bayne. This talk will work with the idea of ‘radical hope’ as a way of approaching how we might educate for unknowable digital futures.
Info about event
Time
Location
DPU, campus Aarhus, Building 1483, Room 556 (Inspiratorium) & Campus Emdrup, A302 (videolink to Aarhus)
Organizer
Radical hope is a form of commitment to a good future, but one which we currently lack the conceptual frameworks to understand (Lear 2006). In this sense, it connects with a current focus in educational research on speculation, storytelling and creativity as ways of imagining futures while also recognising our human vulnerabilities at a time of great change.
The talk will give an overview of the concept of hope, focusing on the way its radical form might provide us with a strategy for educating for unknown futures. Using some examples of a speculative approach developed at the University of Edinburgh, it will look at how we might work against some of the negative trajectories of our current technological regimes. It will end by considering the kinds of futures imagined for us, and the futures we (as researchers, teachers, developers and students) might instead imagine for ourselves.
For anyone interested Sian Bayne is giving a workshop on “Speculation: designing futures for higher education” (followed by drinks & networking reception) on March 8, 15.30 at DPU Campus Aarhus organised in collaboration between CHEF and DUN. The event is free of charge but w. limited seats.
Bio
Professor Sian Bayne directs the Centre for Research in Digital Education, at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. She is also Director of Education at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and Assistant Principal Education Futures for the university. Professor Bayne researches higher education futures and interdisciplinary approaches to researching digital education in universities.
Literature
Amsler, S. and Facer, K. (2017) ‘Contesting anticipatory regimes in education: exploring alternative educational orientations to the future’, Futures, 94, pp. 6–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.01.001.
Eagleton, T. (2015) Hope Without Optimism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ross. J. (2022) Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003202134.
Lear, J. (2008) Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.