Thinking Arts & Society: Concepts and Issues

The objective of this course is to collectively explore the role of the arts in debates in contemporary society around themes such as the urban & urbanism, care, and the human-posthuman and more-than-human. 

Steps in this research process entail: 1) the exploration of relevant concepts, ideas and theories in academic literature, through close-reading and group discussion; 2) the exploration of art practices that engage with these themes; 3) the contribution to a collective glossary project with concepts for thinking arts and society. 

Through these steps students will gain insight into recent trends, topics and related concepts in the contemporary arts, with a focus on the relation between arts and society. They will develop their understanding of relevant concepts, sources and discourses that allow students to engage with these developments and how to use these insights to contextualize contemporary arts practice.
 

How are the contemporary arts related to our society? In what way can they, or do they intervene in today's social, environmental and technological realities? These are the questions that drive Thinking Arts and Society. In this course, we examine how contemporary arts relate to, engage with, and act upon current transformations in society. Resonating with urgent public and scholarly debates about social and cultural transformations that mark the contemporary moment, the aim of course is to explore in what way the arts engage with the (entangled) issues and concepts around debates around, among others, ethics and accountability, diversity and knowledge production, the human - posthuman - more-than-human, and public space.

Given today’s realities of our (post-)pandemic cities, societal frictions/polarization, and public protests: how do the arts position themselves in a changing urban and social landscape? How do they engage with and situate themselves in contemporary transformations as result of, for example, migration, political shifts, ecological issues, technological developments, and social tensions? How can they play a role in reflecting on these situations and perhaps also suggest scenarios for societal transformations? 

Seeking to examine the connection between scholarship and artistic practice, we ask  not only how the arts, but also academia, reflects on these societal issues and how these fields share and activate concepts to contribute to contemporary societal debates.