Play, Perform, Participate

FaculteitFaculty of Humanities

NiveauMaster

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

The aim of this course is to engage in embodied and creative practice to explore how playfulness, performativity and participation can inform contemporary forms of media and culture scholarship, including alternative ways of knowing and knowledge sharing.

Students will read in advance and then, during the course, participate in conceptual and methodological development through hands-on activities. Teams will spend time in class and between week 1 and 2 generating ideas for a topical focus for prototype building, and then engage in prototype building and presentation of works-in-progress to refine topic-specific ideas and raise research questions. Students will choose or be assigned to focus on one of two specific modalities: a) designing and facilitating arts-based participatory workshops or b) co-designing and playtesting games, both of which use creative practice and engagement methods to reflect on contemporary societal challenges. Prototyping is a part of both modalities, and is discussed and practiced as a key, yet playful and experimental part of devising, designing, and testing ideas or arguments in action.

Content

Only open for students in the RMA Media, Art and Performance Studies.

The course considers play, performativity and participation as a constellation of concepts one can find within many theories of media and culture studies. This constellation provides a framework for thinking about inquiry within contemporary contexts of cultural (re)production, citizen engagement, social interaction, and personal development.

This course covers six weeks of classes in five full day sessions in January 2026, during the final two weeks of Block 2. Teaching and learning methodologies therefore include independent learning before the course begins through reading course materials; followed by in-class exercises and activities, focused on creative practice research, active peer review, rapid prototype building, presentations of work-in-progress, and co-working to improve each others’ critical thinking and design imagination

Additional information

Career orientation:
In this course students complement their experience with traditional research and writing skills with a focus on creative practice research, experimenting with prototyping, critical game design and participatory engagement workshops as alternative modalities of academic inquiry and transdisciplinary dialogue.

Reviews0 reviews

Nog geen reviews voor dit vak. Wees de eerste!

Heb jij dit vak gevolgd?

Deel je ervaring met toekomstige studenten. Inloggen met je Universiteit Utrecht mailadres duurt één minuut.

Schrijf een review