Spring 2022 Course on Connection

Next Spring, I am scheduled to give an academic course with the theme ‘Connection’.

The 2020 Lecturer of the Year Award at the University of Amsterdam came with a prize: the opportunity to organise a course at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies completely at my own discretion (hence the prize’s title: Carte blanche).

I intend to approach the theme of connection from various angles, centred on the societal divisions we are experiencing. ?With so much division among humans and in our relationship with non-human sentient beings, and faced with monumental global challenges (climate change, biodiversity loss, acute inequality, other issues…) that require?open minds, ingenuity, imagination and …. connection, the theme is of an almost alarming topicality.?

The course will explore ‘connection’ from a plurality of angles: academically, from different disciplines; personally, from the participants’ own experience and outlook; and socially, from getting out into the streets and on-line and exploring the demand for connection and what society has on offer. Guest lecturers are the 2020 lecturers of the year from their own faculties: Andrea Weihrauch, Bart Wallet, Alex de Koter, Sharon Klinkenberg, and Vincent Odekerken, as well as the 2019 UvA award winner, Elio Baldi). They will explore the theme from the vantage point of their own disciplines.

The book to explore the theme of ‘connection’ with is Together, translated in Dutch as De kracht van verbinding, i.e. The power of connection. It was written by Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Honours students of both Amsterdam universities, UvA and VU, who are interested in the course are kindly invited to register.