By Olivia Bina
U for you
When was the last time you sat with two strangers and told them the story of your life, in three minutes?
Mine was eight weeks ago. It is harder than you think. And not just because of the embarrassment factor, but because one too rarely thinks of one’s whole life, let alone presenting it in three minutes. But it does achieve something precious: it tears down silos. Silos of me and you, of all those ideas of what makes us different, of what divides us, of the ‘what I do’ identities. It leaves you with something simpler, something about a shared humanity and a sense of what probably does matter and what probably does not (at least not that much).
U for University
It is from within this space that thirty-two people from fifteen countries began a journey to explore ‘The Future Of Universities, as if Sustainability Mattered’: a training programme centred around the question of how universities can be a positive force for transformation and change towards a more sustainable future.
The key words here being ‘future’ and ‘sustainability’, since both inevitably require a normative exploration engaging with ‘evaluative claims about what is good’. And to add to the discomfort that at least some of us are already feeling with ‘being normative’, let me introduce the killer application: during a whole week, we were asked to use bodies (the ones in the room), emotions and, yes, minds. That was meant to take care of the centuries-long arguments around separation between thought and feeling.
