Staying Above the Water: Distributed Learning and Interdisciplinary Practice in Venice
Summary
Interdisciplinarity is...
“To me, it is creative writing surrounded by other ideas. So creative writing was always in the core of my research, but I always found something else too, because that interaction between areas is that liminal area. Which is interesting in itself and is something where I want to go most often.... where disciplines are colliding and supporting each other”
Dr Dragan Todorovic discusses the experience of creating and implementing the Warwick Writing Programme’s summer school in Venice entitled Venice: Staying Above the Water, which took place form the 17th to the 22nd of September 2023. The first summer school was funded by a grant from IATL, and is subsequently being developed into a Master’s module given its success. In the summer school, open to all MAs and PGRs from the School of Creative Arts, Performance, and Visual Cultures, students were housed for a week in Venice where they use their collective knowledge and individual expertise to explore eco-writing in the context of the city’s challenges with climate change and sustainability. Inspired by French philosopher Jaque Rancière’s concept of “distributed learning,” Dragan explains how the students from different disciplines in the arts brought their knowledge to develop a shared understanding of the importance and meaning of eco-writing in Venice. In addition, Dragan emphasizes the crucial role that the student co-producers played in helping to construct the experience. Finally, Dragan reflects on how, with the continuing influence of Artificial Intelligence, new models of assessment and learning in higher education must be developed.
Students Say...
“I had a routine there unlike any I had ever experienced. The two things I will carry with me forever are how the mundane became magical or inspiring - an act of noticing.”
“I think it's pushed me to think in different ways. I was interested in place/space writing before the summer school, but this has pushed me to think in an entirely different way. I have a newfound desire to write about place, but not only that, it's a newfound desire to get lost in cities I don't know and find out what makes them tick. I feel more open to write about the culture and politics of disappearance.”
Dr Dragan Todorovic
Director of Warwick Writing Programme
Dr Dragan Todorovic is a novelist, poet, multi-media and art director, and heads the Warwick Writing Programme. Dragan designed and convenes the Warwick Writing Programme’s summer school in Venice.
See Dragan’s full bio here.
Highlights
“When you treat everybody equally and you collect the knowledge that everybody brings, and put it into a common pile of knowledge on the desk, something magical begins to happen”
“This is about everybody being a teacher. Everybody being a student. As soon as you do that, you are bringing a multitude of personal experiences into the room. And when you bring that multitude of personal experiences into the circle, you are actually bringing interdisciplinarity by definition”
“We need ....to start working together because education should be about democracy and not about the position of power and especially not ivory towers.”
Further Resources
Curious to learn more?
Please find information below:
The Ignorant Schoolmaster by Jaques Ranciere
You can also contact Dragan : dragan.todorovic@warwick.ac.uk