6 April 2023  Circle8

Nordic Summer University

Study Circle 8: Futures of Education, Cultural Diversity, Imaginations and Collective Transformations in Time of the Anthropocene

Call for Papers

Theme:

Action-Oriented Change – Potentialities for Sustainability

Summer Session, July 27th to August 3rd, 2023

Location:

Palanga, Lithuania

Description of theme:
The notion of reality opens for questions regarding how orders (at different levels) emerge and
disappears – educational politics are therefore also closely related to issues regarding aesthetics
and the structures which allow and disallows different forms of “educational worlds.” This will
be helpful for explorative, action-oriented research into how the insights mentioned in theme 4
can be combined with institutional transformations of educational and political institutions,
organizations, and structures, such as the governance models of the so-called Type two
partnership and other forms of governance, which are distinct from particular established ones.
This can, for example, be the development of new cross-disciplinary, cross institutionalized and
non-formal social forms of learning and edification processes.
We invite and encourage papers dealing with any of the above mentioned issues and topics
from their field to send their abstract and join the summer session.

Expected number of participants: 10

Coordinators of the Study Circle 8:

1.Oddbjørn Ørbech Jensen, Hammerfest videregående skole, Hammerfest, Norway
oddbjorn.jensen@gmail.com

2. Jasna Koteska, Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia, jasnakoteska@yahoo.com

Prices for the Summer Session:

• single rooms for 575 euros per person.
• double/twin rooms for 425 euro per person.
• family rooms for 950 euros (family of 4).
• scholarship and grant recipient in a twin room: 175 euros.
  The cost includes accommodation for the week, 3 meals and 2 coffee breaks a day, and access
  to the full NSU program during the summer session. Participation in the summer session
  requires NSU membership, and the cost also includes NSU membership. If you already paid
  the membership fee when you took part in a winter symposium in 2023, your membership is
  already covered for the whole year 2023. Please let the coordinators know so you can receive a
  discount code to deduct 25 euros from your payment. Those who can and wish to support NSU
  in addition to these costs are welcome to purchase an optional support fee of 40 euros. Those
  who cannot attend the summer session are also welcome to support the work of NSU by
  purchasing this support fee of 40 euros.

Scholarship and grant program
Participants are welcome to apply for a scholarship or a grant:

• Scholarship: exclusively for Nordic/Baltic students
• Grant: inclusive for all other students and people in need, also non-Nordic participants.
  Criteria for each are described in detail
  here: https://www.nsuweb.org/support_pages/arrkom/scholarship-and-grant-program/.

If you would like to apply for a scholarship and/or grant, the relevant documents need to be sent
to coordinators. All the information is in the link above. The deadline for all applicants is June
1, 2023.

Deadline
The deadline for submission of the title and a brief abstract (3-5 lines) is May 15th

, 2023. Please
note that you have to send the title and the abstract to the two coordinators mentioned in this
call. Also, it is important to write if you are applying for scholarship or grant.
We will send out the program for the Summer Session 2023 early in July, including technical
details if we have hybrid sessions.
Program
You can apply for the Summer Session 2023 in some of the following formats:
1) Presentation of an academic paper or lecture – Max. 30 mins. (With 30 minutes
discussion)
2) Shorter presentation of ideas on the topic of the CfP – max. 10 mins (With 20 minutes
discussion)

The length of the talks/presentations is adjustable, depending on the number of participants and
density of the program.

About this study circle

The aim of the Study Circle is to analyze, discuss and (re)think the futures of education, cultural
diversity and the individual, collective and social transformations in the current epoch of the
Anthropocene. Anthropocene is the unofficial term for the present epoch which denotes the
dominance and global effects of human activities on the Earth’s ecosystems, biodiversity and
geology. This poses new challenges and threats to our collective life (both human, animal, and
to the ecosystems), and forces transformations. This includes issues such as human rights, world
citizenship, alterity, heterological thinking and new concepts of peace and sustainability, both
from western and non-western perspectives, human and non/trans-human perspectives. Dealing
with these different issues, the “response” to the Anthropocene is ever-present, whether as
optimistic or as pessimistic approaches. Currently, education systems are undergoing reforms
to meet the needs of the economy for growth. One example is the reform effective in Norway
from next school year, where the aim is to produce workers for the future for the sake of the
economy. Such a focus leaves out much to be wanted in an educational setting with regards to

answering the current crisis. Traditionally, the idea of Bildung has served as a conceptual
framework from which to form a critique of these trends. Due to its holistic focus on education,
Bildung can serve as a mutual opening of the self and the world as reflected in the idea of the
Anthropocene, and create a relation between the human and the non-human other.

The study circle is organized around the following six major themes:
Theme 1. Education and Nature as the Other in the Anthropocene
Theme 2. Education and the Human Other in the Anthropocene
Theme 3. Education and the Technological Other in the Anthropocene
Theme 4: Imagining the Future – Traditions and Transformations
Theme 5: Diversity, Transformation and the Future
Theme 6: Action-oriented Change – Potentialities for Sustainability

For more information about this Study Circle and how to join the activity, see: