European School of Governance, course description, Metamodernity Masterclass 2022
Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line,
the tortoise has stopped once again
by the roadside,
this time to stick out his neck
and nibble a bit of sweet grass,
unlike the previous time
when he was distracted
by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.
Billy Collins
Realising the existentiality of love is the metamodern turn that allows us to transcend and dissolve the traumata of modernity and the meaning crisis of postmodernity.
The purpose of this Metamodernity Masterclass is to further a shared understanding of our collective ability to navigate the challenges of the Anthropocene in the 21st century. The goal of this Masterclass is to co-reflect our lived experiences, to explore and co-create a common ground and language around the fundamentals of the emerging metamodern turn.
In this Masterclass we explore four directions of metamodernism in our attempts to escape the postmodern maze: the cultural between, the political after, the mystic beyond, and the existential underneath. We find an opening and rootage in growing a shared understanding of lived metamodernity embedded in epistemic humility.
What to expect?
First and foremost, this is a participatory action research experiment into governance in learning, education, research, and peer certification processes. It is an experiment in decentralized autonomous learning. Following a principle of epistemic humility, the form of this course is at least as important as its function. It’s the departure from classical academic curricula design where the contents are pre-defined by a teacherly authority. The teacherly authority in this course is distributed to the collective of peer learners who will co-create the course and propose the subjects, authors and references they wish to study.
Our purpose is not to be the owners or guardians of any privileged information about metamodernism. In no other time in history has information been so ubiquitous and freely available. By identifying the sources of information and by considering them critically as a collective we expect to create a whole that is significantly different to the sum of the parts.
We believe that this form of co-facilitated and co-created peer learning, which is echoed in pedagogic philosophies such as Waldorf, Reggio-Emilia, Montessori, Paulo Freire, etc. is the way in grounding metamodernism in a life-serving practice of coexistence. As Lori Malaguzzi put it in his book “The Hundred Languages of Children “Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the unknown.”
How will it work?
We are inviting a cohort of up to 18 peer learners to commit to spending one academic year (two semesters; 15 Jan. to 30 June and 1 Sep. to 15 Dec.) learning about metamodernism while at the same time building up their syllabus of the course. The backbone of the course is a biweekly two hour online co-reflection meeting. Any self-created activity of learning, study groups etc. will enrich the experience. Students enrolling in this will benefit from the network around the European School of Governance to invite authors, speakers, and lecturers to attend their online or on-site convenings. They will publish their learning, run their own projects, and engage in whatever field is meaningful to their learning.
They will jointly decide which inquiries and co-reflections make up the EUSG Metamodernity Masterclass, what they wish to learn and research together, and pull together learning materials (books, articles, conference papers, videos). They will jointly decide how they will accompany each other’s learning using, for example, a buddy system and how they will appreciate and certify each other’s learning accomplishments.
The European School of Governance, as the host of this learning platform, will ultimately emit certificates of accomplishment based on the final peer appreciation and recommendations.
Metamodernism is still a small movement barely learning to walk. So, we wish to fill the gap by creating not merely a course, but a process that embodies love as a structural transcending principle of metamodernism in the 21st century. We will inquire, learn, and grow a shared understanding. We will not just walk the talk but fall in love with life. Enabling us to navigate the emergent metamodern ‘structure of feeling’ into an embodied practice to serve the world.
The next EUSG Metamodernity Masterclass will start after on 15 January 2021 with an open online kick-off call at 14:00 CET. There is no fee on EUSG courses but the invitation to value the course you participate in by a donation reflecting your appreciation.
Apply now with a short letter of motivation at metamodernity.mc@eusg.org.
