Re-imagining Tomorrow through Arts & Sciences

Engage with situated societal issues in transdisciplinary ways, in collaboration with cultural partners from Rotterdam. The RASL Minor ‘Re-Imagining Tomorrow through Arts and Sciences’ is an award-winning elective programme that offers students the opportunity to engage with situated societal issues in transdisciplinary ways, in collaboration with cultural partners from Rotterdam. By bringing together students from a range of academic and artistic backgrounds, the minor invites students to create and experiment with alternative approaches to knowledge production and research.

Re-imagining tomorrow requires recognizing that disciplinary ways of knowing and doing are not neutral or fixed: they are imaginative structures that create and reinforce specific ways of seeing and shaping the world. This programme challenges students to interrogate those structures and explore how they might be transformed. It emphasizes experimentation, collaboration, and situated research as part of the learning process.

The urgency of the RASL minor is informed by our current predicament – a ‘clusterfuck of world-historical proportions’ – which demands new forms of research and learning. To re-imagine our collective futures, we must come together in diverse ensembles to explore how we might live and work in more socially and ecologically just ways. The minor invites students to co-create and mobilize such ensembles through a ‘learning by doing’ approach (or experiential learning), engaged transdisciplinary research and imaginative interventions.

The concept of transdisciplinarity triggers our engagement with different ways of knowing across and beyond arts and sciences. Transdisciplinarity is a contested and fuzzy concept. In a very general sense, we take it to mean “the academic acknowledgement that we cannot get out of this mess alone” (van Baalen, 2024). It involves the critical questioning of disciplinary structures and hierarchical divisions of knowledge forms, as well as the ongoing exploration and creation of new modes of working together across difference. In the RASL minor, we do not treat transdisciplinarity as a single method or means towards an end – solving a problem – but rather as the object of collaborative, open-ended practice. Precisely what transdisciplinarity means and looks like in practice is the very question students will work with and through in this minor.

We focus on how we might integrate ways of knowing that are considered incommensurable – not having a common basis, measure or standard of comparison. To do so, we 1) explore existing transdisciplinary art-science practices and related theories in Thematic Sessions in relation to which students develop their own research project; 2) encourage students to develop their own tools and methods through an experiential learning process through Cultural Partner Collaborations; and 3) base our teaching, assessment and collaboration on particular values that allow us to stay with the tensions of doing art-science transdisciplinary education (Transdisciplinary Skills Sessions)

In short, this minor is as much about the how of learning and research as it is about the what of doing transdisciplinarity. Students are encouraged – together with their tutors, peers and cultural partners – to co-develop a transdisciplinary approach that responds to the particularities of their project’s context. This is not a pre-scripted path but a collaborative journey.

On completing the minor, you are able to:

1. identify and describe the strengths and weakness of their own discipline(s) and ways of knowing, and communicate these to others.
2. understand the basic tenets of scientific practice, artistic practice and art-science transdisciplinarity.
3. formulate a relevant and urgent societal issue in collaboration with a cultural partner;
4. collaboratively develop a transdisciplinary research method/approach that re-imagines the societal issue;
5. situate the research project in relation to existing academic, artistic, and/or societal practices;
6. critically reflect on their engagement with, and position in relation to, fellow students, the research topic, the relevant audiences, and the research and learning context;
7. justify and take responsibility for the choices they make throughout the learning and research process.

We expect students to have a curious, respectful and open-minded attitude towards other ways of knowing and making. Transdisciplinary research is highly collaborative in nature, and so students should be willing to work with others and commit to a challenging collaborative process. Because transdisciplinary research can take many forms and is shaped by its particular context, team configuration, cultural partner, societal issue and other influences, students are expected to work independently, self-organize, take ownership of their learning process and take the lead in exploring topics and directions they are interested in.

Practicalities and attendance

• The minor takes place at Cultuur&Campus at Putselaan 178 in Rotterdam. The location is easily accessible by public transport.
• The minor is divided into two parts (15 EC + 15 EC). Students can either participate in Part I or in both parts. It is not possible to only participate in Part II.
• Attendance, active participation, and preparation are expected for all mandatory sessions. A session is considered missed not only if a student is physically absent but also if they fail to demonstrate an adequate level of engagement or preparation. The expectations concerning Professional Conduct will be introduced and discussed in class to ensure clarity and understanding.

Teaching methods
The composition of the minor generally revolves around (a) thematic sessions, (b) transdisciplinary skills sessions, and (c) tutor meetings. The student teams are guided in developing their modality of working together that suits their research project.

Teaching materials
The teaching materials cover a wide range of disciplines, genres and forms: ranging from academic and artistic texts, works of art, case studies/best practices from any related field, and so on. Because the specific topic of the collaborative project is selected by the students, many of the materials are decided upon throughout the process, and recommended by tutors, guest lecturers and students alike.

Method of examination
Assessment in this program is divided into two main components: a collabroative transdisciplinary project, and an individual research report.

Composition of final grade
The collaborative transdisciplinary project counts for 60% of the grade, the individual research report for 30%, and professional conduct accounts for 10% (see ARR, article 4.6.2).