This course – taught by Dr. Alex Martinis Roe and Vasso Belia – takes as its starting point a practice which the Women’s Studies community at Utrecht University undertook over many years. This practice could be described as a ceremony or rite of passage, where the Women’s Studies community would dramatize the PhD thesis of a graduating colleague. After the formal defence and reception at the university, the new PhD graduate would be taken to another space elsewhere in the city, and would, along with the whole Women’s Studies community, watch a (usually comic) play based on her research, performed by her colleagues. This practice exemplifies ‘the double track’ approach to institutional politics that the Women’s Studies (and now the Gender Programme) community has used as a method of maintaining its autonomy, whilst also participating in the broader university structure and academic discourse. Working with this existing, local theory-practice will open up a conversation about the genealogies of the methods the students are already using in their projects and their relationship to feminist collective practices.

The aim of this course is to engage students in practical experimentation with this practice of dramatizing PhD theses, through activating archival traces of it, and then collaboratively designing new formats for their own thesis projects. Opening up the format of this practice to other possibilities – i.e. the students won’t necessarilydramatise each of their theses, but could instead, for example, write public policy, or broadcast a radio programme – enables the students to incorporate this practical politics into their thesis methodology, by choosing formats that are appropriate to their research.

Time Commitment and Proposed Dates:
Six full days in three two-day blocks, plus two half-day presentations, plus preparation time:
25-26 October: Part One: Activation of the archive and proposals for new formats for their research
11-12 November: Part Two: Group editing of draft projects
21/22 November: Part Three: Rehearsals for presentations during the exhibition
23/24/25 Nov/11 Dec: Activations of archive and presentation of student projects at Casco (Exact dates TBA)

Output: A translation of the thesis project of each student into another format, and the incorporation of this format into the thesis project itself. These theories in other formats will then be presented publicly as performance-based presentations within the exhibition of To Become Two at Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory.

For more information on the course and the requirements, see here.

Details:  

  • Dates: October 25 & 26, November 11 & 12 + November 21-22 and a date in November or December for the presentations in Casco.
  • Location: NOG (Utrecht University) and Casco
  • Credits: 5 ECTS
  • Details: open to NOG PhD and NOG RMA candidates, as well as to PhD candidates and Research Master students enrolled in LOGOS Research Schools ~ (number of places is 10)
  • Registration: Thursday October 13, 2016 at nog@uu.nl

See also: Education -> Courses and masterclasses