International Teaching Collaboration
Outline of Collaboration
In the seminar in Goettingen, Paul teaches the basics of anthropology and anthropological research practice using the example of urban research. After a methodological introduction, the students are asked to make their own experiences in anthropological research. Particular attention will be paid to develop awareness of our own experience of places, buildings, stories and people that (aim to) provide answers to questions of climate change and climate justice.
In the Discover New York course, at St. John’s, students explore the connections between personal experience in urban space and urban and global effects of climate change. Developing awareness of aesthetic experience in the everyday leads to application of these ideas into the built world, the people who work and travel through this world and how knowledge of life is affected by incremental climate change, possibly bringing to this everyday experience a call to action of some kind.
Through this international collaboration between Heidi Upton's course at St. John’s University and Paul Christensen’s course in University of Goettingen, we practice collaborative research in interdisciplinary exchange in learning, practicing an aesthetic perspective. The main foci of the research practice are building awareness of oneself in the environment and of personal and academic reflection. Through the work in international tandems, we will develop an international and comparative perspective on climate justice through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Due to a short overlap in time between the semesters in Göttingen and New York, we had four joint meetings.
1. Nov 2nd, 2022: Initial Interview 1 with tandem partner
2. Nov 9th, 2022: Presentation of Interview 2 with elder person
3. Nov 16th, 2022: Presentation awareness walks
4. Nov 30th, 2022: Group Presentations / Poems