Pedagogies of possibility: Critical hope in uncertain times
When: Friday, June 20, 2025, 10:00 AM - 3:30 PM
Where: Room Q215, Queens Building, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS
A workshop, organised by Critical Hope Collective
- What does it mean to teach in a time of overlapping crises—social, environmental, political and economic?
- What is our role as educators when the world feels increasingly uncertain, fractured and in flux?
- How can we teach in ways that foster critical engagement but also openness to worlds otherwise?
You are invited to join us to explore these questions through presentations, discussion and activities.
This event is designed to share and spark new approaches to teaching and learning in higher education in the context of immediate and imminent threats to environmental, political and economic stability, ongoing injustice and intensifying inequality. It is prompted by our sense that while addressing the origins of the polycrisis in our teaching is vital, doing so can intensify our and our students' sense of its enormity and intractability.
This workshop addresses ways to acknowledge and explore this with our students, rather than elide these emotional challenges, as we collectively ‘stay with the trouble’. It provides an opportunity to discuss how we can teach in ways that do not simply foreground simplistic solutions in response to these challenges but instead open up possibilities for more life sustaining, flourishing and just worlds.
The workshop includes a keynote speech by Prof. Anke Schwittay (University of Sussex) ‘A Critical-Creative Pedagogy for Re-imagining Higher Education in Times of Crises’, presentations of the Beyond Sustainability toolkit developed by Dr Paula Serafini and Dr Alessandro Merendino (both at Queen Mary University of London), and Professor Nick Mcguigan (Monash University, Australia) and Professor Nadia Gulko (Lincoln University); the Critical Hope module and teaching resource devised by members of the Critical Hope Collective (Queen Mary University of London), and the work of the Climate Psychology Alliance by Dr Rebecca Nestor.
We aim to create an inclusive, participatory and engaging event by trying out some of the methods that can be used to foster this in our teaching, as well as using the Long Table discussion format devised by Lois Weaver to share ideas and reflections.
This workshop is part of the Critical Hope: co-creating learning resources for a changing world project being undertaken by Prof. Catherine Nash, School of Geography, Dr Heather McMullen, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, and Dr Jennie Doyle, School of Geography, funded by the President and Principal’s Fund for Educational Excellence, Queen Mary University of London, as part of the work of the Critical Hope Collective.
The event is free and includes lunch. Please reserve your place on Eventbrite by 10 June 2025.